In a suspicious Arctic, Norway begins to see Russian spies everywhere

TROMSO, Norway – In retrospect, some things didn’t add up for José Giammaria.

First, the visiting researcher from the University of Tromso, in the Arctic Circle Norwegian, was apparently Brazilian.

But he didn’t speak Portuguese.

Furthermore, he had self-financed his visit, which was rare in the academic world, and had even planned to extend it, although he never spoke of his research.

But he was always available and even offered to redesign the website Center for Peace Studies, Where did he work.

That was until October 24, 2022, when the Norwegian security police, the PST, arrived with a warrant to search his office.

Days later, they announced his arrest as Russian spycalled Mikhail Mikushin.

The revelation sent shivers on campus, said Marcela Douglas, who directs the Center for Peace Studies, which focuses on security and conflict.

“I started seeing spies everywhere.”

The same is true in Norway and much of the rest of Europe.

As the war in Ukraine bogs down and Moscow’s isolation grows, European nations have grown wary that a desperate Kremlin is exploiting their open societies for more espionage, sabotage and infiltration efforts, possibly to send a message or to evaluate how far it could go if necessary in a larger conflict with the West.

Mikushin is one of three Russians recently detained in Europe on suspicion of being one “illegal”that is, spies who are incorporated into a local corporation to carry out long-term espionage or recruitment.

In June, an International Criminal Court detainee, also holding a Brazilian passport, was arrested in The Hague (Netherlands) and charged with espionage for Russia.

In late November, a Swedish raid arrested a Russian couple accused of espionage.

Other suspicious incidents have emerged across Europe:

in Germany, some drones discovered flying over military installations in which the Ukrainian forces were trained are, according to the German authorities, suspected of belonging to Russian intelligence.

Underwater cables cut in France, while not attributed to malicious intent, have raised suspicions among security analysts.

And a hacking of fuel distribution networks Belgium and Germany too, a few days before the Russian invasion, sounded an alarm bell.

Not all incidents can be blamed with certainty on the Kremlin, and in many places it’s hard to separate heightened surveillance and real concern from growing paranoia.

Russia has called a series of recent arrests in Norway, mostly of Russian citizens for flying drones, “hysteria”.

Norway, however, may have more reason to worry than many others.

Now that Western sanctions have all but cut off Russia’s supply of fossil fuels to Europe, Norway is the continent’s main supplier of oil and gas.

Off its Arctic coast run undersea cables essential for internet service to London’s financial center and for the transmission of satellite imagery from the north, where Norway borders Russia for 198 kilometres, across the Atlantic to the United States.

This vital role has become even more vulnerable since September, when explosions destroyed pipelines. North stream between Russia and Germany, and for which Moscow and Washington have blamed each other.

“It was a wake-up call. The war is not only in Ukraine. It can affect us too, although it is difficult to attribute,” said Tom Roseth, a professor at the Norwegian Defense University College.

A number of more conventional Russian spies have been arrested and expelled in recent years, likely making Russia more reliant on sleeper agents, especially as the war in Ukraine falters.

The recent surge in cases, Roseth said, reflects Russia’s need to do so sleeping spies come to light

“Right now in Europe, with the pressure of the situation Moscow is in, they want their network to comply,” he said.

“While these businesses existed before, I think they are taking more risk now.”

In the case of Norway, concern began to grow after a military-grade drone was spotted on an oil rig in the North Sea in September.

Soon there were more drone sightings over oil and gas facilities and a power plant. In October, Bergen Airport, located near the country’s largest naval base, was closed for two hours after drone observations in the area.

Norwegians have begun to question other incidents that occurred earlier in the year:

An undersea cable damaged in January, which transmitted satellite images for Western space agencies.

A damaged water tank near several military sites, not far from Tromso.

What if it’s not about accidents or rioters, but about Russian sabotage?

“Attacks like this could be useful, like surveillance of oil rigs,” says Ole Johan Skogmo, a regional police inspector, who says the PST is still investigating the damaged water tank.

“We don’t know exactly who did it. But they know now that we know someone might have done it.”

Norwegian citizens have dutifully replied to the warnings be vigilant, flooding the police with calls about sightings of drones or aliens alleged to be acting suspiciously.

But now some fear that hypervigilance has gone too far, especially in such murky terrain as alleged espionage.

On a recent afternoon, in the pitch dark of an arctic winter, the tiny regional court in Tromso was trying two lawsuits against Russian citizens accused of flying drones.

Neither has been accused of espionage, which is difficult to prove.

Instead, they were accused of violate European sanctions ban Russians from flying the planes, which Norway now interprets to include Russian individuals using drones as hobbyists.

Seven Russians were arrested in mid-October for flying drones and four went to trial.

Two were convicted 90 or 120 days in prison.

Among the detainees is Andrey Yakunin, son of Vladimir Yakunin, a longtime ally of the Russian president. Vladimir Putinin a process closely watched across the country.

The youngest of the Yakunins, a businessman living in the UK and of British nationality, has distanced himself from the Russian invasion.

He was arrested after his yacht, the Firebird, was stopped by Norwegian authorities, who asked if he had a drone.

He showed them a drone used to capture images of him and his crew skiing and fishing through the glacial landscapes of Arctic Norway.

Prosecutors are asking for a 120-day sentence.

“I’m certainly not a spy, even though I own a whole collection of James Bond films,” Yakunin joked in an interview after his trial began on Dec. 3.

Talking with The New York TimesYakunin declined to comment on whether his arrest was political, but said it was strange that he and three other men had been arrested in such a short time in October:

“As a student of statistics, this doesn’t fit into a normal distribution.”

Across the hall, in a tiny room away from the cameras, a gray-haired man in jeans, Aleksey Reznichenko, a Russian engineer, tearfully argued his own case in a low-key trial.

He was arrested for photographing billboards and the parking lot of the Tromso airport control tower.

“It was a hunch,” said Ivar Helsing Schroen, director of air traffic control, who became suspicious and called the police.

“There was something very strange.”

In court, Reznichenko wept as she spoke through a Russian translator, saying she feared for her family, of which she was the only financial support.

Photographs of a military helicopter and the nearby Kirkenes airport were found on him.

He said photographing airplanes and airports has been a hobby for a long time.

But in any case, none of the photographs were illegal.

Instead, Reznichenko was accused of flying a drone.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys say that by pursuing these cases,

Norway has entered a legal gray area that questions its democratic values.

The Mikushin case has sparked a dispute between security analysts and academics over how strictly to monitor and limit foreign researchers or international collaboration, which could impact chilling effect in important research.

In the drone cases, Yakunin and other defense attorneys have argued that penalizing Russians based on their nationality is discriminatory and may constitute a violation of human rights.

“You have to ask yourself if this is the law, but if the wording of the law covers this, the law is a problem,” said John Christian Elden, Yakunin’s lead attorney.

The country itself appears to be conflicted about how to handle the situation.

Judges in the Yakunin and Reznichenko cases decided to acquit them.

But prosecutors are appealing both cases. Yakunin will appear again in court in Tromso in January.

“I’m not out of the woods yet,” he told reporters after his release.

Ola Larsen, Reznichenko’s lawyer, said the Norwegian PST was underway unusually aggressive to make your position clear.

“Politics play a role,” he said.

“They want to make a statement to the Russians.”

Security nervousness in the Norwegian Arctic was high before the invasion of Ukraine.

On the northern borders there were friendly relations between the locals, who trade with each other, but there have been several suspected cases of espionage, dating back to the Cold War.

Some espionage cases have bordered on the comic. In 2019, it was widely speculated that a beluga whale found by Norwegian fishermen in their Arctic waters was an escaped “spy whale” from the Russian military.

Norwegian media dubbed him “Hvaldimir”, a portmanteau of the Norwegian word for whale and the name Vladimir.

Some, like Schroen, insist that caution is always justified.

Watching the news from his tower a few miles from the courthouse, he didn’t feel guilty about sending a man to trial.

Spies, he says, are definitely interested in the Arctic:

“One would have to be naïve to think otherwise.”

c.2022 The New York Times Society