MOSCOW, July 12 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Air Force said Thursday a group of four strategic missile aircraft achieved their objectives in a major Navy and Air Force exercise off Russia's Arctic coast.

"Four Tu-22M3 strategic missile aircraft made over 20 sorties, firing air-to-surface missiles and successfully hitting their targets in the Barents Sea," said Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, an Air Force spokesman.

He said the exercise involved only young pilots who had not earlier trained with live missiles.

The spokesman highlighted increasing NATO air surveillance activity in the area. "Right now, we see two to three Orions, or Atlantics, or RS-135s, every day where we have normally detected only one such [surveillance] plane," Drobyshevsky said.

The Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti that the exercise was ongoing, and said that information on Navy activities and broader results would be released soon.

The Tu-22M3 (NATO codename Backfire-C) is a strategic aircraft carrying one to three Kh-22M (NATO codename Kitchen) air-to-surface missiles with a range of up to 500 km (over 300 miles).