🎙️Comment by the Ambassador of Russia in Norway Nikolay Korchunov for «RIA Novosti» (August 26, 2026) ❓A NATO reconnaissance aircraft (a British RC-135W) took off from a Norwegian airbase for the first time in 70 years and flew towards the Kola Peninsula, according to the newspaper ‘Aftenposten’. Could the Embassy comment on this? How does Russia view such reconnaissance flights by NATO aircraft near its borders, in particular near the Kola Peninsula? 💬 Response: We view the provision of Norwegian air bases for reconnaissance flights directed against our country by the British RC-135W ‘Rivet Joint’ electronic intelligence aircraft and the P-8A ‘Poseidon’ maritime patrol aircraft in an extremely negative light, as a factor deliberately escalating military tensions in the North. In recent years, NATO countries have, without justification and at a rapid pace – doubling their military presence in some areas, according to their own estimates – increased their military presence and the intensity of provocative training and operational activities in the high latitudes. Non-regional NATO members have been particularly zealous in this regard, above all Britain and Germany, which are increasingly encroaching on the Arctic, bringing their confrontational bloc-based approaches to a region that, until recently, was characterised by an atmosphere of cooperation and low tension. Worse still, London’s actions are aimed at restricting freedom of navigation, in violation of the fundamental principles of the law of the sea. NATO members are doing this under the far-fetched pretext of Russian and even Chinese threats, although China, unlike them, is behaving decently, exercising military restraint in the high latitudes and has purely economic and scientific interests in the region. We proceed on the basis that it is exclusively the North Atlantic Alliance and its individual member states that require containment. Russia, for its part, poses no threat to anyone and has no interest in armed confrontation with Norway, Britain or any other NATO country in the North or in any other region. The provision of Norwegian air bases for the Allies’ military and intelligence activities, which are directed against Russia’s security interests, forms part of Oslo’s long-term policy of ‘eroding’ Norway’s self-imposed restrictions in the military sphere. For decades, including during the most turbulent periods of the ‘Cold War’, these principles helped to reduce tensions between our countries and in the Arctic as a whole; now, following the bloc’s absorption of Finland and Sweden, they have come to hinder NATO’s military preparations on its ‘northern’ flank. We believe that Norway’s ‘creeping’ abandonment of its own guiding principles regarding foreign military activity on its territory undermines the country’s sovereignty and, contrary to politicians’ assurances, will have a negative impact on its security. Moreover, the fuelling of unhealthy hype and the Alliance’s confrontational activities regarding Russia’s strategic capabilities on the Kola Peninsula – which British reconnaissance aircraft were specifically monitoring – undermines not only security in the Arctic but also global stability, increasing the risks of unintended escalation and a slide towards direct military conflict, with consequences that would be catastrophic for all and quite likely fatal for many. Read in full