USS Delaware Surfaces at Tromso as Four Russian Submarines Go to Sea

The US Navy does not usually announce the name and location of one of its advanced fast-attack submarines. On 1 September its Sixth Fleet press office published photographs of the Virginia class boat USS Delaware together with details of her arrival in northern Norway.

Going public with a port call of this kind sends a signal of awareness and presence, and the timing is what makes it legible. The summer of 2026 has been a busy period in the White Sea and Barents Sea, with one Russian submarine after another leaving the Severodvinsk yards for sea trials and patrols. The Virginia class is designed for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, strike, special operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, irregular warfare and the employment of uncrewed systems.

Four Russian boats have drawn NATO attention in recent weeks, two of them designed to carry weapons Moscow hopes could alter the strategic balance. Russia is investing heavily in a new generation of weapons intended to bypass and potentially nullify conventional defences, writes maritime analyst H I Sutton, who specialises in underwater warfare, submarines and maritime drones.

The first is Poseidon, a nuclear-powered underwater drone shaped like a giant torpedo, in development and testing in Russian Arctic waters since at least 2018. In mid-August the first of three submarines of a new class designed to carry it, Khabarovsk, put to sea from Severodvinsk for initial trials. She was not at sea for long before returning to the Sevmash yard, and is expected back in the White Sea for further trials shortly. NATO navies, particularly the US and UK, have a strong interest in learning what they can about the boat's navigation and noise-reduction characteristics. Khabarovsk is an all-in bet on the Poseidon weapon, Sutton said, adding that the longer-term impact of Poseidon has yet to be felt, that it has to be taken seriously, but that it has not become the pivot Russia might have hoped for.

The Poseidon test platform Belgorod, built on a modified Oscar-II hull, has been sailing in and out of Severodvinsk since 2021 and was photographed returning from the White Sea in August. A third boat, Perm, is Russia's newest Yasen-M class submarine and is capable of carrying the hypersonic Tsirkon missile. She was seen leaving Severodvinsk on 29 August in what is believed to be one of the final rounds of testing before entering service, having first put to sea in August 2025.

Geography shapes where the important testing happens. The White Sea suits initial navigation trials and most weapons testing takes place in the Barents Sea, but the Barents is too shallow for deep-diving work. Russian boats have traditionally dived deep in the waters between Svalbard and the North Cape, where the shelf gives way to the Norwegian Sea. That area, known to NATO as the Bear Gap, is where US, British and Norwegian submarines maintain surveillance, and USS Delaware was the second US boat to call at Tromso in under a week.

The fourth submarine of interest is Leopard, a modernised Akula class boat that left Severodvinsk on 8 June for trials ahead of an expected return to service later this year. First commissioned in December 1992, she has been so comprehensively upgraded at the Zvezdochka yard over 15 years that her capabilities are considered close to those of the fourth-generation Yasen-M boats, and she now carries modern Kalibr cruise missiles. Russian yard activity further east is described in the visit to Zvezda.