NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: The soldier stands guard in front of the «USS George H. W. Bush» - an aircraft carrier optimized for North Atlantic and Arctic missions. Considered one of the most powerful ships in the world, the carrier will help bolster NATO's northern flank and secure lines of communications.
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: Espen Sollid (21) and Lars Johansen (23) are training to become ‘eyes and ears’ for NATO on board Norway’s new fleet of P-8 Poseidon. Flying out of Evenes airbase inside the Arctic Circle, the aircraft will be the primary tool for keeping track of the Northern Fleet’s new generation multi-purpose submarines prowling in waters from the Kola Peninsula towards the depths of the North Atlantic.
"We proposed to invite the Ambassador in solidarity with the suffering people of Ukraine, but the Mayor said no," says Harald Sunde, Municipal Councilman in Kirkenes on Norway’s border with Russia.
Strong-worded letter expresses a real fear of Russians being deprived of basic civil rights and that the country will enter a long period of isolation behind a new Iron Curtain.
"The Norwegian Consulate in Murmansk will continue to work for mutual cooperation, but the circumstances will decide details and outcome of those efforts," says Hanne Meldgaard.
A community of students, graduates, teachers and other employees of Novosibirsk State University has published a sensational statement calling for the Russian army to immediately stop the war and leave Ukraine.
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.