Thomas Nilsen

Refugees with children walking towards Finnish border in extreme frost

Temperatures were under minus 30 degree Celsius when the group started to walk from Kandalaksha towards Salla.
January 13, 2016

Man suspected of selling military airfield, piece by piece

Severomorsk law enforcement officials are still searching for two third of the stolen runway plates.
January 13, 2016

Big Mac Index lists Russia at bottom. That is not necessarily bad news

January 13, 2016

“Asylum stream directed by crime elements"

Lapland Border Guard projects 7,500 asylum seekers or more this year as Finland is now the most attractive destination for asylum seekers among countries bordering Russia to the west.
January 12, 2016

Border traffic drops more to Finland than to Norway

Visa-freedom for residents in Norwegian-Russian border areas compensates for the general sharp drop in border-crossings from Russia’s northwestern regions.
January 11, 2016

Asylum seekers replace bicycles with old Ladas

Dozens of rusty clapped-out Russian cars are piling up at Finland’s Salla border after migrants started to purchase Volgas and Ladas on their route from Russia to Schengen Europe.
January 11, 2016

2017 to be Putin’s Year of Ecology

By Presidential decree the official order is given to attract public attention to environmental issues next year.
January 08, 2016

Post plane en route to Tromsø crashes in Sweden

Captain and First Officer missing: Crash site located near the Norwegian border by the lake Akkajaure.
January 08, 2016

Petroleum scientists blame reindeer for mysterious tundra sinkholes

Russia’s important natural gas industry on the Yamal Peninsula is threatened by suddenly appearing huge sinkholes. Are the grazing reindeers of the Nenets people to blame?
January 05, 2016

Nuclear powered speed record on Arctic Route

Icebreaker “Vaigach” sailed the entire Northern Sea Route in just 7,5 days.
January 05, 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