According to the Barents Observer, the two strategic bombers crossed the border into Finland from Norway’s northern region. Over Lapland, they were met by three U.S. Air Force tankers and Finnish fighter jets.
“Today, Finland has implemented cooperation with the strategic bombers of the United States in the territory of Finland,” the country’s defense minister Antti Häkkänen said on X.
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“It is a normal cooperation carried out in the territory of a NATO member country and it demonstrate the basic pillar of common defense and deterrence,” Häkkänen said.
But two B-52 strategic bombers over northern Finland is far from normal. It has never happened before and shows the fundamental change in geopolitics following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The B-52 bombers north in Lapland is about as close to the Kola Peninsula as it is possible to get from the southwest. Saariselkä, where the plane was met by the U.S. Air Force tankers, is some 220 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle
On Sunday it was clear skies all over northernmost Finland and Russia’s northwest corner. From cockpit, the pilots could see deep into the Kola Peninsula where Russia has its ballistic missile submarines along the coast to the Barents Sea.
In distance, the crew of the B-52 could also see the Olenya airfield from where Russia’s Tu-95MS bombers use to take off when flying missions to bomb civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
The American strategic bombers aircraft entered Finland from Norway, the Finnish Air Force informs in a short statement.
Spokesperson Henrik Omtvedt Jenssen with the Norwegian Joint Headquarters confirms to the Barents Observer that the planes crossed over Finnmark.
“They were transiting Norwegian airspace and continued into Finland,” Jenssen says.
Norway did not provide fighter jet escort for the American planes while in Norwegian airspace, Jenssen informs.
Russia’s defense ministry said to state-controlled information agency Interfax that the American bombers first approached Russian air space over the Barents Sea. The country’s Air Force scrambled MiG-31 and MiG-29 fighters jets from the Kola Peninsula to meet the American planes.
“When Russian fighters approached, American strategic bombers made a U-turn from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the defense ministry said.
The pair of B-52 then flew west over the Barents Sea before entering Norwegian air space near North Cape and from there made a southbound flight into Finnish Lapland.
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