Russia views NATO’s expansion eastward into its old Soviet sphere of influence as a key national security risk. NATO members perceive Russia’s missile deployments in the country’s Baltic exclave between Poland and Lithuania as a threat.
Russia has deployed all six of its Black Sea Fleet submarines as NATO drills kicked off in the area, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Friday.
“All Black Sea Fleet submarines are performing their tasks outside their bases,” said Vice-Admiral Igor Osipov, the fleet’s commander-in-chief.
“None of the submarines are at their base,” RIA Novosti quoted Osipov as saying.
The commander of the Black Sea Fleet’s submarine flotilla, Captain 1st Rank Anatoly Varochkin, called the deployment “unprecedented.”
“This doesn’t happen with either Russia’s other fleets or those of foreign states,” Varochkin was quoted as saying.
The deployment took place as 18 NATO warships with 10 aircraft and 2,400 troops are set to begin Romanian-led multinational exercises dubbed “Sea Shield 21.”
“Sea Shield 21” aims to enhance interoperability and cooperation between the Romanian and other NATO members’ naval forces. From there, NATO’s standing maritime group composed of Spanish, Turkish, Bulgarian and Romanian frigates will make port calls in Turkey and the republic of Georgia.
NATO, a U.S.-led alliance created during the Cold War to provide collective security against the Soviet Union, suspended relations with Russia in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia Sees Record High Average Temperatures in 2020
Russia in 2020 saw record high average temperatures and a record drop of summer ice cover on its Arctic maritime route, the country’s weather monitoring institute Rosgidromet said Thursday.
Russia’s average annual temperature last year was 3.22 degrees Celsius higher than the average for the period of 1961-1990 and more than one degree higher than the country’s previous record in 2007, Rosgidromet said in a report released Thursday.
«Last year turned out to be extremely warm both in our country and for the planet as a whole,» it said in a statement.
Rosgidromet noted that Russia’s increasing rate of warming was «much higher» than the global average.
The weather monitoring institute added that Russia’s Arctic maritime shipping route, the Northern Sea Route, was «completely free of ice» by the end of last summer, reaching a «record low level».
The report also said that the thickness of the melted permafrost layer that thaws annually is also growing.
While President Vladimir Putin has noted the benefits of warmer temperatures opening up transportation routes like the Northern Sea Route, climate change is a particular hazard for the Russia’s infrastructure built on permafrost.
Earlier this week Rosgidromet predicted that the country would see above-average temperatures in the spring, with dry weather in Siberia leading to more forest fires this year.
Devastating forest fires have ripped across Siberia with increasing regularity over the past few years, which the country’s weather officials and environmentalists have linked to climate change and an underfunded forest service.
