The deployment will include a fighter unit equivalent to a fighter division, together with ground personnel from Skaraborg Air Flotilla (F 7), operating from Keflavík Air Base. It will be the first time Skaraborg Air Flotilla contributes a fighter unit to a NATO operation and the first time the Swedish Air Force bases fighter aircraft in Iceland as part of NATO’s incident preparedness.
Since late 2025, Sweden has belonged to NATO’s Joint Force Command Norfolk operational area, which extends from North America to the borders of Finland and Norway with Russia. The area includes the Arctic and the strategically important transatlantic link between North America and Europe, where seven of the eight Arctic states are NATO members, including Sweden, while Russia is the eighth.
“The Arctic is part of our new area of operations in NATO and a strategically important area,” said Vice Admiral Ewa Skoog Haslum, Chief of Joint Operations. “It constitutes an important piece of the puzzle in the defence of the alliance and we know that Russia has ambitions in the Arctic, and the fact that we will now contribute to stability and security in the area shows that Sweden and the Armed Forces take responsibility for NATO’s joint air defence tasks.”
Sweden’s Chief of the Air Force, Major General Jonas Wikman, said experience from deployments in Poland last year demonstrated the service’s ability to operate under NATO command. “These missions showed that we have both the ability and the capacity to operate under NATO leadership and to contribute to NATO’s incident preparedness and airspace surveillance of allied airspace,” he said.
Although this will be the first NATO fighter deployment for Skaraborg Air Flotilla, the unit’s special aviation squadron was previously based in Iceland in 2024 to conduct airborne surveillance and air combat control under NATO leadership. “The combat aviation unit is well equipped for the task and, just like the other units of the Air Force, we have extensive experience in incident preparedness,” said Lieutenant Colonel Johan Legardt, contingent commander from Skaraborg Air Flotilla.
“We are also used to operating in winter climates and have the conditions to act on the different types of threats that we may face when protecting the territorial integrity of Iceland,” he said. Swedish fighter aircraft and command elements will be led by NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre in Uedem, Germany, as part of NATO’s long-standing air policing mission, which has been conducted since the early 1960s.
