{"id":3210,"date":"2026-06-23T16:02:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/3210\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:02:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:02:23","slug":"russia-nuclear-bombers-followed-by-nato-fighter-jets-off-coast-of-europe-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/3210\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia nuclear bombers followed by NATO fighter jets off coast of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two advanced NATO fighter jets shadowed Russian bombers capable of carrying long-range nuclear weapons<\/a> during what Moscow called a scheduled training flight in the closely-watched Arctic region on Monday.<\/p>\n

Although NATO countries frequently scramble jets when they detect Russian aircraft flying close to alliance airspace, nuclear-capable bombers skirting near NATO territory is generally seen as an intimidation tactic\u2014particularly in the Arctic, where NATO is concerned about an increasing Russian and Chinese presence.<\/p>\n

Russia<\/a>\u2018s defense ministry said several of its Tu-160 supersonic bombers carried out a practice flight over the Barents and Norwegian Seas on Monday.<\/p>\n

The strategic bombers were accompanied by Russian MiG-31 fighter jets on the 16-hour flight through international airspace, Moscow said.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

In this undated photo released on April 13, 2021, by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, a Tu-160 strategic bomber of the Russian air force is shown on a training mission over an undisclosed location in Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt certain stages of the route, the strategic bombers were escorted by fighters from foreign countries,\u201d the Russian government said, without specifying further.<\/p>\n

A senior NATO military official told Newsweek two Norwegian F-35s responded to the incident.<\/p>\n

Footage published by Russian authorities appeared to show at least one F-35 alongside the Russian aircraft.<\/p>\n

Norway<\/a>, a NATO member, has more than 50 F-35s, a handful of which are based at the Evenes Air Station in the north of the Nordic nation, looking out onto the Norwegian and Barents Seas.<\/p>\n

\"Norwegian<\/p>\n

Norwegian F-35 Lightning fighters are seen during the Arctic Challenge Exercise at Orlandet air station, Norway, on June 1 2023.<\/p>\n

Norway shares about 120 miles of land border with Moscow<\/a>, with Norwegian soil stopping not far west of major Russian military\u00a0bases clustered around the Arctic<\/a>\u00a0cities of Murmansk and Severomorsk, which are home to the all-important strategic nuclear submarines the Kremlin would deploy in a nuclear conflict.<\/p>\n

Norway has long had what it calls a \u201cquick reaction alert,\u201d meaning Oslo always has a pair of F-35s ready to scramble at any moment if they detect an unfamiliar aircraft.<\/p>\n

The Norwegian military says it typically carries out around 40 quick reaction alert missions each year on NATO\u2019s behalf, and the two F-35s are ready to be in the air within 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

F-35s are American-made fifth-generation fighter jets, which is currently the most sophisticated type of jet in operation. Jets known as sixth-generation aircraft\u2014which will be harder for enemies to pick up on radar systems, have more up-to-date systems and build drones closely into how they work\u2014are still in the early development stages.<\/p>\n

Roughly a third of NATO\u2019s member countries have bought or ordered F-35s.<\/p>\n

The Arctic is the region of the world most impacted by climate change, with melting ice opening up new routes for both military and civilian traffic.<\/p>\n

Most of the eight Arctic states are NATO<\/a> members, but Russia is the region\u2019s dominant nation. Moscow is well-accustomed to operating in the austere, unforgiving conditions of the Arctic; it has built cities with a significant civilian population, rather than just remote, military-focused outposts, above the Arctic Circle.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin has been busy reopening Soviet-era bases and building new facilities in the Arctic, while China has declared itself a \u201cnear Arctic\u201d state.<\/p>\n

Contact Newsweek editors on this story:\u00a0Frances Mao\u00a0and\u00a0Tony Phillips<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Articles<\/p>\n

Start your unlimited Newsweek trial<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two advanced NATO fighter jets shadowed Russian bombers capable of carrying long-range nuclear weapons during what Moscow called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2505,865,2437,7,393,2503,2502,2504,1000],"class_list":["post-3210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-arctic-region","tag-fighter-jets","tag-moscow","tag-nato","tag-nato-countries","tag-norwegian-military","tag-russian-bombers","tag-russian-defense-ministry-press-service","tag-strategic-bombers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}