Alert in the Nordic countries due to the Kremlin’s maneuvers in the region. Norway, in the crosshairs of Russian intelligence. Russia has long claimed much of the Arctic sector. However, soldiers deployed in the north have been sent to fight in Ukraine. The impact of the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO.
Moscow () – The conflict in Ukraine is having consequences with unpredictable results even beyond the Arctic Circle, an area of strategic interest for Russia. Norway is concerned about the course of events and puts its Armed Forces on high alert. Not only the aggression in Ukraine makes the northernmost inhabitants of Europe react, but also the great and unpredictable activism of Russian citizens inside the country. Currently all kinds of drones are seen flying over the territory, and some Russians have already been detained and subjected to interrogations to clarify the situation.
The Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, warns: “in Europe, the security situation is the most problematic in the last decade”. Norway does not believe that the Russians intend to invade or engage it in military operations with neighboring Scandinavian and Baltic countries. However, in NATO, whose secretary is the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, the focus is on the big picture, which extends to the Arctic.
Oslo Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram explained that the high alert regime implies less standard training for the military in order to increase surveillance and patrol operations, especially on the borders with Russia -land and sea- in the extreme north of the country. In that area, security forces blocked drones launched by Andrej Jakunin, 47, the son of former Russian railways president Vladimir Jakunin, one of Putin’s closest oligarchs.
Also worrying are the initiatives of several Russian Orthodox priests who minister to their compatriots in Norway: they have bought land and set up centers and chapels for no reason in different areas, even far from their own parishes. The most enigmatic story is that of the “fake Brazilian”: a person claiming to be José Assis Jammaria, with a Brazilian passport, an auxiliary worker at the University of Tromsø, where he was also involved in the study of hybrid threats. Later it became clear that he was actually a Russian citizen Mikhail Mikušin, and that he would be a Kremlin military espionage agent.
All these and other situations cause great tension in Norwegian society, at a time of great strategic and political changes in the Arctic area after the war in Ukraine. The mysterious explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, of which Russia and the West accuse each other, have been accompanied by swarms of drones flying over the area of the Norwegian gas fields in the North Sea, one of the main objectives to defend.
According to Pavel Baev, a Russian expert at the Norwegian institute for international analysis Prio, “Russia has been organizing its military presence in the Arctic for some time.” The analyst notes that Moscow “has created ‘arctic brigades’ and acquired special technologies, which are triumphantly displayed at parades on Red Square during patriotic holidays, where soldiers parade in arctic camouflage.” He points out that Putin has also rebuilt Soviet bases in the region, in addition to opening new ones. Now Russian generals are deploying Arctic brigades to Ukraine, and Moscow’s presence in the north has been weakened, including the Northern Fleet, which has been diverted to the Black Sea.
For all these reasons, NATO exercises in the Arctic are a source of concern for the Kremlin, which tries to compensate with espionage and sabotage actions in Norway, but also in other countries such as Denmark. The entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO – which already seems like a decision made – greatly changes the strategic situation of the entire Nordic area, since it brings together in the Atlantic Alliance two areas that Russia has always considered separate: Scandinavia and the Baltic. A scenario apparently far from the main objectives of the current deployments, but in reality of great interest to many countries, including China, Russia’s main partner in the Arctic.
