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Midsummer at Svalbard

16 October 2024 - 14:00

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Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

The front of the tidewater glacier in Magdalenefjorden, north on Spitsbergen, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Smeerenburgfjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Walros on the beach in Smeerenburg, Amsterdam Island, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Glacier in the inner part of Magdalenefjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Arctic Ocean north of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Smeerenburgfjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Arctic fox. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Nordenskiöld Glacier, Billefjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Walros, Amsterdam Island, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

The Governor's cabin at Gravneset, Magdalenefjorden, is one of the northernmost buildings in the world. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

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Norway owns a part of Putin's propaganda and censorship machineAndøya, Bardufoss and Setermoen in northern Norway are among the eight new dedicated areas where the United States military could be allowed to build infrastructure to strengthen defense cooperation with the Nordics. The value of the shares owned by the Norwegian Oil Fund has dwindled to less than 5 percent of their former level. But the Norwegians still own shares in 52 Russian companies, among them several leading tech and communications companies. Storskog has become the closest checkpoint for travelers between northern Finland and Russia, but January saw a further drop in crossings by 22 percent compared with December. The 61st Naval Infantry Brigade is believed to have several hundred warriors fighting in Ukraine. Among them is now also the brigade’s priest, Sergei Cherichenko. The diesel-engined Kronshtadt is designed for destruction of enemy ships and infrastructure, and is likely to serve in the Northern Fleet. The ruler in Minsk intends to make the north Russian ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk a part of his union state deal with Moscow.Mikhail Avdonin from Arkhangelsk in northern Russia was detained by FSB officers in September 2023. Investigators claim he sneaked into a military unit to set fire to military facilities on instructions from the Freedom of Russia Legion. His parents say that after Mikhail’s arrest the young man was beaten and charged with “attempted terrorist attack” and “preparation for treason”. The Barents Observer spoke with the young man’s parents and also learned about possible provocation by the FSB. Что нового на севере? Послушайте все наши новости за прошлую неделю в одном подкасте.The structure established by Josef Stalin to fight “anti-Soviet elements” is today praised by the security agencies in the heavily militarised Murmansk region. Strong forces in Russia call for the resurrection of the notorious service across the whole country.

Год молодежи в Архангельске

Border Travels, China Shipping, Submarine Transfer. Barents Observer brings you the latest from the North. How a small Russian bus in the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes has become the last hope for people from all over Europe. The ships are the biggest of their kind that ever have sailed on the Northern Sea Route. The Severny Polyus is on its way from Murmansk to the East Siberian Sea from where it will drift with the sea-ice across the top of the world. As part of exercise Ocean-2024, one multi-purpose submarine and one ballistic missile submarine sailed under the Arctic ice-cap from the Barents Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The organization has been helping to provide expensive health care in Russia for more than 30 years. The radioactivity was measured in filters at Viksjøfjell and Svanhovd in the second week of September, but the origin is still unknown. “I am very happy that Sweden has today announced its ambition to assume the framework nation role in the enhanced forward presence to be established in Finland,” says Finland’s Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen.OPINION EDITORIAL: Multiple low-flying Ukrainian drones loaded with explosives heading towards Olenya airfield have over the week caused fear among people in Murmansk region. Russia has itself to thank for bringing act of war inside the Arctic Circle for the first time since Second War II. A cable that was connected to a jammer at the North Norwegian island has been cut and destroyed. Что нового на севере? Послушайте все наши новости за прошлую неделю в одном подкасте.

"Darkness is not forever," says well-known lawyer in exile Ivan Pavlov.Ivan Pavlov believes in a new and beautiful Russia and says he will be “on the first flight home” as soon as the Putin regime falls. “We are optimists. Putin is not forever,” the well-known human rights lawyer in exile says. The court ordered repeat election of the the 2023 Sámi Parliament started. Five out of the 36 candidates running for parliament did not participate in the 2023 elections.Norway has set June 10th as deadline to tear down the giant orthodox cross illegally erected last August in the Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden.The northern explorer-turned-sanctioned-lawmaker is likely most famous for his 2007 North Pole dive to 4,200 meters below the Arctic Ocean where he planted the Russian flag. Russia’s Justice Ministry on Friday added the Put’ Domoi (The Way Home), a group consisting of wives, mothers and sisters of soldiers, to the list of so-called ‘foreign agents’.Decision-makers need to develop more robust policies to address the potential impacts of climate tipping points that threaten to destabilize the climate system, a new policy brief out of Finland says. OpEd: There are many casualties of the invasion of Ukraine that will haunt Russia for generations to come. Far from the battlefields, in the country’s northwest loom radioactive threats that remain only half cleaned up and largely ignored.Что нового на севере? Послушайте все наши новости за прошлую неделю в одном подкасте

American B-52 first time ever over Finnish LaplandA pair of B-52 strategic bombers followed by tankers made a first-ever flight in the skies above Lapland north of Saariselkä Sunday morning. We spoke to the American journalist Samantha Berkhead, the editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times English language service after her news outlet was outlawed as “undesirable” in Russia. Longyearbyen airport had an average temperature of 6.1°C, which is 2.5°C above normal. This is the warmest June recorded at the station.For the first time since 2017 no larger warships will participate in Russia’s Main naval parade in the waters outside St. Petersburg. “Security reasons,” says Rear Admiral.Authorities search for those responsible for the incident.Sámi artist and activist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen was one of the artists performing at the Riddu Riđđu festival in Manndalen in northern Norway, which took place July 10-13. The Barents Observer met with her during the festival to talk about what fuels her activism and the key issues she sees facing the Sámi People right now.Barents Observer journalist Olesia Krivtsova, who fled prosecution in Arkhangelsk last year, is one of several exile-Russians recently to discover that the repressive authorities have cancelled their main ID document.

The latest news headlines from the North, Sunday June 16“The idea of creating an international centre is actively discussed, it has not been removed from the agenda,” says Natalia Golubeva with Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science. Police in Finnmark on Friday fined a tourist for taking a short walk across the border.Researchers at the Finnish Arctic Centre at University of Lapland investigate if, and under what conditions, solar geoengineering can be responsibly tested and how research should be governed.Energy projects in the Russian Arctic are among the main targets of the new sanctions announced by British and U.S authorities. While the Arctic is expected to warm by up to 4 degrees by the mid-century, the East Antarctic ice sheet remains the last standing climate change bastion. So far. The council of Finnish municipality Utsjoki, bordering to Norway, approved ambitious plans for the development of year-round tourism at its meeting this week. May 2024 has been a few degrees warmer than normal. A third vessel of the Jan Mayen class is taken over by the Norwegian Coast Guard. “It is a milestone for our ocean nation,” Navy Chief Oliver Berdal says.

Russia hides bombers at Kola after another Ukrainian drone attack on air baseDuring Saturday, at least six Tu-22M3 aircraft have been relocated from the Soltsy-2 air base in Novgorod region to the Olenya air base on the Kola Peninsula.In cooperation with researchers from Russia and Thailand, Arctic experts from the Chinese Polar Institute are sailing 15,500 nautical miles on an expedition to the top of the world. The warship that belongs to Russia’s Northern Fleet and normally sails in Arctic waters might never again disembark its men and armoured vehicles. Accompanied by 12 tugs and support ships, the 640,000 ton heavy production unit this week docked in the Utrenneye port in far northern Gydan peninsula. In late July, one more person walked across the northernmost frontier. Not the way you should think, but from Norway into Russia. The person did not return and FSB Border Guards Service is unwilling to provide further details. Konstantin Prikhodchenko and Arsentiy Bondarev, who killed two residents of Lovozero, Murmansk region in 2020, returned home without serving even a small portion of their sentence. Victims’ families are now afraid of revenge.Russia’s ongoing war games in the Barents Sea anger fishermen currently fishing north and south of Bear Island. A Norwegian Coast Guard vessel is also in the area.

Уезжающие учёные, закрывающиеся школы, этноиноагенты. Всё самое интересное от Barents Observer.Школу с углубленным изучением русского языка намерены ликвидировать из-за уменьшения в регионе числа детей. Некоторые родители считают, что решение, принятое муниципальными властями, носит политический характер и вызвано разрывом отношений с Россией.Точное число потерявших жизни жителей северного российского региона неизвестно, но по местным подсчетам их как минимум четыреста. Церемония закладки судна состоится 26 января, в день годовщины окончания блокады Ленинграда во время Второй мировой войны.На данный момент в списке Минюста шесть иноагентов из Карелии.

Ответит ли "киллер Путина" за убийство в Карелии? Главные истории от Barents Obsever1 августа в результате “большого обмена” в Россию вернулся Вадим Красиков – агент российских спецслужб, осужденный на пожизненное за убийство в Берлине Зелимхана Хангошвили. В Германии мало кто одобрил освобождение киллера, даже в обмен на жизни политзаключенных, но в Москве его встречала красная ковровая дорожка. При этом и в России Вадим Красиков подозревался как минимум в двух убийствах. Родственники его жертвы из Карелии до сих пор надеются на справедливость, выяснили Север.Реалии и Barents Observer.6 августа Андрей Чибис на встрече с Путиным попросил поддержки в вопросе поэтапного перевода перегрузки угля из центра города в порт Лавна после того, как тот «доделают». И, судя по всему, либо «доделают» его не скоро, либо никто переносить перевалку туда и не собирается. Мурманскстат опубликовал данные по численности населения за первые пять месяцев текущего года. Из них следует, что в регионе по-прежнему сохраняются отрицательные демографические и миграционные тенденции.

Пропаганда

Iron miner LKAB reports hostile incidents to police. And other news from the NorthThe sanctions are the response to Russia’s continued war of aggression against Ukraine, the US State Department says. Only few days after someone vandalised company machinery, an armed person made it into one of the north Swedish iron miner’s drill sites. Governor Lars Fause makes clear it is the Norwegian state that has the monopoly of power to punish.Norwegian expert on Russia’s military maneuvers in the north says the ongoing exercise has a primary focus on multi-domain bastion defense to protect the strategic important ballistic missile submarines. The small Norwegian town located near the border to Russia drills preparedness and crisis management. “We know what kind of neighbour we have,” leader of the Civil Defence force in Kirkenes says. The hotter-than-normal summer in Russia’s northwest corner is continued into September with temperatures never seen before on record for the month. Loaded with 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, the Ruby is now at anchor near Vannøya north of Tromsø with slight damage to propeller, hull and rudder. A bullet hole is found on ‘Whaledimir’ - the Russian-origin Beluga whale that last weekend was found dead in the waters outside Stavanger in Norway. Member of Parliament Ivan Sukharev proposes to establish a high-security jail in the Norwegian archipelago. 4 to 6 degrees Celsius higher than normal and the warmest August ever on record in northern-Norway. Glaciers across the Arctic are melting. Glacial run-off enters fjords and coastal waters, but we know little about its impact on ocean life. Understanding how marine organisms from microbes to mammals respond is critical for sustainable management of coastal ecosystems and the services they provide.

Submarine Commander Killed. Carrier Group sails North, Greenland Methane danger. And other News.The lawyer of the former Wagner warrior says the man was not planning a return to Russia. “He only wanted to visit the Norwegian-Russian border areas in connection with a documentary project.” I want to go back to Russia, Andrei Medvedev told the Barents Observer in Kirkenes earlier on Friday.Ivan Kovgan was in charge of political propaganda in the Northern Fleet and lived in the submarine base of Gadzhievo. Why was he in the disputed Caucasian region, locals from the Kola Peninsula ask. Company Gazprom Nedra could face serious trouble in Arctic shelf exploration as it is included in an updated U.S sanctions list. The British aircraft carrier will train warfare with Nordic countries, Americans and other allies off the coast of northern Norway.Following Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in March this year, a series of meetings have been held between north Russian governors and representatives of Chinese business and governance. 15 warships, submarines, support vessels, aircraft and coastal units are involved as the Northern Fleet starts an exercise that stretches all along Russia’s Arctic, from the Barents Sea in the West to the East Siberian Sea. Only few days after U.S icebreaking coast guard ship Healy sailed through the Bering Strait and into the Chukchi Sea as part of a 7-week westbound voyage along the Russian Arctic coast, the Russian Navy started drills in the area on “protection of the Northern Sea.”A hidden climate dangerSergei Lavrov on Monday informed the other members of the Barents Cooperation about the withdrawal from the official structures where Russia has been frozen out since the start of the all-out war against Ukraine.Onboard Northern Fleet’s large landing ship “Ivan Gren” are damaged Ukrainian weaponry and alleged “Nazi literature”. The display is part of the “Strength in Truth” propaganda campaign. At the event, residents of Arkhangelsk are invited to sign up to fight in Ukraine. The minibus with Russian citizens on their way home from Norway was hit by a stolen truck Saturday afternoon. This was the second fatal accident along the border road in two days. Что нового на севере? Послушайте все наши новости за прошлую неделю в одном подкасте.

Russian Navy propaganda show

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