More from: Security

The former mayor of the Karelian capital is fighting in Ukraine in the Akhmat battalion, which is accused of war crimes.
October 22, 2023
Experienced Espen Barth Eide has become Norway’s new foreign minister as part of PM Jonas Gahr Støre’s government shake-up on Monday.
October 16, 2023
Murmansk resident Alexander Zabrodin returned home after serving in Wagner Group. He was recruited to the Ukraine war from prison, where he was serving a sentence for killing an FSB officer: Zabrodin shot the man who was kneeling before him in the head during a drunken brawl in a cafe. The Barents Observer has spoken to the ex-convict and it turns that he now wants to do “social work” to combat migrants and is not averse to telling schoolchildren about his life experience.
October 11, 2023
The VOIN ("Fighter") center says it will engage in patriotic education and combat training of teenage youngsters. It is established on an initiative from top Kremlin official Sergei Kirienko and developed in cooperation with Chechen hardliner Daniil Martynov.
October 03, 2023
On the backdrop of an increasingly tense security situation, Head of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters Yngve Odlo pays visit to the far northern and demilitarised archipelago.
September 26, 2023
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.
September 22, 2023
The British aircraft carrier will train warfare with Nordic countries, Americans and other allies off the coast of northern Norway.
September 21, 2023
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.
September 19, 2023
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."
September 18, 2023
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.
September 17, 2023
This is the first time a guided missile submarine of the Ohio-class makes port call to Northern Norway. The “USS Florida” is one of the most powerful warships in the world, capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.
September 14, 2023
The large surveillance drone flew along the border with Russia’s Karelia region. It improves situation awareness and strengthens national defense, the Finnish Defense Forces says.
September 14, 2023
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the level of violence against women in Russia has increased, and the state has suddenly taken an interest in their reproductive rights again.
September 13, 2023
Roads, railways and bridges in Lapland with links to Sweden and Norway are crucial for both military and civilian transportation to Finland in case the Baltic Sea should be closed.
September 13, 2023
Vladislav Salyavin is one of several men from the Russian borderland to Norway and Finland that are wanted for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
August 29, 2023
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.
August 15, 2023
Norway is the only of Russia's neighboring countries that is included in a list of states with a so-called unfriendly line against Russian diplomatic offices.
August 03, 2023
Igor Sofonov, a career criminal from the north Russian region of Karelia, is suspected of killing six residents of the village of Derevyannoye near Petrozavodsk. The Barents Observer has established that Sofonov fought in the Luhansk region of Ukraine in 2022.
August 02, 2023
“This is the first time I have seen a Swedish military reconnaissance and intelligence plane flying in northern Finland to collect information from Russian systems in the area of the Kola Peninsula,” says expert Per Erik Solli with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
August 02, 2023
In an apparent attempt to stir fear and hostility, the powerful FSB hawk claims that the Northwest Russian border region is under attack from Western and Ukrainian security services.
August 01, 2023
The world’s northernmost diplomat, GRU-affiliated Andrei Chemerilo, led the military-inspired small flotilla in the waters outside Barentsburg on Sunday.
July 31, 2023
The president's planned visit to Severomorsk, the Northern Fleet headquarters, was reportedly cancelled due to "bad weather."
July 24, 2023
Amid Baltic Sea NATO expansion and growing east-west mistrust, Russia has decided not to sail a nuclear-powered submarine from the Kola Peninsula to the annual high-profile naval parade taking place in St. Petersburg on July 30.
July 14, 2023
The landing ship "Olenegorsky Gornyak" has been assigned to transportation of civilians and commercial goods to and from the occupied peninsula.
July 12, 2023
While the Norwegian P-8 Poseidon flew north of the Kola Peninsula, an American RC-135V Rivet Joint was circling over northernmost Finland, near the border with Russia.
July 11, 2023

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