Thomas Nilsen

12th Directorate beefs up support facilities at nuclear test site

Russian Defence Ministry’s 12th Directorate talks public about ongoing subcritical experiments with nuclear warheads material at Novaya Zemlya.
June 07, 2021

NATO ships with missile defence drill off northern Norway

Never before has such a large group of NATO warships exercised missile defence so far north.
June 02, 2021

Russia’s most advanced cruise missile nuclear sub arrives at Zapadnaya Litsa

At the end of the Cold War, these piers served the Soviet Union’s giant Typhoon submarines. Now, the new top-modern Yasen-M class get Nerpicha in Zapadnaya Litsa as home base.
June 02, 2021

Emergency cooperation gets priority amid military buildup and COVID crisis

One day after Norway scrambled a pair of F-16 fighter jets to meet Russian military planes outside its northern airspace, the two countries kick off a joint search-and-rescue drill in the maritime border areas.
June 02, 2021

Kola Peninsula to get radioactive waste from southern Russia

Three old contaminated steam generators from Balakovo nuclear power plant will be transported north to Saida Bay in what will be the first time radioactive waste are brought to the Russian north for treatment and storing.
May 31, 2021

World’s largest LNG construction yard taking shape in Belokamenka

Thousands of workers are commuting to Novatek’s giant construction site north of Murmansk where fabrication of the first train for the Arctic LNG 2 project is already in full swing.
May 30, 2021

Less aircraft in cross-border Arctic Challenge Exercise

The bi-annual fighter jets drill in the skies above northern Finland, Norway and Sweden, normally the largest in western Europe, is scaled down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
May 27, 2021

Covid-19 spikes among younger age groups in Kiruna

“We have some of the highest spread of infection in Europe,” says doctor Anders Nystedt with the regional authorities in Norrbotten.
May 27, 2021

Technologies to slow climate change could give 20% population growth in northern Sweden

Population could increase with as much as one-fifth as ten thousand new workplaces will be created in Västerbotten and Norrbotten counties over the next few years.
May 27, 2021

Battlecruiser leads Barents Sea exercise

Waters north of the Kola Peninsula is temporarily closed for civilian shipping as the Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered battlecruiser "Pyotr Velikiy" conducts weapons shootings together with other surface warships and submarines.
May 23, 2021

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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