U.S. Navy Destroyers Patrol Arctic Waters In Barents Sea Near Russian Maritime Border

U.S. naval forces continue to step up their engagement in the Arctic. While the Coast Guard now has two icebreakers operating in the Bering Sea simultaneously for the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Navy together with Norwegian allied forces dispatched a four-vessel flotilla to the North Cape. Over the weekend the vessels patrolled at the very top of Norway in the Barents Sea in proximity to Russia’s Arctic waters. 

The patrol consisted of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Mahan (DDG 72) and USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) as well as Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen-class frigate HNoMS Thor Heyerdahl (F-314) and replenishment oiler HNoMS Maud (A-530). 

The vessels were dispatched from a larger naval unit exercising in sub-Arctic waters of the Norwegian and North Seas centering around the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. 

The joint operation with NATO allies constitutes the third time in five years that U.S. Navy forces have visited Norway’s Arctic waters. Both previous exercises included a show of force of aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman and Gerald R. Ford to the Oslo fjord and the Norwegian capital. 

Earlier this summer the USS Newport News (SSN 750) visited Iceland. The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine became the first nuclear-powered submarine to visit the country.

“Credible naval forces operating in the Arctic ensure the ability to deter competitors and rapidly respond to crises in the region,” said the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in comments about the Barents Sea exercise.

Earlier last week U.S. and NATO aerial assets conducted an extensive search to locate three Russian Yasen-class nuclear attack submarines said to be operating in the vicinity of the carrier group. 

All three vessels had set sail from their Arctic submarine base Zapadnaya Litsa on the Kola Peninsula. Several P-8 Poseidon surveillance and anti-submarine warfare planes departed from airbases in Scotland, Iceland, and Norway converging on the waters off Norway’s central northern coast. Flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows several dozen sorties across a 48 hour window.

Norway over the weekend also announced the procurement of five or six British Type 26 frigates specifically designed to detect, track down, and combat submarines. The purchase valued at $12.5 billion constitutes the largest-ever military expenditure by the country.

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