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- Northern message: the Oslo summit will discuss the fight against Russia in the Baltic and Arctic
Northern message: the Oslo summit will discuss the fight against Russia in the Baltic and Arctic
Countering Russia will be the main topic of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) summit in Oslo on May 8-9, the Russian Embassy in Norway told Izvestia. They clarified that Vladimir Zelensky should take part in the event. In addition, the countries of the association, which includes the United Kingdom, the Baltic states and Scandinavia, will discuss support for Ukraine. JEF members advocate for increasing NATO's presence in the Baltic region and the Arctic. At the same time, Norway is increasingly focusing on London in security matters due to a decrease in confidence in the United States, Russian diplomats noted.
Who is participating in the Oslo Summit
The main topic of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) summit in Oslo on May 8-9 will be countering Russia, the Russian Embassy in Norway told Izvestia.
— It focuses on developing common positions and discussing joint measures to counter Russia, including through unconditional and increasing support for the Kiev regime in order to inflict a "strategic defeat" on the Russian Federation. The Oslo meeting will be no exception in this regard. This is confirmed by the planned digital connection of Vladimir Zelensky to this event," the Russian diplomatic mission in Oslo told Izvestia.
Joint Expeditionary Force Meeting in London, March 15, 2022
The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) was established in 2014 at the initiative of the United Kingdom. At first, the participants were Great Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Estonia. In 2017, Sweden and Finland joined them. The reason for the creation of a new regional military format was the entry of Crimea and Sevastopol into Russia and the conflict in Ukraine after the Maidan in February 2014. Although the corps operates outside the NATO command structure, it is designed to complement the alliance. According to rumors, Canada may join it, which would create the first transatlantic military partnership without the participation of the United States.
From the moment of its appearance, the association basically existed on paper, until its launch in 2022, which made its own adjustments to the structure's activities. The idea of creating JEF was initially to facilitate the deployment of European military forces for peacekeeping and humanitarian purposes, Tigran Meloyan, an analyst at the HSE Center for Mediterranean Studies, told Izvestia.
—Today, JEF sets itself such tasks as protecting cables and pipelines on the seabed, as well as monitoring and conducting operations to detain oil tankers carrying Russian oil," the expert noted.
The Joint Expeditionary Force has repeatedly been involved in protecting NATO infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. So, in December 2023, a squadron led by the British frigate HMS Richmond was sent to the Baltic and North Seas, as well as to the Danish Straits, to protect the underwater infrastructure and "strengthen deterrence" in Northern Europe.
The United Kingdom is showing the greatest activity in the fight against the Russian presence in the Baltic Sea. It is noteworthy that London in Norway is increasingly being targeted in security and defense issues (against the background of declining confidence in the United States due to the "Trump factor"), the Russian Embassy in Oslo emphasized.
According to Meloyan, London has not only become one of the most active players in the association, but also strives in every possible way to expand its influence within JEF. Among the initiatives that the UK is promoting today is the issue of working out the possibility of a partial redeployment of JEF forces to the Baltic States, including their relocation to the region of Western Ukraine. In 2024, the United Kingdom announced plans to deploy over 20,000 British troops to the Nordic countries under the pretext of protecting the critical infrastructure of the allies. London's claims to leadership are not limited to this alone.
"He intends to take control of a vast territory from the English Channel to the Baltic Sea, demonstrating operational compatibility with the JEF member countries at sea and in the air, as well as to carry out enhanced surveillance of marine facilities and establish intelligence information exchange," the expert added.
How NATO is escalating the situation in the Baltic and Arctic
The JEF countries are firing off an increased presence and aimed at "deterring" our country's NATO activities in the Baltic region and the Arctic under the pretext of "ensuring maritime security" and countering so-called hybrid threats, the Russian Embassy in Oslo told Izvestia.
At the same time, Russia is making efforts to counter the activity of NATO forces in the Arctic. By 2027, it is planned to increase the continuous radar control zone in the region several times, and the Northern Fleet is also waiting for a large-scale reinforcement, the Russian Defense Ministry said earlier.
The main topic of the summit is likely to be a discussion of joint actions to combat Russian ships in the North and Baltic Seas. For example, under what pretext can the assembled countries obstruct the passage of ships with Russian oil through key straits such as the English Channel and the Great Belt, as well as in the Gulf of Finland, so that this does not result in a direct military clash with Russia, says Meloyan.
It is worth noting that the idea of restricting Russian trade is not new. Back in February, it became known that the EU countries with access to the Baltic Sea are developing legal measures that will allow them to carry out mass detentions of ships allegedly carrying Russian goods. However, such measures may provoke a harsh reaction from Moscow.
"The JEF summit in Norway is an important signal to Russia to be ready for new provocations in the Baltic region and on its northern borders, the number of which has increased significantly in recent years," the expert noted.
In addition, flights of Ukrainian UAVs towards the Murmansk region, to the area where the Northern Fleet and strategic aviation are based, have become more frequent, which would be a difficult task for Kiev without the participation of Western intelligence agencies in routing and bypassing Russian air defenses, the expert concluded.
In April, the Estonian parliament approved amendments to the laws on the defense forces and the economic zone, granting the armed forces the right to sink suspicious civilian vessels. Nikolai Patrushev, Chairman of the Maritime Board and Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, noted that Tallinn cannot act independently. According to him, the UK could support Estonia's proposal. Estonia claims that such a measure will be applied only in exceptional cases when there is a suspicion of the ship's intention to damage underwater cables and other infrastructure facilities.
At the same time, accidents on underwater communications have become more frequent in recent years. In February, Rostelecom's underwater cable was damaged in the Baltic Sea as a result of an external impact. A similar incident occurred on October 7, 2023 in the Gulf of Finland. It was restored a month later. On the night of January 26, 2024, the EstLink 2 high-voltage power cable running along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland between Finland and Estonia failed. The damage site was found on the Estonian side. The cable's operability was restored only in September. In November of the same year, two cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. One, C-Lion1, connects Germany with Finland, the other connects Sweden with Lithuania. In both cases, some politicians tried to blame the Russian Federation, which denied any involvement in the incidents. As a result, NATO countries, investigating the severing of EstLink 2 and C-Lion1 cables and other similar incidents in the Baltic, found no evidence that they were connected with Russia or the authorities of other countries.
In addition to the confrontation with Russia, the member countries of the Joint Expeditionary Forces will discuss further support for Ukraine, according to a statement cited by the Norwegian government in response to a question from Izvestia. The Nordic countries are among Kiev's largest donors. Thus, the UK has provided Ukraine with a total of more than €15 billion since February 2022, Denmark — €7.6 billion, Sweden — about €7 billion, according to the Kiel Institute. In relative terms, Estonia is among the leaders in supporting Kiev, which has allocated 2.34% of its GDP. Against the background of a possible termination or suspension of US support for Ukraine, these countries may try to replenish part of the volume of American aid. Washington has previously suspended military assistance to Kiev.
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