The HMS Prince of Wales will next week sail north into the waters between northern Norway and Iceland for NATO’s premier anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise kicking off on Monday, May 18.
Photo: Royal Navy
HMS Prince of Wales is carrying helicopters set to play a key role as NATO forces conduct submarine detection training in the Norwegian Sea next week.
Dynamic Mongoose is NATO’s largest anti-submarine warfare exercise in Europe, and it is no coincidence that it takes place near the Arctic Circle. Since 2022 in particular, Russia’s rhetoric has been marked by increasingly aggressive language, accompanied by coercive nuclear threats and anti-Western narratives.
The Kremlin portrays Europe as the “new enemy”, accusing it of threatening Russia’s so-called traditional values.
Although Russia’s ground forces have been significantly weakened by more than a decade of war in Ukraine, the Russian Navy’s submarine fleet has continued to advance. Its stealthy, heavily armed and highly sophisticated multirole submarines frequently sail into the North Atlantic from Northern Fleet bases on the Kola Peninsula.
P-8 Poseidon can carry a variety of weapons: Torpedo, bomb and the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
The waters between Svalbard, northern Norway and Iceland have once again become the setting for a cat-and-mouse game between Russia and the West.
British, Norwegian and US P-8 Poseidon submarine-hunting aircraft are regularly seen operating from Keflavík, Evenes, Gardermoen and Lossiemouth on missions over the North Atlantic, particularly in the Norwegian and Barents Seas.
“This 2026 deployment delivers a clear signal of the UK’s steadfast commitment to working with regional partners and securing Europe’s northern flank,” said Commander James Mitchell aboard the destroyer HMS Duncan, which is sailing alongside HMS Prince of Wales.
The NATO-led anti-submarine exercise runs from 18 to 29 May.
In recent weeks, Russian military surveillance aircraft have become a daily sight off northern Norway.
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen is Chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters (NJHQ).
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
“We have seen increasing Russian activity in the north. Our fighter aircraft on NATO standby have been identifying Russian surveillance planes heading out into the Norwegian Sea on a daily basis. It is happening more frequently than usual,” Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, head of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters (NJHQ), told the newspaper VG.
The Russian surveillance aircraft are based at Severomorsk-1 airfield north of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.
So far this year, Norwegian F-35 fighter jets have been scrambled 39 times from Evenes Air Station and have identified 51 Russian aircraft operating outside northern Norway. That matches the total number of deployments recorded during the whole of 2025.
An Russian Northern Fleet Ilyushin Il-38 maritime patrol aircraft and anti-submarine warfare aircraft flying outside northern Norway in April. The photo is taken from a Norwegian F-35.
Forsvaret
On 30 April, a pair of Tu-95MS bombers flew west over the Barents Sea into international airspace off Norway. One of the aircraft was armed with a Kh-101 long-range cruise missile, similar to those Russia frequently launches against targets in Ukraine.