The long-standing practice was broken on Tuesday and Thursday last week when a British RC-135W spy plane took off from Ørlandet air base and then circled in international airspace off the Kola Peninsula, Aftenposten writes.
Norway has previously banned NATO aircraft from flying over northern Norway during operations in the strategically important sea areas north of the Kola Peninsula and west of the Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. The reason for this has been that Norway wants to avoid acting provocatively in an area where Russia has a large weapons arsenal.
