Thomas Nilsen

Widerøe aims to launch all-electric flights by 2026

Routes inside the Arctic Circle could be world's first to see zero emission passenger flights as regional airline Widerøe will be launch operator of the 11-seat P-Volt aircraft.
March 15, 2021

Valentina receives death threats after getting Stoltenberg award

The Murmansk LGBT activist says she takes the threats seriously.
March 11, 2021

Royal Navy to sail Barents Sea with multinational task force

NATO warships plan for a new voyage to waters important for Russia’s powerful Northern Fleet.
March 11, 2021

Indigenous peoples call on Nornickel's global partners to demand environmental action

Nornickel does not invite us to meetings, so now we urge international shareholders and buyers of their metals to take action, says Pavel Sulyandziga, President of the Batani Foundation, an exile group working for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Russian north.
March 11, 2021

U.S. B-1 bomber makes first landing inside Norway’s Arctic Circle

The short first-of-its-kind landing and refueling at Bodø Air Base was part of the training mission for the supersonic American bombers temporarily deployed to Norway.
March 09, 2021

Largest road project in northern Norway gets green light

Possible the worst part of European route E6 linking the north and south of Norway, with several long, dark and narrow tunnels, gets 9,6 billion kroner (€937 million) for upgrades and new shortcuts across fjords and through mountains.
March 04, 2021

China wanted to buy airport in Lapland for North Pole climate research flights

The Finnish Defence Forces spurned an offer by the Chinese Polar Research Institute to buy or rent Kemijärvi airport over security reasons.
March 04, 2021

Russia's most high-tech multi-purpose nuclear sub further delayed

The first upgraded cruise missile submarine of the Yasen-M class, the Kazan, will for unknown reasons have to sail another test-voyage before being handed over to the Northern Fleet.
March 03, 2021

Norway welcomes EU sanctions on Russia over Navalny's poisoning

"Russian authorities must stop the political motivated persecution of opposition leader Aleksey Navalny," says Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide.
March 03, 2021

Old copper plant closed for good

The last bottling of copper anodes at the smelter in Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula was made on March 1.
March 02, 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