The Norwegian General Staff anticipates a further rise in power of the Russian armies in the years to come

It is now disputed only by a few unconditional supporters of Moscow, the Russian Armies have suffered considerable losses in Ukraine. So, according to the Oryx reference site, these would now have lost (destroyed, captured or damaged) in combat more than 10.000 major pieces of equipment, including more than 2000 combat tanks, nearly 3500 armored combat vehicles, more than 900 artillery systems or 170 aircraft and helicopters and more than a dozen military ships.

As for the human losses, which are much more difficult to assess, they would be around 180.000 killed, wounded and missing since the start of the conflict.

For many European countries, these losses are so high that it will necessarily take a long time for Moscow to reconstitute a conventional armed force sufficient to come and threaten NATO and its neighbors.

This is how the major European armies, French, German, Italian or British, have committed themselves to an effort which, of course, aims to respond to the evolution of the threat and the return of the risks of major conventional conflicts in Europe, but this over a relatively long timeframe, that is to say over ten or fifteen years, which is the estimated time necessary for Russia to recover from the Ukrainian disaster, regardless of the outcome of this conflict.

For Eastern and Northern European countries, however, the outlook is very different. The most flagrant example, although probably excessive, is none other than Poland, which has been making a colossal effort for several months to provide the country with conventional military power capable of containing, if necessary without the help of its European allies, the Russian threat in the making.

Without the obvious excesses of Warsaw, this concern about a resurgence of the Russian threat much sooner than envisaged in Paris, Berlin or Rome, is also shared by the countries of Northern Europe and Scandinavia, which are committed, them too, in a major effort in this regard.

This is particularly the case of Norway which, despite a small population of just over 5 million inhabitants, has remarkable military power, with almost 25.000 men and women in the army, partly provided by a non-compulsory military service.

Above all, the Norwegian armed forces are particularly well equipped, with around fifty heavy tanks. Leopard 2A4 soon to be replaced by Leopard 2A7+ supported by 160 CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, around thirty K9 self-propelled guns protected by a NASAMS ground-air battery gathered within a Combat Brigade of 4500 men. The air forces field around fifty F16 and F-35A fighters, five P-5A Poseidon maritime patrol planes and around forty helicopters.

With more than 80.000 km of coastline due to its very specific geography, rich in Fjords, Norway also has a powerful navy, 4000 strong, and above all today fielding 6 Ula class submarines, 4 Fritjof-class 5300-ton frigates (after the loss of the 5th unit, the Helge Ingstad frigate in June 2019), as well as 6 Skjold-class missile corvettes, 4 Alta-class mine warfare vessels (2 ) and Oksøj, and a large logistics vessel, the Maud.

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