Atle Staalesen

From Pechenga to occupied Ukraine. Political leader from North Russian border region is sent on mission to invaded town

Lyubov Cherepanova is member of the Murmansk regional Duma and former leader of the Pechenga municipality. She is one of several leading politicians from the north Russian region that is commissioned to the occupied Ukrainian town of Primorsk.
January 04, 2024

Murmansk sends deadly new year greeting to Kyiv

A big number of bombers again took off from the Olenya air base in the Kola Peninsula to fire missiles on civilian targets in Ukraine.
January 02, 2024

Bombers from Kola Peninsula take center stage in terror bombing of Ukraine

A group of nine Tu-95MS strategic bombers early Friday morning took off from the Olenya air base and few hours later fired its deadly load on civilian targets across Ukraine.
December 29, 2023

A nuclear-powered ship in Murmansk started to burn. Only few locals got to know about the serious incident

The fire brigade in Murmansk quickly extinguished the blaze that broke out on the 24th of December in a cabin onboard nuclear-powered container ship Sevmorput. State shipowner Rosatom never issued any information about the dramatic situation.
December 28, 2023

Russia's brand new warship heads to Arctic base

Frigate Admiral Golovko is the most modern surface ship in the Russian Navy. It will serve in the Northern Fleet.
December 28, 2023

Icy welcome for Aleksei Navalny in the Arctic "hell" of Kharp

"I would not want anyone to sit in that jail," a former inmate says of the far northern penal colony that now houses Russia's leading opposition politician.
December 27, 2023

Message to market: Russian Arctic LNG will not be delivered

Natural gas company Novatek has reportedly informed clients that it will not be able to deliver LNG from its new Arctic project as promised.
December 22, 2023

Russian military rocket created spectacular light show over Svalbard

The sky over the Norwegian Arctic archipelago was lit up by the military rocket that was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
December 22, 2023

Russia launched military rocket. It could be seen over northern Norway

A rocket carrying a space installation for the Russian Ministry of Defence was Thursday morning launched from the north Russian Plesetsk Space Center. It could be seen over the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes.
December 21, 2023

Who is 'Hero of Russia' Yevgeny Supakov?

I love to ride snowmobile, the 25 year old soldier from the remote Arctic region of Tazov writes on his social media profile. Yevgeny Supakov is one of several hundred men from far northern Russian villages fighting in Ukraine. This week, he was declared 'Hero of Russia' by Vladimir Putin.
December 20, 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