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Spying in Norway at Cold War levels Police Intelligence chief says more countries active in Norway, more commercial than military with interest in northern waters Doug Mellgren Associated Press Writer
International espionage against oil-and-technology-rich Norway is now back at Cold War levels, after spying dwindled following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, police intelligence said Feb. 8.
NATO-member Norway is a major exporter of oil and natural gas and shares land and sea borders in the Arctic with Russia. That includes vast disputed areas claimed by both countries in the Barents Sea, which has massive fish stocks and is seen as a potentially rich area for petroleum production.
In an interview published Feb. 8 in the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten, Norway’s top police intelligence officer, Joern Holme, said spying against the Nordic country has been on the rise, but refused to name any countries.
“Many countries’ intelligence services were very active in Norway during the Cold War. Then things calmed down in the 1990s, before activities increased again,” he said. “We are now back at Cold War levels. The big difference is that many more countries are now active in Norway.”
“I am not going to comment on which countries,” Holme said. “But there are more countries active than people might immediately think of.”
Police intelligence spokesman Trond Hugubakken confirmed by telephone that Holme, who was not immediately available, had been quoted correctly, and said espionage is now more of a commercial than a military nature.
Northern waters of interest During the Cold War, Norway formed the northern flank of the western military alliance NATO, sharing an Arctic border with northwestern Russia along the Kola Peninsula, with its key military and naval bases.
Now much of the interest is focused on the far northern waters, where Norway has been developing Arctic offshore natural gas using advanced technology. Russia, the United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are all rushing to stake claims in Arctic waters. Russia needs advanced offshore technology to develop the vast Shtokman natural gas field off its northern coast.
Kim Ellertsen, leader of the Norwegian Business and Industry Security Council in Oslo, said Russian is often mentioned, including by British intelligence, as being especially active in seeking confidential information about the far north.
“It’s not just active spying,” he said by telephone. “It is the search for information leaks.” He said scraps of inadvertently leaked information may be collected to piece together a complete picture of key business secrets.
Russian Embassy press attache Jevgeny Kolesnikov told Aftenposten that the allegations “are groundless and a repetition from Cold War days.”
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