Not only Ukraine: Moscow brings challenge of the West to the Arctic

Nordic countries on the alert for Kremlin manoeuvres in the region. Norway targeted by Russian intelligence. Russia has long claimed much of the Arctic space. However, soldiers deployed in the north have been sent to fight in Ukraine. The weight of Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The conflict in Ukraine is having consequences with unpredictable outcomes even beyond the Arctic Circle, an area of strategic interest for Russia. Norway is concerned about the course of events, and is raising its Armed Forces to the highest level of alert. Not only does the aggression in Ukraine provoke the reaction of Europe's northernmost inhabitants, but also the great and unpredictable activism of Russian citizens within the country, where they fly all kinds of drones, and a few Russians have already been detained and subjected to clarifying interrogations.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warns that 'the situation in the security sphere in Europe is the most problematic in the last decade'. Norway does not think that the Russians intend to invade it or involve it in military operations with neighbouring Scandinavian and Baltic states, but the attention of NATO, whose secretary is the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, is on the big picture, right up to the Arctic.

Oslo's Defence Minister, Bjørn Arild Gram, explained that the high alert regime entails less standard training for the military in order to increase surveillance and patrol operations, especially in the land and sea border areas with Russia in the far north of the country. In that area, security forces blocked drones launched by 47-year-old Andrej Jakunin, son of former Russian Railways president Vladimir Jakunin, one of Putin's closest oligarchs.

Also worrying are the initiatives of several Russian Orthodox priests, already serving their compatriots in Norway, who have bought land and set up centres and chapels for no particular reason in various areas, even far from their own parishes. The most enigmatic story is that of the 'fake Brazilian': a person who claimed to be called Jose Assis Jammaria, with a passport from Brazil, an auxiliary worker at the University of Tromsø, where he was also involved in the study of hybrid threats. It was later clarified that he was in fact Russian citizen Mikhail Mikušin, and would be an agent of Kremlin military espionage.

All these and other situations cause considerable tension in Norwegian society, at a time of great strategic and political changes in the Arctic area following the war in Ukraine. The mysterious explosions of the Nord Stream pipeline, of which Russia and the West accuse each other, have been accompanied by swarms of drones flying over the area of Norwegian gas extractions in the North Sea, one of the primary targets to be defended.

According to Pavel Baev, a Russian expert at the Norwegian institute for international analysis Prio, 'Russia has been organising its military presence in the Arctic for some time'. The analyst points out that Moscow "has created 'Arctic brigades' and acquired special technologies, triumphantly displayed in parades on Red Square during patriotic holidays, where soldiers paraded in Arctic camouflage". He points out that Putin has also rebuilt Soviet bases in the region, as well as opened new ones. Now Russian generals have deployed Arctic brigades in Ukraine, and Moscow's presence in the north has been weakened, including the Northern Fleet, which has been diverted to the Black Sea.

This is why NATO exercises in the Arctic are a cause for concern for the Kremlin, which tries to compensate with espionage and sabotage actions in Norway, but also in other countries such as Denmark. The entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, which now seems to have been decided, greatly changes the strategic conditions of the entire Nordic area, reuniting in the Atlantic Alliance two sectors that Russia has always considered separate: Scandinavia and the Baltic.a scenario apparently far from the primary objectives of the current deployments, but actually of great interest to many countries, including China, Russia's main partner in the Arctic.

• russia
• moscow
• arctic
• nato
• espionage
• norway
• war
• invasion
• ukraine