Vantage Point North

Two rather ominous news broke form Russia on7.8.2019. Russian Northern Fleet has deployed Bal anti-ship missiles to Keskisaarento (полуостров Средний).These missiles are within striking range from the most important Norwegian radar station at Vardo. They also have the capability to interdict all shipping to the Kirkenes habour. Bal Anti-ship missile launherKeskustelu Russia has also established a new helicopter / forward base to Gogland island (Suursaari) on the Gulf of Finland. This base allows the Russian armed forces to rapidly airlift their SOF units to either the Finnish or Estonian territory. The base also allows Russia to exert increasing control over the waters of the gulf.Its noteworthy that both of these territories belonged to Finland before the start of the World War Two. From the Finnish point of view the message is clear, Russia is staging forces to the old Finnish soil. Russian SOF fast roping from a Mi-8 helicopter On the western side of the bor...

The ongoing escalation of hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz may have effects far beyond the middle east. The capture of the British flagged oil tanker Stena Impero by the Iranians forced the UK to step up their presence in the region. HMS Monmouth a Type 23 Frigate The reinforcements the Royal Navy was able to send to the Persian Gulf were hardly enough to escort the number of tankers in need of protection. The present day 80-ship Royal Navy no longer rules the waves and is actually struggling to deploy enough combat ships to cover the existing commitments, let alone to take on a possible fight against the Iranian navy or even provide the dozen or so escorts needed. The British government then sent a proposal to create a European naval mission to escort the vital tanker traffic through the Hormuz. The response frhciting the wish to avoid further escalations as the main reason, both also have limited amount of shirps and other operations to cover. USA, under the Tr...

There have been very few times in history, when a peacetime military training exercise of a non-aligned country has carried as much weight as the recent Swedish Northern Wind 2019. The 10 000-soldier exercise was the biggest showcase of interoperability and co-operation the region has seen.   Finnish Leopard 2A6 participating in Northern Wind 2019 (Photo: Puolustusvoimat) The unscripted force on force exercise provided a perfect platform for two separate integration experiments. A Swedish/Finnish brigade was formed around a Swedish mechanized battalion. The joint brigade contained a 1500-man Finnish contingent. This was the largest military force Finland has sent beyond its borders since 1944, and it was gathered from several Finnish brigades and consisted mostly of conscripts. The combined Finnish and Swedish force with their heavy armor and artillery assets were assigned to delay and defend the northern Sweden from the other joint force coming from the north west. ...

Until this weeks kaleidoscopic scramble across Russia’s the western frontier, the Russian armed forces have been following a largely routine schedule since the rolling readiness checks of the October 2017 and the massive Zapad17 exercise. The recent flurry of activity started with the snap drills of the reconnaissance, artillery and combat engineering units, that are commonly associated with the spearhead formations of the Russian army. Alone these drills are not very remarkable and even when grouped like this, they shouldn’t cause a major alarm with the Western defense planners. When the entire Strategic Rocket Force (RVSN ), ie. the Russia’s ground based ICBM force was alerted and the mobile TEL:s rolled into the vast forests things started to look slightly suspicious. Especially when the readiness check of the nuclear forces coincided with the expulsion of the Russian diplomats by UK, EU and USA. Simultaneously with the RVSN, the majority of the Russian a...

NATO E3 AWACS (Photo: NATO) Sweden is preparing for a parliamentary election next fall. Security, both internal and external, will be a major issue that all parties must confront. Situation in the Baltic-Sea region is getting tenser by the day and there are serious security issues within the troubled immigrant neighborhoods of the Swedish cities. As the nation’s political elite, diplomats and military leaders gathered to a ski resort in Sälen to their traditional foreign and defense policy seminar, the leading opposition party, the Moderates, stated that their goal is a Sweden that is a NATO member. The party leader Ulf Kristersson is confident that the now ruling social democrats will change their minds and that Sweden will be a NATO member within the next decade. Kristersson’s comments sparked a furious response from the Swedish defense minister Peter Hultqvist. According to Hultqvist the Social Democrats will maintain the traditional neutrality and co-operation and r...

A Finnish energy company Fortum has been negotiating with the German E.ON to buy a German energy company called Uniper. The deal has been controversial in Finland as it would include a large number of coal fired power plants that do not fit the Fortum’s strategy of becoming a sustainable and green energy producer. As 50,8 % of Fortum is owned by the Finnish government, the deal has an obvious political angle. (Photo: Nord Stream) The most disturbing aspect of the deal is that Uniper owns a 950 Million € share of the Russo-German gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 . The Finnish minister responsible for directing the state owned companies is the Center Party’s Mika Lintilä. He stated that he didn’t have any information about the Uniper’s share of the gas pipeline. He also stated that the Finnish government would not veto the deal even if it would link Finland to the controversial pipeline and Russian geopolitical interests. Finland, unlike the Baltic States and Sweden,...

The Finnish Air Force, Ilmavoimat, has begun it’s largest exercise of the year, the Ruska 17 , today. Exercise focuses on training an integrated air-defense force to fight against an unnamed peer-level adversary. It involves everything from base security and logistics to the advanced command centers and fighter jets. Finnish F/A-18C and Swedish JAS 39C (photo: Ilmavoimat) The Ruska 17 will include roughly 5100 conscripts, reservists and professional soldiers, 30 Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornet fighters, 14 BAE Hawk trainers, CASA C-295M transports, Pilatus PC-12NG and Learjet 35 A/S liaison aircrafts from the Finnish Air Force. Additionally the Finnish army will provide some troops and an unspecified number of the NH-90 helicopters. Most Air Force reservists don't actually fly (photo: Ilmavoimat) The Swedish Air Force is participating in the annual RUSKA-series of exercises for the second time. In 2016 Swedes operated as an aggressor unit and the two air forces fought each ...

The main military exercise of the Russian Western Military District, called Zapad2017, has kicked off today. The first lesson that can be extracted from this exercise is that the Russian numbers are not to be trusted. Officially the exercise should be contained to Belarus, the Russian regions bordering Belarus and the Leningrad oblast surrounding the St. Petersburg. The Russian ministry of defense has announced that 12700 troops will participate in the exercise, with 5000 of them being Russian. The reports of the troops being alerted for the exercise have been trickling from the official Russian sources. The first reports from the 13 th of September stated that the two motorized rifle brigades in the Kaliningrad enclave participate in the exercise. Immediately after this, the 6 th army in the Leningrad oblast joined in with its two motor rifle brigades, an artillery brigade and a rocket launcher regiment. Some of these units remained in their garrisons on hei...

#Zapad2017: Russia threatens Finland and the Baltic states The eyes of the European military experts and leaders have been focused on the upcoming Russian Zapad2017 exercise for a while now. When compared to the hype the official Russian description of the exercise is rather underwhelming. Russia claims that the exercise will include slightly over 10000 Russian soldiers altogether with only 3000 entering Belarus to help the Belarussian army to quench an imaginary separatist uprising supported by the evil neighboring superpowers. It is most likely completely coincidental that these neighbors look awfully lot like Poland and Lithuania. So why is the west so worried? Most important reason is, that the scope of the preparations for the Zapad2017 seem to be quite conflicting to the official story. Russian army has activated a large contingent of reservists and specialists to create an infrastructure for the drill. These rear area troops include nearly 5000 men from t...

Maskirovka buildup by Russia 31st Air Assault Brigade has brand new BMD-4M IFVs. Exactly a year ago I wrote about the Russian  Maskirovka mobilizations  that are also known as “snap drills” or “readiness inspections”. Some of these drills have been massive and enough troops were set in motion, that the forces could’ve invaded a small nation. While the snap drills of various units of the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian National Guard have continued, the scale has been smaller. Most analysts are looking towards the well published Zapad 2017 exercise as the next possible window for a Russian aggression. However there is an ongoing, slow and creeping, buildup at the western border of Russia. Several combat units have been enlarged during the recent intakes of new recruits and conscripts. More importantly troops move around long distances in seemingly scheduled exercises, which are announced a day or few hours before they commence. These allow Russia to ...