Sputnik News
NATO has dramatically ramped up its presence in Northern Europe and above the Arctic Circle in recent years, with thousands of troops deployed to Norway for cold-weather training, and the White House recently laying down a 10-year Arctic strategy calling for enhanced military presence in the region to “deter” Russian “aggression.”
US Special Operations forces “intentionally” provoked Russia in the Arctic by holding a missile drill on Wednesday, Special Operations Command Europe commander Lawrence Melnicoff has said.
“We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory,” Melnicoff told US media. “We’re trying to deter Russian aggression, expansionist behavior, by showing enhanced capabilities of the allies,” the officer added.
Melnicoff did not specify how the US was “deterring Russia” by engaging in “provocative” drills over 5,000 kilometers from America’s shores.
Wednesday’s exercise, conducted at the Andoya Space Center in northern Norway, about 500 km from Russia’s Murmansk region, saw US spec ops troops drop a long-range missile out of a C-130 strategic transport aircraft, with the missile launching in mid-air. The launch constituted the first successful demonstration of the US’ "Rapid Dragon" program in Europe.
Rapid Dragon is a palletized weapons system that has been tested on board C-130 and C-17 cargo aircraft, and is designed to launch Lockheed Martin AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles against both ground and sea-based targets at standoff ranges (i.e., well outside of the effective range of enemy air defenses). The subsonic missiles have a range of between 370 and 1,900 km.
The Pentagon published footage of the missile test, showing the palletized weapons system dropping out of the C-130 and descending toward the ground using parachutes, with the missile dropping out of its launch container and roaring to life before proceeding to its target, eventually touching down in the water and detonating.
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