A successful multinational operation has tested the effectiveness of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) in ensuring regional security and freedom of movement across the Baltic Sea.
Although small in scale, Operation Baltic Express demonstrated how high value units could be protected while transiting the region. MV Hartland Point was escorted to Estonia, carrying military equipment for a major UK-Estonian defence exercise. In the event of Russian aggression against one of the Scandinavian or Eastern European JEF nations, vital maritime supply routes across the Baltic would be contested by Russian forces operating from Kaliningrad and St Petersburg.
The exercise was directed by Captain Dan Thomas, Royal Navy from JEF operational headquarters, Northwood (London). The mission involved close cooperation between air and naval forces from five nations, reflecting the increasing maturity of the JEF construct.
MV Hartland Point sailed from Marchwood military port near Southampton on 24th April and was met near the entrance to the Baltic Sea by the Danish frigate, HDMS Absalon and OPV, HDMS Freja, which escorted the Ro-Ro vessel through the Kattegat. Escort responsibilities were then handed to the Swedish corvette HMSWS Sundsvall as the vessel continued eastward. She arrived at the port of Paldiski on 27 April, after an 820nm journey.
The escort operation was supported by two RAF Typhoon aircraft from 140 Expeditionary Air Wing, currently deployed to Poland under NATO air policing arrangements. Radar tracking and operational support were also provided from national operations centres in Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Additional coordination was supplied by the German-led NATO headquarters Commander Task Force Baltic in Rostock.
Hartland Point carried over 3,500 tonnes of vehicles and equipment for the British Army’s 4th Light Brigade Combat Team, now deployed for a month-long joint training exercise with Estonian forces. This activity falls under the broader umbrella of ‘Razoredge’, a series of military and civil-military engagements conducted by JEF and NATO partners across the Baltic region between April and June.
The civilian-crewed, Point-class vessels routinely deliver UK military equipment around the world but consideration of how they (and their future replacements) can be better protected in an increasingly contested maritime environment will need greater effort and resources. Ideally the RN would also maintain a more regular presence in the Baltic Sea in support of the JEF nations and to bolster NATO’s eastern border but lack of warships means this will become increasingly rare.
Editor
I made the comment about two years ago that the Bristh Army’s senior logistics team had decided – on the specific advice from the RN – that the Baltic would simply be to dangerous for the Point Class to navigate through, in either a grey zone or a hot war.
That is why all recent big Army exercises to the Baltic have been deployed via Sennelarger in Germany (see various posts last year: one of which included some very nice “tanks on trains” trainspotting photos)
…….. the threat level is still very high in this very confined waterway…
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Calm down
Jason
Quite simply, you are greatly underestimating the sheer difficulties of any navy protecting any merchant shipping which is transiting through any narrow and confined waterway -.i.e pretecting it against a range of modern threats
i.e. that the forces of “good” have defeated the evil YASA rocket launchers?
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
YASA
Note 1
Note 2
Oh really ?
“I would describe YASA as terrorists…………however the media organisation which I (unwillingly) fund annually (i.e. the BBC), describes them as freedom fighters”
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000010137049/us-bombing-yemen-migrant-shelter.html
‘Videos and photos reveal remnants of at least three U.S.-made GBU-39 bombs at the site of an April 28 attack. The strike killed 68 African migrants, according to the Houthis, a militant group that controls northern Yemem”
.And attacking civilian targets is what terrorist do , right
The USN has been conducting massive strikes for weeks from the two carrier groups they have in the area.
The RAF even got its beak wet ( yes its allegorical month)
“The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fighter jets, working with the US, hit a “cluster of buildings” used by the Houthis to manufacture attack drones.” 4 days ago.
The odds are almost certain CSG25 and the F35B will be replicating the very first RN air attacks from the sea along the Red Sea Coast around 1915 ( with ship launched sea planes from HMS Raven and HMS Anne) against Ottoman forces
Wikipedia image of HMS Anne with seaplanes on deck
Sadly BBC”NEWS” is very much seen as a loose cannon in the BBC organisation!
The 40mm Bofor’s on a pallet would work pretty effectively in this instance I would think.
Deepsixteen
However, there is only one very-slight problem which I can foresee going forward:
….is an absolutely brilliant idea – however is still a figment of the imagination…
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/05/russian-navys-baltic-fleet-holds-safety-of-navigation-exercise/
The Russian navy’s baltic fleet did the same exercise the day before.
Good coordination.
Russia can do whatever it likes. The fact remains nothing gets through the Danish straights if Denmark, Norway & Sweden deem otherwise. Centuries old agreements only last till someone decides otherwise. Baltic Sea is a NATO lake. Russia knows it. NATO knows it. Sweden & Poland can sink anything within the Baltic Sea if they have a mind to. So can Russia to a more limited extent while ever it controls Kalingrad. But Russia is well aware that Kalingrad is undefendable. At that point, Russia is limited to the Eastern Baltic with nowhere to manoeuvre naval wise. Land wise is another matter. The Baltic states are exclusively in the Eastern Baltic. I have to agree with Peter here, no-one is putting RFA type ships into the Eastern Baltic in a hot war.
DJ
“Nothing gets through the straights” out of Baltic. That is “correct”.😏
But there are not only vessels playing the game. R….n aircrafts could be harmful. And drones, and cruises missiles, and ballistic missiles… And even submarines, may be? (a threat ignored in Red Sea). Or simply mines?
So the “OTAN lake” isn’t so obvious.
It most certainly won’t be submarines… The Kattegat is far too shallow – I have been a submariner in those waters
Joseph
What about the rest of the Baltic? (ie east of the Kattegut)
History tells us that the Baltic was a very good hunting ground for both Russian and German submarines in 1943-45
Indeed, five of the worlds top-ten “most severe” merchant ship losses (measured in terms of “most casualties per ship”) occurred in the Baltic
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Undefendable or indefensible…. I do like a play on words… Russian naval power is next to nonexistent… Much like it’s land and air force.
Joseph
One only has to look a what has happened in the Black Sea over the past three years to see that denial of these confined sea areas is very easy
Simple fact of the matter that very liitle merchant shipping (or indeed naval shipping) is now using the “middle part”” of the Black Sea
This one, Al Jezza, from two yaers ago, sums up the issues…
Bing Videos
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And the Baltic is far more constrained for space than the Black Sea
Hence my surprise, in my first post, that the RN was even attempting to tak apoint into the Baltic..
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
The Black sea comment is interesting. Commercial ships stayway because its a war zone ( insurance ?) and or sanctions on Russia
That is a form of ‘denial’ I suppose.
There’s a big difference between Russian surface fleet and sub-service fleet, Russian subs are among the most powerful in the world and should not be so quickly dismissed!
Undersea connections were cut in the baltic some months back,its not just military vessels baltic countries have to watch…
Is it possible for the Russians to cut the baltic from the North sea?.
“Russia can do whatever it likes” as NATO is dead as proven in Ukraine.
Russia’s “non-existent” Baltic fleet completed drills with 11 warships.