Thomas Nilsen

Bus with returned asylum seekers on the road towards Murmansk

January 19, 2016

Sharp increase in Barents Sea petroleum shipments

Russia ships out more oil than ever through its Arctic ports. Total transport was up 92 percent last year.
January 19, 2016

Migrants on return to Russia can get $100 in travel support

The travel cash is enough to cover one-way ticket from Murmansk to Moscow.
January 18, 2016

Man found dead on Arctic migrant route after waiting in a car for five days in temperatures below minus 30

The 33-years old might have frozen to death near the checkpoint where he had been waiting for five days to get to the Finnish border.
January 18, 2016

Selfie from Pechenga said to affirm Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine

Blog post with extensive pictures investigation claims 200th Independent Motorized Infantry Brigade took part in Eastern Ukraine war.
January 17, 2016

Air traffic down in Tromsø, up in Luleå, Oulu, Umeå and Bodø

Traffic slides in Tromsø, but all other airports in northern Scandinavia with more than one million annual passengers had a growth last year.
January 15, 2016

Russian car sales down 36%, but luxury cars still hot

This Arkhangelsk Bentley represents together with Porsche and Lexus the bright spot in Russia’s car market.
January 15, 2016

Anti-terror drill in-between nuclear submarines

Spetsnaz divers fighted underwater sabotage groups when the Russian Northern Fleet had its first 2016 exercise.
January 15, 2016

“This is not the place to drill for oil”

Regional politician Arne Liaklev doesn’t want the snowy, wind-swept coast of Finnmark to be the next playground for big oil. “Too risky for the Arctic environment,” he argues.
January 14, 2016

Russia will accept return of migrants in busses

Norwegian police confirms end of icy-cold cross-border bicycling at Storskog for migrants on return to Russia.
January 14, 2016

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Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Independent Barents Observer with its news desk located in Kirkenes, northern Norway. He has a long experience in media cooperation across the borders in the high north of Europe, both as radio- and newspaper reporter all the way back to the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Nilsen has been editor of Barents Observer since 2009.

He was Deputy Head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat from 2004-2009. Until 2003, he worked 12 years for the Bellona Foundation’s Russian study group, focusing on nuclear safety issues and general environmental challenges in northern areas and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and organizations. He is also a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security issues, environmental and socio-economic development.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Mobile: +47-90573143

thomas@thebarentsobserver.com
@nilsen.thomas