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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
The world’s northernmost diplomat, GRU-affiliated Andrei Chemerilo, led the military-inspired small flotilla in the waters outside Barentsburg on Sunday.
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.
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.