US soldiers stationed on Alaskan island armed with rocket launchers after Russian activity detected

Russia began largest joint naval and air drills since Cold War last week

The US has deployed more than 130 soldiers, mobile rocket launchers, and radar capabilities to a remote Alaskan island, amid increased Russian military activity in the region.

The Coast Guard said it located four Russian Federation Navy vessels, including two submarines, 57 miles off the coast of Alaska on Sunday.

In the past week, officials have also detected four separate incursions of Russian military aircraft into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), an area beyond US airspace where aircraft are nonetheless expected to identify themselves.

“The Indo-Pacific represents more than 50 percent of the world’s population, and some of the most diverse environments on Earth,” the U.S. Army 11th Airborn Division wrote on Facebook on Sunday, sharing photos of soldiers, mobile rocket launchers, and transport planes being used in the deployment.

“Shemya Island sits in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, and the soldiers of Task Force Geronimo, made up of units from across U.S. Army Pacific landed there last week with long range fires and radar capabilities.”

Last week, Russian began “Ocean-24,” its largest joint naval and air drills since the Cold War, comprising over 400 warships, submarines, and transport vessels, and more than 90,000 troops across the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean, Caspian, and Baltic Seas.

The exercises follow joint Russia-China exercises that took place near Alaska in July, which led to the first-ever Russian-Chinese bomber task force incursion into the Alaska ADIZ, according to U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

“These escalating incidents demonstrate the critical role the Arctic plays in great power competition between the U.S., Russia, and China,” he said in a statement Tuesday.”

“Authoritarian regimes are testing the United States,” he added. “Dictators like Vladimir Putin see through a lens of either strength or weakness, which is why I’ve long encouraged our senior military leaders to be ready and to respond with strength.”

For years, Russian has been conducting slow-boiling intelligence operations and exploratory military activity in the Arctic Circle, as tensions grow between it and its neighbors amid conflicts like its invasion of Ukraine.