ReDemption Part 5 - I Spitsbergen On Your Grave

Spitzbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago. It is part of Norway, but about 850 miles North of mainland Norway, along the Arctic Sea. It is generally considered to be an "open" territory, where people from other countries can live without being a Norwegian citizen. There are only three settlements on the island, Longyearbyen (which includes the only airport), Barentsburg (which is populated entirely by Russians), and Ny-Alesund which is just a place for a coal mining company to house their employees. There are no roads connecting these settlements, and nearly everyone that lives there is either a researcher or a coal miner. By treaty, any country can setup arctic research facilities there, but any military presence is prohibited. It would appear the Russians have decided to ignore the treaty and establish a large military presence on the island. Spitzbergen is a strategic location for the Russians who can leverage it monitor the approaches to the Barents Sea where their SSBNs patrol. NATO intends to counter this Russian violation of the Spitzbergen Treaty. Author's Note: When I began creating this scenario, this specific group of NATO ships was deployed together in the North Sea (shown in the picture) as part of joint training (Oct 2020). Also of note: The Northern Fleet really fell into disrepair from the early 90's, but around 2006, with very high oil prices, they found some money to invest. Most of that money went into their new sub classes (Yasen and Borei), and into upgrades to some older subs that were still in decent shape, all of which are in this scenario. The surface fleet has some nifty new small units, but the larger ships are all getting old, and difficult to maintain. For example, it is unlikely that Admiral Kuznetsov or the Admiral Ushakov would be able to get to sea by September 2021. Ushakov, in particular, will probably never get underway again. This is really a modern re-creation of a scenario I di