A pair of B-52 strategic bombers that came in over Finland from Norwegian air space made a first-ever flight in the skies above Lapland near the Lake Inari Sunday morning. […]
But two B-52 strategic bombers over northern Finland is far from normal. It has never happened before and shows the fundamental change in geopolitics following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
As a result of the war, Finland joined NATO in April 2023 and said there will be no geographical restrictions on where NATO-partners could cooperate within the country’s territory.
Defense analyst with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Per Erik Solli, is not surprised. […]
The B-52 bombers north in Lapland is about as close to the Kola Peninsula as it is possible to get from the southwest. Saariselkä, where the plane was met by the U.S. Air Force tankers, is some 220 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle
On Sunday it was clear skies all over northernmost Finland and Russia’s northwest corner. From cockpit, the pilots could see deep into the Kola Peninsula where Russia has its ballistic missile submarines along the coast to the Barents Sea. In distance, the crew of the B-52 could also see the Olenya airfield from where Russia’s Tu-95MS bombers use to take off when flying missions to bomb civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
The American strategic bombers aircraft entered Finland from Norway, the Finnish Air Force informs in a short statement.
Spokesperson Henrik Omtvedt Jenssen with the Norwegian Joint Headquarters confirms to the Barents Observer that the planes crossed over Finnmark.
“They were transiting Norwegian airspace and continued into Finland,” Jenssen says.
Norway did not provide fighter jet escort for the American planes while in Norwegian airspace, Jenssen informs.
Russia’s defense ministry said to state-controlled information agency Interfax that the American bombers first approached Russian air space over the Barents Sea. The country’s Air Force scrambled MiG-31 and MiG-29 fighters jets from the Kola Peninsula to meet the American planes.
“When Russian fighters approached, American strategic bombers made a U-turn from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the defense ministry said. […]
Norway, which all since 1949 has had restrictions on NATO activities in a buffer zone close to the Russian border, do not allow B-52 or any American surveillance flights east of the Porsanger fjord in Finnmark.
When three B-52 planes in May 2021 flew a mission north of the Kola Peninsula, they were not allowed inside Norwegian airspace in the east Finnmark region. Norwegian military spokesperson Henrik Omtvedt Jenssen was not willing on Sunday to detail where in the airspace over Finnmark the B-52 planes were flying on Sunday. Läs artikel