Ottawa, August 13: Canadian military has sent a plane on a surveillance mission in order to follow two Russian nuclear submarines wandering off the country’s East Coast.
Authorities at the Canadian Defense Ministry say they will screen the movements of two nuclear-powered Russian submarines despite their permissible distance from the country’s coastlines.
Canada’s Defense Minister, Peter Mackay, confirmed the aerial surveillance mission on Tuesday and noted, “For a variety of reasons, to demonstrate our commitment to sovereignty, we’re watching to ensure we know what is happening along our coastlines.”
“Anything that comes near sovereign Canadian territory, we are going to react,” he told reporters.
Canada’s decision to send a long-range CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane comes after the country announced that the Russian Akula-class nuclear subs, outfitted with operational surface-loaded cruise missiles and surface-to-air rockets, remain adrift just outside US and Canada territories.
The Canadian defense minister said that Russia has recently been ‘flexing its muscle’ in the international arena.
Russia, US, Canada and Denmark have stepped up efforts in bid to obtain a firmer foothold in the Arctic region in the wake of the global warming that has melted much of the northern ice cap, exposing the riches of the earth.
Around 25 percent of the world’s untapped natural fossil fuel resources lay in the North Pole areas and analysts maintain that the battle to claim the lion share of the energy reservoir has already begun.
After Russia test-fired two long-range submarine missiles in the Arctic last month, it is the Canadian navy which has announced plans to carry out ‘anti-submarine exercise’ in the area later in August.
Russia has rejected the link between its latest Arctic mission and the quest for more energy reserves.
—–Agencies