Before you being to read this story, you may wish to look up the Russian naval base at Gadzhiyevo in Russia’s Arctic northwest on Google Earth.
This will help to illustrate why Norway is particularly worried about the current standoff with Russia over Ukraine and the prospect of a possible armed conflict there.
At Gadzhiyevo, and at the main naval base of Severomorsk — which are both very close to Norway — one can zoom in directly on the nuclear submarines and naval vessels of Russia’s Northern Fleet. They are blurry but visible like steely eels to anyone with a laptop. […]
To understand the underlying currents, I called Tormod Heier, a lieutenant colonel who serves as a professor at the Norwegian Defense Command and Staff College and knows intimately the depth of Norway’s worries:
“Luckily, we are not at that point yet, but the Norwegian authorities fear that in the event of a war in Europe that involves a NATO country, Russia will move troops into northern Norway and onto (the Norwegian islands of) Svalbard, Bear Island and Jan Mayen because Russia will need greater strategic depth and room to shoot down U.S. missiles before they hit the base complexes on the Kola Peninsula or the government structures in Moscow,” Heier explains. Läs artikel