Germany will send navy ships to patrol Arctic waters in response to Russia’s growing military presence in the region, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Monday. Russia has insisted that it is mirroring NATO moves in the far north to maintain balance.
Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that Moscow is implementing an appropriate response strategy to potential encroachments on the country’s sovereignty across Russia’s 24,000km Arctic coastline.
At a joint press conference in Copenhangen with his Danish counterpart, Troels Lund Poulsen, Pistorius delcared “as early as this year, Germany will show its presence in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.”
The deployment, dubbed ‘Atlantic Bear’, will be a response to mounting maritime threats and because “Russia is militarizing the Arctic,” he claimed.