Thomas Nilsen

Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Barents Observer. 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 Russia and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and NGOs. He has also been a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security, environment and Russia’s repressive influence operations.

In 2017, FSB declared Thomas Nilsen persona non grata (PNG) and since 2019 the censorship agency Roscomnadzor has attempted to block the Barents Observer from the Russian internet.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

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