Atle Staalesen

Northern Fleet landing ship is ready to start shuttle tourists from Crimea

The landing ship "Olenegorsky Gornyak" has been assigned to transportation of civilians and commercial goods to and from the occupied peninsula.
July 12, 2023

New submarine for Northern Fleet will be named "Mariupol"

Russia is about to start the building of six improved Kilo-class submarines for Arctic waters. They will all get their names from occupied Ukrainian cities.
July 10, 2023

Russia's giant self-propelled Navy crane is heading to Novaya Zemlya

The "PK-7500" has undergone mechanical repair and will now be applied for "technical underwater operations" in the far northern and heavily militarized archipelago.
July 07, 2023

The SOS Children's Village in Kandalaksha was built with Norwegian money. Now it houses kids deported from Ukraine

As social problems and domestic violence mounted in Russia, Norwegians donated millions to a shelter for Russian children in crisis. Twenty years later, the managers of the north Russian orphanage are accused of involvement in war crimes.
July 04, 2023

Swedish developer plans to build greenest iron mine in Kirkenes

Development company Grangex AO buys the Sydvaranger iron ore mine and says it aims for emission-free extraction.
June 29, 2023

The "Saam" FSU arrives in Ura Guba. It will open a new export scheme for Russian Arctic LNG

The 400 meter long floating storage unit has arrived to the far northern Russian bay where it will serve as reloading base for Novatek's liquified natural gas.
June 28, 2023

The Murmansk senator who threatens Finland gets medal from Putin

The ultra-conservative member of Russia's upper house of parliament has threatened with pointing Russian guns against Finland following its inclusion in NATO. This week, Konstantin Dolgov got the President's Medal for Service to the Motherland.
June 27, 2023

Wagner Group continues recruiting in Murmansk

Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin's attempted coup, his mercenary group has not halted its efforts to draft men in Russian regions.
June 26, 2023

Here lie 12,000 Nazi troops killed in Arctic battle. Now a memorial site devoted to Russian warriors killed in Ukraine is built alongside

Russian authorities build a so-called 'memorial garden' in Pechenga next to the cemetery that houses many of Hitler's troops killed in the 2WW attack on Murmansk.
June 26, 2023

Moscow says WWF threatens Russian development of Arctic

The Russian General Prosecutor argues that environmentalists undermine the country's expansionist plans in the Arctic and its development of the Northern Sea Route. The WWF is now declared an "undesired organisation."
June 23, 2023

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Atle is journalist and Publisher of the Independent Barents Observer.

In 2002, he founded the Barents Observer. He was editor until 2009 and later worked as journalist and project coordinator for several European cross-border cooperation projects. In late 2015, following a conflict over editorial rights, he re-established the Barents Observer as an independent and non-profit stock company along with the rest of the newspaper crew.  

Atle has a degree in Russian studies from the University of Oslo and studied journalism at the Moscow State University.

atle@thebarentsobserver.com
@atlestaalesen