Russia is threatening a strategic chokepoint in the Arctic, control of which would place it within missile range of London, Norway’s defence minister has warned.
Tore Sandvik told The Times that he was concerned Moscow could try to exert itself in the Bear Gap, a roughly 400-mile-wide stretch of water between mainland Norway and the archipelago of Svalbard, in order to gain access to the Atlantic.
Russia’s powerful Northern Fleet accounts for around two-thirds of their navy’s nuclear strike capabilities and has benefitted from large investment as it expands operations around Nato waters in the north.
“It’s homeland defence for the UK,” warned Mr Sandvik. “If Putin gets control of the northern part of Scandinavia, if he can control the Bear Gap, this is a direct threat against the UK.”
He added: “We see what kind of weapon systems Russia is developing, and we know that if they can control the Bear Gap, they can also use hypersonic missiles against Nato … against London, against Norway, against Denmark.”
Mr Sandvik said the chokepoint, allowing passage from the Barents Sea into the Norwegian Sea, holds equal strategic significance to the GIUK Gap to the west, bridging the Norwegian Sea to the Atlantic.
Norway has full sovereignty over Svalbard, exerting influence over the Bear Gap, but cannot fortify the territory or install a naval base under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty. As such, it lacks a permanent military presence on the archipelago.
Bruno Tertrais, deputy director at the French FRS think tank, wrote recently that “while direct, overt Russian military action against the Svalbard remains improbable, an intensification of hybrid warfare against the archipelago is possible and even likely.”
He noted that Norway has responded by amending legislation to facilitate the deportation of Russian nationals under sanctions, and bought eight British Type 26 frigates in 2025.
Last week, Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said Oslo would open talks on boosting cooperation around French nuclear deterrence activities, as concerns grow in Europe over the US commitment to the region’s security.
Stoere travelled to Paris on Wednesday afternoon to meet French president Emmanuel Macron and sign a new defence agreement with France, which includes Norway joining a French-led nuclear weapons initiative.
“We are doing this in light of the security policy situation in Europe, including Russia’s massive rearmament, also in the nuclear domain, and that it is waging a full-scale war against another European country,” Stoere told Norwegian news agency NTB.
Russia has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal with about 4,400 deployed and stockpiled nuclear warheads, while the US has about 3,700, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Last month, Russia conducted some of its biggest nuclear exercises in years, involving 64,000 people, to prepare its forces for “the preparation and use of nuclear forces in the event of aggression”.
President Vladimir Putin told his defence minister and top generals that the use of such weapons would always be an exceptional and extreme measure of last resort.
“Given the growing tensions in the world and the emergence of new threats and risks, our nuclear triad must continue to serve as a reliable guarantor of the sovereignty of the Union State of Russia and Belarus,” Putin said in the Kremlin.
During the tests, Russia fired a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia and a Zircon hypersonic missile from a frigate in the Barents Sea, while a submarine launched a liquid-fuelled Sineva ballistic missile, the defence ministry said.
British defence secretary John Healey warned in February that Russia “poses the greatest threat to Arctic and High North security that we have seen since the Cold War”, as Putin rebuilds his military presence in the region and reopens old bases.
“The UK is stepping up to protect the Arctic and High North – doubling the number of troops we have in Norway and scaling up joint exercises with Nato allies,” he said.
