Thomas Nilsen

Air traffic down in Tromsø, up in Luleå, Oulu, Umeå and Bodø

Traffic slides in Tromsø, but all other airports in northern Scandinavia with more than one million annual passengers had a growth last year.
January 15, 2016

Russian car sales down 36%, but luxury cars still hot

This Arkhangelsk Bentley represents together with Porsche and Lexus the bright spot in Russia’s car market.
January 15, 2016

Anti-terror drill in-between nuclear submarines

Spetsnaz divers fighted underwater sabotage groups when the Russian Northern Fleet had its first 2016 exercise.
January 15, 2016

“This is not the place to drill for oil”

Regional politician Arne Liaklev doesn’t want the snowy, wind-swept coast of Finnmark to be the next playground for big oil. “Too risky for the Arctic environment,” he argues.
January 14, 2016

Russia will accept return of migrants in busses

Norwegian police confirms end of icy-cold cross-border bicycling at Storskog for migrants on return to Russia.
January 14, 2016

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

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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