Randy Boswell – U.S. officials expressed concern Tuesday about the presence of two nuclear-powered Russian submarines off the U.S. east coast — just weeks after two Russian subs cracked through the ice near the North Pole and successfully test-fired two long-range missiles.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the submarines along the U.S. shore were involved in the mid-July exercise near the pole, but Russia’s embassy in Ottawa told Canwest News Service this week that the missile tests have “nothing to do with” asserting control over the disputed central Arctic Ocean.

And the Canadian government — despite Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s recent grumblings about a planned Russian parachute mission to the North Pole next spring — downplayed the Russian tests, too, saying the Arctic missile firings were “monitored by NORAD” and were “not considered a threat to Canada.”

The activities of Russian military submarines have caught the attention this week of U.S. defence officials and security analysts, who first voiced concerns to the New York Times about the unusual presence of two Russian subs in waters off the U.S. east coast.

“Any time the Russian Navy does something so out of the ordinary, it is cause for worry,” an unnamed U.S. Defense Department official told the newspaper.

The comments prompted a flurry of news coverage late Tuesday about the submarines and other recent demonstrations of Russia’s renewed military presence internationally.

The July 13-14 missile tests in Arctic waters were confirmed this week by a spokesman with the Russian embassy in Ottawa.

In an e-mail to Canwest News Service, Sergey Khudyakov said the tests were conducted with “strict respect” to protocols governing such military operations by members of the global “missile club” of nations.

“The targets of those launches were on the Russian soil, and not in the Arctic,” he added.

Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti has published details about the mid-July test by submarines “located under ice floe near the North Pole.”

Two Sineva missiles, each capable of carrying several nuclear warheads and striking targets thousands of kilometres away, reached their intended destinations at weapons-testing sites on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east and along the White Sea near Russia’s eastern border with Finland, RIA Novosti reported.

Khudyakov noted that seabed boundaries now being drawn in the Arctic under a UN treaty have “yet to be prepared within the framework of international law.”

He said Russia “would welcome joint efforts of legal experts of our two countries in this process,” and emphasized: “The (missile) tests have nothing to do with this process.”

Asked about Canada’s reaction to the Arctic missile tests, a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told Canwest News Service: “Through NORAD, Canada and the U.S. monitor all missile launches globally and assess threats to North America. This missile launch, which occurred in international waters, was monitored by NORAD and was not considered a threat to Canada.”

The Arctic missile launches occurred about two weeks before news emerged last week of the planned Russian paratrooper drop, described by Russia as a “solely symbolic” celebration of a Cold War feat by two Soviet scientists 60 years ago.

MacKay, however, reacted sharply to the proposed anniversary tribute, to be conducted next April in a mission led by Artur Chilingarov — the Russian politician and polar scientist who often serves as Moscow’s pointman on Arctic issues.

MacKay suggested Canada would scramble fighter jets to “meet” any Russian aircraft “approaching” Canada’s airspace.

“We’re going to protect our sovereign territory,” he said Friday in Halifax.

“We’re always going to meet any challenge to that territorial sovereignty,” MacKay added, “and I can assure you any country that is approaching Canadian airspace, approaching Canadian territory, will be met by Canadians.”

Earlier this week, Khudyakov responded to MacKay’s comments, expressing confusion about Canada’s concerns over the ceremonial parachute jump.

Noting that the North Pole lies below “international airspace” and is “far from territorial waters of any state,” Khudyakov stated: “It is not quite clear why the plans to celebrate the anniversary could cause any concerns at all.”

Britain may need to send more troops to Afghanistan despite the success of Operation Panther’s Claw, military chiefs admit. Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of Task Force Helmand, said that the existing troops could not be expected to mount further significant operations without reinforcements.

The scale of the challenge was revealed yesterday as it emerged that British soldiers have faced nearly 1,000 roadside bombs in the past three months. Although 3,000 troops managed to drive out about 500 Taleban during the five-week offensive, they will be fully deployed holding an area in Helmand province about the size of the Isle of Wight, their commanding officer admitted.

The warning came as the Ministry of Defence prepared today to launch a legal action against two former soldiers to reduce compensation payments for injuries.  Light Dragoon Anthony Duncan, who walks with crutches after being shot while on patrol in Iraq, was originally awarded £9,250, which was increased to £46,000 by an appeal tribunal. Royal Marine Matthew McWilliams fractured his thigh in a military exercise and was awarded £8,250, increased to £28,750 on appeal.

The High Court upheld the higher awards, ruling that the MoD’s argument that there should be a distinction between the original injury and later complications was absurd. Now, however, the MoD is taking the case to the Court of Appeal, where lawyers are expected to claim the pair should be compensated only for the initial injuries and not subsequent health problems.

Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Church, of the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association, described the court case as “very unfortunate” at a time when British soldiers were sustaining more deaths and injuries than at any time since the 2001 invasion. “This case is obviously appalling timing for the Ministry of Defence. This has been in the wings for some time,” Colonel Church said.

Simon Weston OBE, a former Welsh Guardsman who suffered serious burns during the Falklands War, branded the court bid “car-crash politics”. He said: “The system is incredibly flawed. If you get shot in the leg, and you get a subsequent infection which causes you to lose the leg, do you lose compensation for the loss of the leg or do you only get it for the gunshot which would probably be only a few thousand pounds?”

The MoD announced yesterday that two more soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan. Brigadier Radford said that although 23 soldiers had died since the operation began on June 19, only 10 were a direct result of the offensive in central Helmand.

The bodies of four of the dead will return to British soil today. Rifleman Aminiasi Toge, 26, Corporal Joseph Etchells, 22, Captain Daniel Shepherd, 28 and Guardsman Christopher King, 20, will be repatriated at RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, shortly after 11am.

As has become tradition, coffins carrying their bodies will pass through the nearby town of Wootton Bassett, pausing at the war memorial, before heading on to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where post-mortem examinations will be carried out. Hundreds of British Legion veterans, shopkeepers and residents are expected to line the streets to pay their respects as the cortege passes through.

The four died in separate incidents in Helmand province, most involving roadside bombs. Details emerged yesterday of the “industrial” scale of the Taleban’s production of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Brigadier Radford, speaking by video link from his headquarters at Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, said that troops had encountered 153 IEDs encountered during Panther’s Claw – and 994 since April. The release of details of Panther’s Claw gave Gordon Brown an opportunity to wrest back the political initiative over Afghanistan after the controversy over troop levels and helicopters.

Yesterday he hailed the offensive as an “heroic” military success, saying it had made Britain safer and pushed back the Taleban. David Miliband stole some of Mr Brown’s thunder, however, taking Downing Street by surprise with a call for renewed efforts to engage the Taleban politically. The Foreign Secretary used a speech to Nato leaders in Brussels to deliver an uncompromising message aimed at President Karzai of Afghanistan, calling for a programme of “reintegration and reconciliation” for moderate Taleban.

He rejected talks with insurgents who were fighting British troops in Helmand, telling Channel 4 News: “If they [the Taleban] carry on trying to kill British troops, then of course we can’t reconcile them into the system, because they will be making a choice of violence.”

The two deaths announced yesterday take the total losses to 191 since 2001. Neither was linked to Panther’s Claw. A soldier from The Light Dragoons was killed by an explosion while he was on a vehicle patrol in Lashkar Gah. A soldier from the 5th Regiment Royal Artillery was killed by an explosion during a foot patrol in Sangin, in northern Helmand.