Norway intelligence chief: Russia’s military losses in Ukraine may lower nuclear escalation threshold
Russian land forces on the Kola Peninsula were reduced by 80 percent prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said the chief of Norway’s Intelligence Service, Nils Andreas Stensønes, when speaking to The Barents Observer.
According to a recent Norwegian intelligence report, the units redeployed from Kola to Ukraine have since taken significant losses, in both personnel and machinery:
Like many other Russian divisions, the ground forces at Kola have suffered extensive losses of personnel and materiel in Ukraine. About three battalion battle groups, with a total of over 3,000 men, have been sent into battle. Up to half is lost. In addition, the Northern Fleet may have lost up to a hundred tanks and armored personnel carriers.
“Land forces educated and trained at Kola will continue to be sent to Ukraine as replacement crews,” the report predicts.
But key elements of Russia’s military potential are left unchallenged in the Ukraine war, Intelligence Chief Stensønes points out: “This applies to the strategic forces at Kola, where nuclear weapons, submarines, naval vessels, long-range air defense and electronic warfare capabilities remain more or less intact.”
The gap between these capabilities and the personnel shortages “means that the threshold for nuclear escalation will be lower,” the admiral suggests.