Thomas Nilsen

Raja-Jooseppi closes

The Finnish Government on Tuesday decided to close the entire border with Russia for two weeks.
November 28, 2023

Operation “Tour de Helsinki” became a complete failure, war blogger claims

Migrants are now being sent back from the Murmansk region. Pressure on the Finnish border is less dramatic.
November 28, 2023

World’s northernmost research settlement gets mobile phone service

Norway's Telenor on Tuesday puts power to mobile phone coverage for Ny-Ålesund north on Svalbard.
November 27, 2023

Norway nixes border surveillance helicopter despite "weaponized migration" from Murmansk

Despite hundreds of migrants queuing up in the Murmansk region with a strong will to make it to Europe, Norwegian police authorities are unwilling to send a helicopter north for surveillance along the remote wilderness border in polar night and freezing cold.
November 24, 2023

Finland closes all but Raja-Jooseppi border crossing

All checkpoints to Russia, except the northernmost, will temporarily be closed from Thursday evening Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced at a press conference in Helsinki.
November 22, 2023

Finland asks EU border protection agency Frontex for help

Finland has asked for 60 servants to help safeguard the frontier as migrants continue to come from Russia.
November 22, 2023

Finland suspects Russia jams GPS signals vital for weather balloons

Tracking data for balloons released by the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Sodankylä have been lost several times, jeopardizing weather forecasts for northern regions.
November 22, 2023

FSB arranges transport to the border, motel in Kandalaksha claims

"Our services came and picked them up,” a receptionist with the motel in Kandalaksha said when called by the Barents Observer on Tuesday. A few hours later, 41 migrants crossed the border to Finish Lapland at Salla checkpoint.
November 21, 2023

Northern Fleet eyes six Yasen submarines as Russia approves largest ever defence spending

State-controlled news agency TASS reports the number of Yasen-class submarines to increase from nine to a total of 12, of which half will be based on the coast to the Barents Sea.
November 21, 2023

Russia sends migrants on bicycles across Arctic border with Finland in -22°C

Tensions are increasing as FSB again sends migrants across its northern checkpoint with Europe. A group of 35 asylum seekers came to Salla in Finnish Lapland on Monday. Norway says it is on alert.
November 20, 2023

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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