The attrition of the Russian army by the offensive in Ukraine has lowered the bar for a possible nuclear escalation on its borders with NATO. Moscow has withdrawn troops from the area to replace its casualties, replacing them with tactical nuclear weapons on its Northern Fleet ships for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to Norwegian military intelligence. Oslo fears that the presence of these warheads “poses a particularly serious threat in various scenarios that Atlantic Alliance countries may be involved in” as mutual distrust “has increased the possibility of adverse events and misunderstandings between Russia and NATO.”
The Norwegian Ministry of Defence’s annual report, Focus 2023, confirms that “a key part of the (Russian) nuclear capacity has been deployed on the surface ships and submarines of the Northern Fleet”. According to the press in the Scandinavian country, to remember the departure of nuclear-armed warships from the Arctic port of Severomorsk, one has to go back to the golden age of the Russian Navy, during the Cold War, in the days of the USSR.
More information
This enclave is located on the Kola Peninsula, a region of great strategic importance as the arctic routes will become very important with climate change in the future. The region borders a NATO country, Norway, and a new candidate, Finland. Despite the fact that the Kremlin justified its offensive on Kiev with a hypothetical NATO threat to Russia, its army in that area and the Baltics has been weakened to deepen divisions in Ukraine.
“The land forces of the Kola Peninsula have been reduced to a fifth of their pre-invasion numbers,” the Norwegian intelligence report said, although their loss of ammunition is perhaps even more serious given a hypothetical exchange of blows with the Atlantic Alliance.
“Russia’s conventional forces have been significantly weakened by its offensive in Ukraine, and much of what remains is war-bound. Among other problems [Rusia] it has deployed three quarters of its advanced ground-launched missiles in Ukraine,” say the Oslo intelligence services, which also see a declining trend in Russian strategic bomber patrols near Norway due to their deployment against Kiev.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe to
However, all this does not make Moscow any less dangerous. “Russia has large reserves of military equipment, especially the oldest (…), its nuclear capabilities are the same as before the war, and its air and naval forces are essentially still intact,” says Norwegian intelligence.
“With a weakened conventional capability, the importance of nuclear weapons for Russia has increased significantly,” the report says, adding that its means of other types of warfare through anti-satellite weapons, cyber tools and its forces specializing in sabotage are added by U -Boot infrastructures.
“It cannot be ruled out that a local war will turn into a larger conflict; and that this directly affects Russia, the US and NATO,” warns Norwegian espionage. According to him, “Russia had planned the total occupation of Ukraine and was anxious to confiscate as much of its intact infrastructure as possible”.
The Russian authorities have repeatedly threatened the possibility of nuclear war if their plans fail. President Vladimir Putin warned in September 2022 that he would defend the annexed territory “with all the means at his disposal,” and Security Council Deputy Chairman and former President Dmitry Medvedev declared in early January this year: “The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can lead to the outbreak of a nuclear war.
The Norwegian report cites the use of some new-generation Russian weapons in the Northern Fleet. According to Washington, both the Tsirkon hypersonic missiles and the Kalibr precision missiles can carry nuclear warheads, although it has not yet accused Moscow of equipping its ships with these weapons.
These missiles have starred in some of the waves of bombings aimed at Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in recent months. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, eleven Russian ships are currently conducting combat missions in the Black Sea, two of them equipped with Kalibr missile launchers.
Until a week ago, the Russian fleet sailed in a sea free of NATO ships. US and European ships left its waters before the invasion began on February 24 last year but have returned. Earlier this month, a destroyer from the US Sixth Fleet crossed the threshold of the Bosphorus for the first time since Putin started the war.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits