As NATO adjusts its response to Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, access to new territories and their infrastructure, along with the addition of Finland and Sweden, opens up ways for allies to monitor and counter Moscow and offers an unprecedented chance to treat all of Northwest Europe. as a single bloc, several diplomats, military and security experts told Reuters.

Finland is already a member of NATO and will attend the summit as a full member for the first time on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Sweden hopes to join soon.

Atop a railway bridge spanning a foaming river near the Arctic Circle, Finnish workers are working on a project that will facilitate connections between NATO-owned Norway’s Atlantic coast and its new border with Russia.

“We’re going to remove about 1,200 of these, one by one,” says site manager Mika Hakkarainen, holding a rivet.

By February 2022, the €37m electrification of this short stretch of railway – the only rail connection between Sweden and Finland – just promised locals the chance to catch a night train to vibrant Stockholm. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this changed.

Fast connection to the border with Russia

An example of this is the improvement of the Finnish railway around Tornio, on the border with Sweden. When completed next year, they will make it easier for allies to ship reinforcements and equipment across the Atlantic to Kemijarvi, an hour’s drive from the Russian border and seven hours from Russia’s nuclear fortress and military bases near Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.

Russia’s Northern Fleet forces based there include 27 submarines, more than 40 warships, about 80 fighter jets and stockpiles of nuclear warheads and missiles, according to data compiled by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). In a military conflict with NATO, the main task of the fleet will be to ensure control over the Barents Sea and to stop the ships bringing reinforcements from North America to Europe through the waters between Greenland, Iceland and Great Britain.

Here is one point where Finland can help NATO endure. “It’s about countering these various capabilities in the North,” retired US Maj. Gen. Gordon B. Davis Jr. told Reuters. In addition to the capabilities offered by its territory, Finland is buying the necessary assets, especially fighter jets, “to add value (to the defense of the northeast) and, frankly, in a conflict, to put Russia at risk,” the general said.

Sweden’s contribution will include, by 2028, a new generation of submarines in the Baltic Sea, which, according to Fredrik Linden, the commander of the Swedish submarine fleet, will be of great importance in protecting vulnerable seabed infrastructure and maintaining access – currently a major headache from from a security point of view. , as evidenced by the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. “With the help of five submarines, we can close the Baltic Sea,” Linden told Reuters. “We will cover the parts we are interested in with our sensors and our weapons,” he explained.

The West is 10 years behind Russia in the Arctic

Analysts say that the changes are not premature. Russia is actively developing its military and hybrid capabilities in the Arctic against the West, partly under the guise of international environmental and economic cooperation, FIIA deputy director Samu Paukkunen told Reuters. The Paukkunen Institute estimates that Western armed forces are 10 years behind Russia militarily in the Arctic. Even with the losses Russia has suffered in Ukraine, the naval component of the Northern Fleet and strategic bombers remain intact, Paukkunen says.

NATO member Denmark phased out its submarine fleet in 2004 as part of a move to reduce its military capabilities since the end of the Cold War, and is still undecided about future investments. Norway will also order four new submarines, with the first submarine scheduled for delivery in 2029.

“I think we have a bit of catching up to do because we haven’t been doing it properly for the last 25 years,” said Sebastian Bruns, a senior maritime security researcher at Kiel University’s Institute for Security Policy.

The security map is changing

Both events show how the enlarged alliance will change the security map of Europe. The region from the Baltic Sea in the south to the upper north can almost completely become NATO’s zone of action.

“It’s very important for NATO now to have the whole of the north to see it as a whole,” Lt. Col. Michael Maus of NATO’s NATO Transformation Command, who headed the task force overseeing Finland’s military integration into NATO, told Reuters.

“With (existing) NATO countries Norway and Denmark, we now have a whole bloc. And if we’re thinking about potential defense plans, it’s a huge step forward for us now that we’re looking at a whole area,” says the officer.

This became clear in May, when Finland conducted its first Arctic military exercises as a NATO member at one of the largest artillery ranges in Europe, located 25 km above the Arctic Circle.

The neighboring city of Rovaniemi, known to tourists as the home of Santa Claus, is also home to the Finnish Arctic Air Force and can serve as a military hub for the region in the event of a conflict. Finland is investing 150 million euros to renovate the base to house half of its new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets, due to arrive from 2026.

During the May maneuvers, nearly 1,000 Allied troops from the United States, Britain, Norway and Sweden filled the busy highways, joining 6,500 Finnish soldiers and 1,000 vehicles.

Capt. Kurt Rossi, a US Army field artillery officer, led the M270 rocket launcher battery. First, the system was delivered from Germany across the Baltic Sea, then transported by truck almost 900 km to the north. “We haven’t been that close (to Russia) and we haven’t been able to train in Finland,” Rossi said.

Finland’s weak point

If a conflict were to arise with Russia in the Baltic Sea region, where Russia has significant military capabilities in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, the sea corridor used by NATO for these exercises would be vulnerable. Finland relies heavily on sea transport for all its supplies – customs figures show that almost 96% of its foreign trade is transported via the Baltic Sea.

An east-west rail link crossing the far north would open up an alternative that could prove decisive.

“I think the Russians can pretty easily cut off sea freight, so basically this northern route is the only available route after that,” said Tuomo Lamberg, manager of cross-border operations at Sweco, a Swedish electrification company.

What will happen with the accession of Sweden

But even this risk may decrease when Sweden joins NATO.

Commander Linden shows a reporter the captain’s cabin of the Gotland submarine, one of four submarines currently in the Swedish fleet, bringing the total number of NATO submarines in the Baltic States to 12 by 2028.

The Kiel Institute expects Russia to add one to three submarines in the coming years to reach a total of four submarines in the Baltic along with its fleet of six modern warships. Its Kaliningrad capability also includes medium-range ballistic missiles.

“It can be the loneliest place in the world,” says Linden, who was a submarine captain for many years. During a typical mission, which lasts two or three weeks, there is no communication with headquarters, he explains.

The Gotland-class submarines, like the current German Type 212 submarines, will be among NATO’s most advanced non-nuclear submarines and can stay out of port significantly longer than most other conventional designs, researcher Bruns explained.

“I would say without a doubt that the Gotland submarines and the German Type 212 are the most powerful non-nuclear submarines in the world,” he says.

“Literally nothing compares to them. In terms of how quiet they are, the motors they use are extremely quiet and very maneuverable,” he adds.

In submarine warfare, says Commander Linden, the main question is where the enemy is. If a careless crew member drops a key or slams a cabinet door, the vessel can be discovered. “We talk quietly on board,” explains Linden. “You shouldn’t believe movies where orders are shouted,” he adds.

The role of Swedish submarines

Gotland submarines are based in Karlskrona, about 350 km across the Baltic Sea from Kaliningrad. According to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, with an average of 1,500 ships a day passing through the Baltic Sea, it is one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, and there is really only one exit, the Kattegat. The sea between Denmark and Sweden.

This seaway, shallow and congested, is accessible only through three narrow straits that submarines cannot pass through without being detected.

If any of the straits were closed, shipping of goods to Sweden and Finland would be severely affected, and the Baltic states would be completely isolated. But with Sweden in the Alliance, this may be easier to prevent, as Swedish submarines will add NATO listening capabilities.

Linden says the crew on Gotland sometimes hears Russian ships. The range of sound propagation partly changes depending on the time of year. In winter, he says, it can be heard as far away as Eland, a little more than the distance between London and Birmingham in the UK.

“You can be outside Stockholm and hear the chain rattling on the north buoy in Oelada,” Linden says. “In the summer you can hear it maybe 3,000 meters away,” he adds.

Challenges for NATO

By 2028, when Sweden receives a new submarine model, this capacity will increase. The new class of submarines, known as the A26, will allow submarine crews to deploy remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), combat divers or autonomous systems of any type without putting the submarine or crew at risk, Bruns explained.

“Depending on the mission, it could be an ROV to protect a pipeline or a data cable, it could be combat divers to go ashore under the cover of darkness, it could be almost anything,” the expert cites as an example.

This capability will increase Sweden’s ability to control inflows and outflows through the Baltic Sea.

“If you add up all the forces, with Germany leading the way, and Sweden and Finland joining it, it’s really changed the balance in the Baltic,” says Nick Childs, a naval and maritime security expert. International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“This will make it very difficult for the Russian fleet to operate freely in the Baltic Sea,” he notes. (news.ro)