OSLO, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The Norwegian government will on Friday announce plans to buy two additional submarines from Germany and a separate procurement of long-range artillery, dailies VG and Aftenposten reported, citing anonymous sources.
The submarine order comes in addition to four submarines the Nordic country ordered from Germany’s Thyssenkrupp in 2021 for a then-value of 45 billion crowns.
The updated submarine order will now cost close to 100 billion crowns ($10 billion), Aftenposten reported, partly due to inflation in the costs of raw materials and of defence equipment.
NATO countries are in the midst of hiking defence spending, under pressure from the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump and unnerved by the continuing war in Ukraine.
Norway is NATO’s monitor for the vast 2 million square kilometres (772,000 square miles) area of the North Atlantic used by the Russian northern fleet’s nuclear submarines.
A key mission for the submarines will be monitor Russian ones, whose base is on the Kola Peninsula, an area in the Arctic bordering Norway.
Separately, Norway plans to buy for its army long-distance missiles, which can reach targets 500 km (310 miles) away, for 19 billion crowns. The war in Ukraine, and the predominance of missile attacks, has shown Western countries the need to boost that attack ability.
The Norwegian defence ministry said it could neither confirm nor deny the reports. The government will publish later on Friday its list of decisions taken during the weekly King’s Council.
($1 = 10.1006 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)
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