Pictures Show US's NATO Ally Shadowing Russian Attack Submarine

A Portuguese "submarine-hunting" plane detected a Russian submarine transiting northern European waters last week, NATO said, as the alliance continued to monitor its neighbor's powerful navy amid Moscow's prolonged invasion of Ukraine.

NATO's Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), the central command of all maritime forces in the alliance, published images on Wednesday showing the Russian boat traveling on the surface of the Baltic Sea, where it was spotted by a P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft of the Portuguese armed forces.

The Baltic Sea is enclosed by longtime NATO members to the south and southeast, and by new allies Finland and Sweden to the north. It is the only gateway to the North Sea and wider North Atlantic Ocean for the Russian navy's Baltic Fleet headquartered in Kaliningrad, an exclave between EU and NATO members Poland, to the south, and Lithuania, to the north and east.

President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago helped NATO expand its security umbrella on Russia's western flank. The accession of Finland and Sweden gave the Baltic Sea a new nickname: "NATO Lake."

The Russian navy asset shown in MARCOM's thermal and color images appeared to be an Improved Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines, according to military observers on X (formerly Twitter). The boat—first built for the Soviet navy in the 1980s—features improved quieting, propulsion and automation designs.

Moscow's Project 636 boats can fire nuclear-capable Kalibr cruise missiles and are capable of conducting long-range attacks. They have already seen extensive use in strikes against Ukraine's critical infrastructure.

MARCON did not specify where in the Baltic, or when, the Russian attack submarine was seen.

Russia's Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On X on Thursday, open-source researcher Evergreen Intel, citing flight-tracking data from June 26, said a P-3C assigned to Portugal's air force was operating over waters off northern Poland and southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm.

Newsweek could not independently confirm the GPS data.

U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin says the P-3 is a "peerless airborne hunter" built for a variety of missions including anti-submarine warfare.

"Our deployments and vigilance activities often bring us close to Russian units," German navy Rear Adm. Stefan Pauly, the commander of NATO's surface forces, said last month in an article published by the alliance.

The officer said NATO forces occasionally found Russian military maneuvers to be "unprofessional," including overflights of alliance units at close range. The incidents are not common, he said, adding that NATO would remain on high alert.

The Portuguese navy's NRP Arpao became the first Portuguese submarine to navigate under Arctic ice, NATO announced last week, during a mission to monitor non-NATO military surface and underwater platforms.

The crew of the Arpao demonstrated the submarine's capabilities in Arctic conditions, Commander Taveira Pinto said.

NATO countries hold regular training events to hone submarine warfare skills, including hunting for vessels deployed by Russia and other nations.

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