At least six vessels to get new gas-powered engines supported by batteries. Environmentalists call for other Arctic cruise-liner to follow.
Criminal cases are initiated after FSB and Rosgvardia raided six addresses in the closed navy town of Polyarny.
Two men with close ties to the Ministry of Defence are charged with theft of almost 3 billion rubles in connection with the building of new Arctic Navy bases.
Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor threatens the world’s leading technology and social media services.
Spilled oil from one of Lukoil’s local pipelines is polluting the river of Maly Voivozh.
Civil society and Media
Supporters fear for Oleg Sentsov’s life as his health condition is deteriorating.
I never lost the spirit, says the civil rights defender. This weekend, he was released after more than a year in jail.
Barents Media Freedom 2017
"Working as a journalist in the borderland to Russia has always been refreshingly thrilling. But never easy. And over the last years, it has become outright difficult." This report from the Barents Observer gives a picture of ruling media trends and developments in the Barents Region.
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Reactor No. 1 at Kola nuclear power plant was originally designed to work for 30 years, but will be 60.
Pilots from the Russian Air Force and Northern Fleet together hunted down and destroyed simulated violators of Russian Arctic airspace.
Been there, seen that: 600 tourists pay up to $43,000 each to crush through the ice towards the top of the world before it melts away.
Communication and technology regulator Roskomnadzor has started to block access to Telegram for about ten million Russians.
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Arctic
Longread
It will be built by Italians and produce enough electricity for a quarter of the Murmansk population. But the Russian Arctic region might not really need it.
Despite growing tensions between Russia and NATO in Eastern and Northern Europe, the eight Arctic nations are pushing ahead with an ambitious program to deepen the collaboration of their coast guards in the north.
Autonomous vessels in convoys following nuclear powered icebreakers will improve efficiency of shipping along the Northern Sea Route, a study by Russian nuclear researchers says.
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In the course of the year, more than 40 thousand tons of construction materials are planned shipped to the remote and ice-covered Russian coast.
Two of the planned exploration wells are located near Norway’s maritime border to Russia, but Statoil can’t say if both will be drilled this year or next.
Special forces from Chechnya constituted a key part of the troops which conducted combat training at Franz Josef Land.
The world’s biggest floating installation of its kind is being tugged to the Aasta Hansteen field.
The wind power station in the northern Komi town of Vorkuta consisted of six turbines and ended its days in 2006.
Smoke development from the fire on Friday morning.
While the Finnish Border Guard has launched serious investigation, other Finns make social media jokes suggesting unconditionally surrender to get access to Norway’s oil money and know-how on asthma medication.
New Russian railway lines leading to the Arctic Ocean will heavily depend on private investments.
PHOTOS
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Photo: Atle Staalesen
Some 450 people took part in the support rally for Frode Berg on the central square in Kirkenes. Click on photo to see more. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
"Help Frode home!" reads the slogans. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
The support rally made a short stop outside Russia's Consulate General in Kirkenes with the slogan "Help Frode home!" Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Rally in support of Frode Berg. The poster reads "Help Frode Home! Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Rune Rafaelsen is Mayor of Kirkenes. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Some 450 people participated in the rally. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
A Norwegian and a Russian border pole side-by-side in the pedestrian street in Kirkenes. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
"Help Frode Home! Support the people-to-people cooperation," reads the poster. Russia's Consulate General in the background. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Bust of Lenin in the military ghost town of Korzunova on the Kola Peninsula. Click on the image for more photos. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
This newly white painted bust of Lenin is placed near the smelter in Nikel on the Kola Peninsula.
Maybe this Lenin statue in Arkhangelsk is the largest in the Barents Region? You find it on the central square with the city administration in the back and the regional parliament across the street. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
In Salekhard, the capital of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Lenin monument stands in front of the administration building. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin in front of the Regional Duma in Arkhangelsk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
1st of May rally in Murmansk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin in front of the Cultural Palace in Nikel on the Kola Peninsula. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
The world's first civilian nuclear powered vessel is named after Lenin and is today moored alongside the pier in the central harbor of Murmansk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin in Norilsk on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin in Petrozavodsk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin monument in the capital of Karelia, Petrozavodsk.
Lenin monument alongside the Lenin Prospekt in Murmansk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Lenin monument on the square in Kargopol, Arkhangelsk Oblast. Photo: Bjørn Frantzen
Lenin on the wall on board the Soviet Union's very first nuclear powered icebreaker named after the man himself "Lenin". Photo: Atle Staalesen
Lenin bust in Barentsburg, the Russian settlement on Svalbard. Photo: Nicole Merten
Lenin(s) on the bookshelf in Nesseby, Norway. Photo: Thorbjørn Bjørkli
Lenin(s) on the wallshelf in Nesseby, Norway. Photo: Thorbjørn Bjørkli
Nordavia launches the first direct flight between the Russian north and the Norwegian capital.
Amidst recent plans to explore a proposed Arctic Railway that would run from Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland to the Norwegian port of Kirkenes, Finnish Transport Minister Anne Berner’s plans have been called into question by the National Emergency Supply Agency (NESA).
Longread
It will be built by Italians and produce enough electricity for a quarter of the Murmansk population. But the Russian Arctic region might not really need it.
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov’s «Flying Squad» has arrived to Murmansk, ready for joint exercises with other services in the Arctic.
New fields and infrastructure allows the country to boost production and exports from the region.
The historian and civil rights defender is acquitted on allegations of child pornography.
The rig «Nanhai VIII» drilled in the Kara Sea and revealed one of Russia’s biggest natural gas fields.
It will boost out-shipments through the Kola Bay and be a key component in a new grand infrastructure plan.
Autonomous vessels in convoys following nuclear powered icebreakers will improve efficiency of shipping along the Northern Sea Route, a study by Russian nuclear researchers says.
Russia’s 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade exercises winter warfare with drones and new weapons systems.
Boliden will run first test-route this fall in a project with potential to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from mining.
Plans to put the nuclear-powered icebreaker «Arktika» on display as museum will likely be cancelled.
The remote river delta could ultimately become site for one of the biggest oil terminals in the Russian Arctic.
After more than 20 years abroad, the «Valentin Shashin» will again have Murmansk as its home port.
Longread
Life of the Center for Neighbor Assistance on the border of Russia and Finland
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Demark are among the 23 countries Russia on Friday told it is expelling diplomats in a tit-for-tat move.
Barents Must-Reads
Olenya Bay on the coast of the Barents Sea is home to a fleet of nuclear powered spy submarines and surface vessels which NATO now says are dramatically stepping up activities around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic.
Longread
These people do not make it to the cocktail receptions of regional officials, neither into the meeting agenda of government ministers or priority points of Barents action programs. Civil society is in danger of being sidelined in regional cross-border cooperation.
Longread
A photo report from Usinsk, its people and its oil
How green are the batteries?
Nornickel eyes sharp increase in demand for nickel and copper as tens of millions of electric cars hit the roads over the next few years.
Russia rearms strategic forces:
The reverse gear seems to hang up for continuing disarmament of nuclear weapons in the Arctic. Barents Observer has made a comprehensive review of satellite images from naval base-level storage facilities that confirms heavy construction works.
Company VostokCoal has backing from the highest political level for its extraction and export of 30 million tons of coal per year from Taybass, the coal basin on the northern tip of great Taymyr peninsula.