Arctic Challenge: an air exercise on an unprecedented scale in the Ukrainian context
The Arctic Challenge, Europe's largest air exercise, begins on Monday 29 May in the Arctic. Organized every two years by the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland), it takes on a particular dimension in the context of the war in Ukraine.
One hundred and fifty aircraft will participate in the exercise, including the Swedish Gripen. ASSOCIATED PRESS - PATRIC SODERSTROM
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With our correspondent in Stockholm, Carlotta Morteo
Two thousand seven hundred soldiers, 150 military aircraft, from fourteen countries. The Arctic Challenge is not a NATO exercise, the Nordic countries always recall, as a message of appeasement addressed to neighboring Russia. Nevertheless, with threats virtually embodied by Sukhoi and Russian Mig, the air exercise that opens this Monday in the Arctic is largely focused on cooperation between NATO allies, of which only Sweden is not yet a member.
The quantity of aircraft is unprecedented, their diversity too: the French Rafale and Mirage train alongside the German Eurofighters, the Swedish Gripen, the Norwegian F-16 and, novelty, the American F-35. Pilots fly over a very large territory, enough to test the limits of their aircraft and consider complex refueling and air defense scenarios.
The Nordic countries are showing that they are not alone in the face of Russia, which has significantly increased its military presence in the Arctic in recent years. The region has become a zone of friction all the more sensitive as the Arctic Council, the main diplomatic tool that governs relations between the countries bordering the North Pole, is out of the game, with discussions at a standstill since Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
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- Defense
- Russia
- Norway
- Sweden
- Finland