Take them down

When the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea were exposed to what could be sabotage a few weeks ago, the alarm quickly went off in Norway.

The reason was not only the leak on the pipelines themselves, but the unrest linked, among other things, to several cases of illegal drone activity around Norwegian oil and gas plants.

Now the police can sit on a smoking gun.

Wednesday was one o’clock Russian citizen arrested at the Norwegian-Russian border crossing point Storskog, with two drones. On Friday, the police issued a ruling, which revealed that the man had been captured with a large amount of recording material (four terabytes). Some of them are encrypted.

The man also had three passports: two Russian and one Israeli. He himself claims to have dual citizenship. Many Russian citizens like to have two passports: one foreign and one national, but it is unclear if there are two of these passports involved in this case.

In any case, the combination of Russian and Israeli citizenship gives the man an identity that is well suited to the activity he is suspected of carrying out. The Israeli passport will give him a freedom of international movement that the Russian passport cannot offer.

The man himself claims to be an ordinary tourist who likes to film and, according to the police, some of the material seized supports this explanation.

If it was necessary If it turns out to be illegal shooting of Norwegian oil and gas installations, the matter is very serious. It is therefore important to highlight the uncertainties as well.

Cryptography naturally arouses suspicion, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it involves intelligence. The routines for encryption can also vary from individual to individual, depending on technical expertise and preferences when it comes to protecting material that may be of a personal nature.

Regardless, the shutdown puts the drone activity that was recently reported in a frightening light.

Because it isn’t only after the destruction of the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea did the drone activity arouse suspicion. In recent months, the aldrimer.no website has had several articles on illegal drone flights near Norwegian oil and gas installations. These were reported to the police by the oil companies.

Until Thursday evening, the police were appealing for witnesses and information a new drone flight near the Kårstø processing plantwhich is the largest in Europe.

This therefore appears almost as a kind of continuous and persistent threat.

With the arrest in Storskog there is reason to ask whether police and military forces should have extended access to take action when observing such a flight.

Navy captain and researcher Tor Ivar Strømmen of the Naval Academy tells Dagbladet that today’s regulations place limits on what can be done. He recommends that the Ministry of Justice now quickly begin work to empower them to “eliminate” such threats more effectively.

In the extreme: if there should be access to take them down. It’s easy to agree. If you’re an unfortunate hobby drone pilot whose equipment is destroyed, it’s hard to have much sympathy for inattention when the situation is the way it is.

For drones flying inside restricted safety zones, the principle should now be: “Shoot first, ask questions later.”

PST has in its own written annual reports that Russia actively collects money in Norway.

When it comes to drone activities, it can almost seem like no attempt is even being made to discourage it. There are seven Russian drone operators in Norway, several media reports reported Friday evening. One of them has the same postal address as the Russian embassy.

With attacks on gas pipelines, the war has come many notches closer to Norway. It is an uncomfortable truth. Norway took the consequences by significantly strengthening security and accepting British, German and French assistance to patrol Norwegian waters.

Now we need to be prepared that even more physical actions will also need to be taken to react to threats humming from the air.