The Armed Forces, the police and the customs service went to check in Narvik harbor today against a Russian luxury yacht, which arrived in Narvik last Thursday.
According to the newspaper Forwards has the defense accompanied on the boat, which is owned by a former KGB officer and friend of Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky.
Operations manager in Nordland police district, Mari Lillestø, says that the operation was more of a control, and that it took place without drama.
– We have had a co-operation check of a foreign vessel in the port of Narvik, and there, among other things, a Schengen check has been carried out by foreign citizens who have come to Norway.
– What was the background?
– We often have controls of vessels where they are not Schengen citizens on board.
– Has anything special come out of control?
– I have not received any feedback that there have been any reactions, no. This is most routine. In the same way as a Scottish football team that also came to Norway today, says Lillestø, and refers to Celtic and their supporters, who will play against Bodø / Glimt tomorrow, Thursday.
Narvik is the northernmost town in Nordland before the county border to Troms.
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Large NATO exercise in Norway
The Narvik visit takes place at the same time as the large winter exercise Cold Response starts, in which 35,000 soldiers from 28 nations participate.
It is hardly coincidental, says former intelligence chief in Norway, Ola Kaldager.
– It is not particularly surprising. This is something the Russians have been doing for years when there have been large, allied exercises in northern Norway.
That he is a good friend of President Vladimir Putin, he thinks is special.
– Then they often come in, earlier with fishing boats and more advanced vessels. It’s a little special that this is a good friend of Putin who comes here, and who has been a former KGB officer.
– What kind of information are they looking for?
– Technical information, interception of radio communications, possibly if they are so lucky that they have contacts on land that can give them more information, then they will probably get it and.
Ola Kaldager is a former intelligence chief in Norway, and is now a local politician and deputy mayor of Gildeskål in Nordland.
Photo: Ola Helness / NRK
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