About 100 fighter jets from the United States and eight European nations began an Arctic training exercise in the Nordic nations on Monday, a region worried by increased Russian military activity. The exercise, based in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland with 4,000 personnel, is meant to test co-operation among Arctic nations near Russia. It was planned before Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region last year raised regional tensions.
"The aim is to exercise and train units in the orchestration and conduct of complex air operations, in close relations to Nato partners," Norwegian brigadier general Jan Ove Rygg, heading the exercise, said in a statement.