Thomas Nilsen

Norway to hike defense spendings in mid-year revised budget

The Government on Thursday added 7 billion kroner (€590 million) to Norway’s defense budget for 2024.
May 02, 2024

Hunt for men in military age starts in Murmansk region

Military investigators are conducting raids at public places, dormitories and abandoned facilities in Murmansk region with the aim to find young men to send to the army commissariat.
April 30, 2024

Murmansk double killer pardoned to fight in Ukraine

Alexei Teplykh, 49, was sentenced to 13,5 years in a maximum-security colony in 2023 for beating his ex-wife and her new partner to death.
April 30, 2024

Journalist arrested in Murmansk

41-year-old video journalist Sergei Karelin was arrested on Friday, accused of extremism, allegedly because he had cooperated with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation FBK.
April 28, 2024

Concerns emerge over Moscow’s push for expanded research at Svalbard

New plans challenges Norway’s research limitations by introducing studies on topics like cultural history, paleography and ethno-humanities. “An intense promotion of Russian historical presence on Svalbard,” says professor Kari Aga Myklebost with UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
April 28, 2024

Finland relaxed over Moscow’s plans to deploy Iskander-M missiles near border

A new missile brigade will be deployed in Karelia as part of the reestablished Leningrad Military District. Countering response to Finland joining NATO, Moscow says.
April 24, 2024

Nornickel moves production to China to circumvent sanctions

War sanctions bite hard on Russia’s Arctic mining and metallurgical giant producing nickel and copper on the Kola Peninsula and in Norilsk.
April 24, 2024

Slow progress, huge budget overrun for Rosatomflot’s lider-class icebreaker

Sluggish progress and massive budget overrun have characterised the four years that have past since Rosatomflot gave go-ahead for the first Lider-class nuclear powered icebreaker.
April 22, 2024

Admiral Moiseev signs MoU with Chinese navy

No deal on joint Arctic navy exercises, but Russia and China agree on search and rescue cooperation on the world’s oceans.
April 22, 2024

Nuclear expert fears flooded radioactive dump sites in Siberia can threaten Arctic Ocean

Floodwaters in Tomsk region threatens to submerge the river banks in Seversk where highly radioactive liquid waste from the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program for decades were injected into two unprotected underground reservoirs.
April 15, 2024

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Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Independent Barents Observer with its news desk located in Kirkenes, northern Norway. He has a long experience in media cooperation across the borders in the high north of Europe, both as radio- and newspaper reporter all the way back to the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Nilsen has been editor of Barents Observer since 2009.

He was Deputy Head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat from 2004-2009. Until 2003, he worked 12 years for the Bellona Foundation’s Russian study group, focusing on nuclear safety issues and general environmental challenges in northern areas and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and organizations. He is also a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security issues, environmental and socio-economic development.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Mobile: +47-90573143

thomas@thebarentsobserver.com
@nilsen.thomas