Russia has begun returning long-range bombers over the Arctic to North American airspace after a short hiatus in the first months of its war in Ukraine, a senior Canadian military official reports.
Russian submarines are also operating off both coasts as Moscow seeks to demonstrate its ability to strike Canada and the United States, said Lt. Gen. Alain Pelletier, deputy commander of NATO’s Aerospace Defense Command. North America (NORAD).
“We have seen a reduction this year, especially since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine on February 24. However, some of those activities have now resumed,” Pelletier told the Senate Defense Committee on Monday.
“The activities are not just limited to long-range aviation. Russia is now using its submarines both on the Atlantic coast and on the Pacific coast to demonstrate its real strategic capabilities and pose a threat to North America,” he informs.
Although Lieutenant-General Pelletier did not give more specific details, NORAD officials announced last month that two Russian long-range bombers had been intercepted by American fighter jets after approaching the Alaska. The bombers did not enter North American airspace before leaving.
Pelletier and other defense officials also confirmed that Canada and the United States have begun work on modernizing NORAD, the shared early warning system that is America’s first line of defense. from the North against a foreign air attack.
The Liberal government announced in June that Ottawa plans to invest $4.9 billion over six years and $40 billion over the next 20 years to modernize the system in conjunction with Washington.
This includes replacing the chain of 1980s radars in northern Canada that form the backbone of that country’s contribution to NORAD, with more modern systems that can see further in addition to detecting and tracking new types of weapons.
“We’re in the very early stages,” Defense Department official Jonathan Quinn said. The announcement was made in June, but we are putting detailed plans in place with milestones, setting up project offices here at National Defense Headquarters to move specific initiatives forward. »
This comes as Russia and China, in particular, have begun to exert their forces in the Arctic and to develop new weapons that can more easily strike North America, including cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons that fly extremely fast.
Yet while research and development of new radars and other equipment to find and stop such weapons is advancing rapidly, Quinn told the committee that it will be some time before they are on the ground.
Canada and the United States will be forced to rely on the threat of retaliation to prevent such attacks until then, Quinn added.
“During the transition period, we will likely rely a little more than we would like on deterrence by punishment until we strengthen North American defenses to support deterrence by denial,” Quinn envisions. .