"Russia uses hybrid threats on Svalbard"

Svalbard is important for Russia because of its location, it is a gateway to the Barents Sea and the Kola Peninsula where the Northern Fleet is based, Bones explains in this podcast.

Svalbard also has significance for Moscow because of fisheries and Norway's communications and satellite activities on the archipelago. Russia has a long tradition and a strong history there, as well, he says.

Norway gained full and absolute sovereignty over Svalbard in 1925 when the Svalbard Treaty was ratified. In 2025, Norway celebrated its 100 years anniversary of sovereignty.

According to the professor, Moscow has conducted numerous hybrid operations and provocations on Svalbard. He argues that the arctic archipelago is part of a broader Russian information campaign that is aimed at testing Western cohesion and the sanctions regime.

Among the approached actively applied by Moscow is so-called 'bilateralization.'

"It's not unusual that great powers that have smaller neighbouring countries in their vicinity, that they want to try and dominate or influence them. One aspect and one way of doing that is to try and tie up the smaller country in bilateral discussions on certain issues, not allowing them room for maneuver, but try and lock them in in a political process. I think that is what the Soviet Union and Russia also have been trying to do with regards to Norway and Norway-Svalbard politics, but has not really been successful in much of that. 

Read the full transcript below 

Stian Bones, professor of history at UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, you are one of the authors of a new article that is titled "Hybrid Threats in High Latitudes. Facing Russia on Svalbard". Let's talk a little bit about this publication. Can you say a few words firstly, what are hybrid threats and how does Russia apply them in Svalbard? 

Hybrid threats and hybrid warfare are very difficult to define actually. A lot of researchers have written numerous articles trying to define what that actually means. But I think one of the very important aspects of this concept is that it is harmful, harmful activities that uses the spectrum between war and peace, the gray zone, and that operations and plans that are produced to have an effect in this gray zone are done so with malign intent. They are meant to sow distrust in authorities and between us, and they are meant to reduce the state capacity that is being attacked. And it is also a spectrum from a low level of aggression to a high level of aggression. 

So in this spectrum, Norway is kind of in the middle, I would say, whereas other states that have been targeted by Russia have been much harder targeted and in a way that can best be described as hybrid warfare. We are not there. 

But Russia uses hybrid threats with regards to Svalbard and Norway in order to sow provocations, in order to improve Russia's power position vis-a-vis Norway and the West, in order to sow distrust in the West and undermine the sanctions policy, and also to address and forward some narratives that we are going to explore now that Russia wants to highlight. 

So let's look a little bit at Svalbard, this very far northern archipelago, the Norwegian archipelago. Why is this area important for Russia? 

I think there are several reasons why this is important for Russia. First of all, and this has been a topic for decades really, is that the Svalbard archipelago, including the Bear Island, is an entrance into the Barents Sea. And the Barents Sea and the area there and the Murman coast is of course the home base for the Russian Northern Fleet, which is of great importance for strategic deterrence for Russia. That is one really important aspect. 

Another is the economic. Traditionally, Russia has had economic activities on the Svalbard archipelago; mining, coal. That was important many decades ago. But Russia still has important fisheries in the fisheries protection zone. That's important too. 

And I think also now, Russia is very keen on monitoring Norwegian and other Western activities that is kind of more sensor-based. For instance, communications, satellites, that kind of activities that Norway has and Norwegian companies are doing on in Svalbard. They want to monitor this. 

And of course, the last aspect, which is also important, is the historical. Because Russia has a long tradition and a strong history there. 

So let's look at the history. In 1925, the Svalbard Treaty was ratified. So this year in 2025, Svalbard has been part of Norway for 100 years. Can you please tell us a few words about how Svalbard became Norwegian and also about the Svalbard Treaty? 

Yes, I'm happy to do that. And also address an opinion that I find, I read quite often, that this was part of the Versailles Treaty system. And it happened in the aftermath of the First World War. That's correct. But it was not a part of the settlement between the great powers after the First World War. 

Instead, it was a Norwegian initiative to find out about and settle the question of sovereignty on the Svalbard archipelago once and for all. So it was Norway that brought up this question. But Norway knew that it had the support of important nations, for instance, Great Britain, and very importantly from the United States. So it was really important that the Norwegian view was supported by the United States. And also, I think it is important to note that the Svalbard Treaty solved another matter back in that day on how to be managed internationally. Because there were different options. You could have a regime, like for instance, you have in Palestine, where Great Britain ruled the area as a mandate on behalf of the international community. Or you could have the other option that was to give a country sovereignty over the territory. And it was the last option that was chosen. 

So Norway gained full and absolute sovereignty back then. But with some clauses on certain kinds of activities, fishing and hunting, and also economic activity. It's a long history, and a long history between Norway and Russia, these bilateral relations in Svalbard.

Can you shortly walk us through this history, and especially with regard to the aspects that you use in your latest publication? 

I'll just make it very brief, because it's a rich history really. And of course, we hint to this old hunt and gatherer tradition, or hunting tradition, that both Norway and Russia had going in the 18th and 19th century on Svalbard, where Pomors, the hunters were present. And also Norwegian hunters and whalers were present on Svalbard. That's the older tradition before Norway gained sovereignty. 

After that, it is the mining activity that is a really crucial one. And Trust Arktikugol was established as a state-owned enterprise in the Soviet Union. You had a similar state-owned enterprise on the Norwegian side in the Ny Ålesund, and also a private mining company in Longyearbyen. And these were the main activities, the mining activities that were really going on on Svalbard during the Cold War. The mining companies really provided for the settlements there, the Russian and Norwegian ones. One might say that Russia, or the Soviet Union, in 1924, decided to enter the Svalbard Treaty and accept full Norwegian sovereignty over it. But during the Second World War, there was an episode in 1944 where Molotov brought up this question anew, and he proposed that the Svalbard Treaty should be deleted, and instead that there should be a bilateral Norwegian-Russian management of the archipelago. 

That came to nothing, because of the Cold War balance of power, that the Soviet Union didn't want to make a bad move there, so that the United States moved closer on Greenland, so decided not to do anything more about that. But that was an important part of this history. 

Other than that, one could say that relations between Norway and Russia have been cordial on Svalbard. Most observers believe that there has not really been much high tensions, and that the Soviet Union and Russia has been focused on denial, not to make sure that no other Western great powers used Svalbard as an entrance to the Barents Sea. 

That has been a main focus for Russia. 

In your new article, you mention and highlight the word "bilateralization". What do you mean by that? 

Bilateralization is an important concept in this regard. It's not unusual that great powers that have smaller neighbouring countries in their vicinity, that they want to try and dominate or influence them. One aspect and one way of doing that is to try and tie up the smaller country in bilateral discussions on certain issues, not allowing them room for maneuver, but try and lock them in in a political process. I think that is what the Soviet Union and Russia also have been trying to do with regards to Norway and Norway-Svalbard politics, but has not really been successful in much of that. 

Going back to hybrid threats and Russia in Svalbard, can you give us examples of Russian provocations or hybrid operations in the area? 

There have been numerous such provocations. 

We mention several of them in our article and I could bring up a few. But one is the visit by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in 2015. He was under the part of the sanctions regime. There were restrictions on his possibility to travel to Western countries, but he did so. 

He had a stop in Svalbard in 2015. This I think can be seen as a deliberate provocation because when Norway in response to that tried to make further restrictions on travelling to Svalbard, Russia could use that as an opportunity to accuse Norway of breaching the spirit of the Svalbard Treaty and of being kind of anti-Russian, have an anti-Russian stand on the Svalbard issues. 

If you think that this was deliberate on the part of Rogozin and Russia, then you would see this as a clear sign of a provocation really. I think it was. 

Another often raised topic is that Norway works in company with Western countries to militarise the Arctic. That is an issue that is very often touched upon in Russian media and also by the Russian embassy and other Russian actors. 

Really, it is a way of turning things around because what we as historians see is that it is Russia that started to build up its military back when the oil prices were booming in 2005-2008. Russia had the capacity once again to build up arms and strengthen the Northern Fleet once more. 

Pushing this narrative of militarisation, including on Svalbard, Russia manages to turn the story upside down, to tell a story which is really not in accordance with reality and also to make the claim that Norway breaches or does not act in accordance with the spirit of the Svalbard Treaty. So, you manage to do a couple of things similarly. 

You mentioned these cases, the Rogozin case for example. Do you think they were successful? Do you think Moscow considers these operations, and there are many of them as you say, successful? 

It depends on the perspective. If you by success means that they were successful in influencing Norwegian politicians and bureaucrats, I think it is not very successful because those who work with Svalbard issues in the Norwegian government and in the Norwegian bureaucracy and also the governor of Svalbard are very much aware of these instruments of power that are at play here. The successes are very limited I would say on these matters. 

But if you put this perspective in another place and see other sides of this, then it's more successful. 

Because Russia is succeeding in promoting certain narratives, making an impression that Norway is not following up the spirit of the Svalbard Treaty. I'm not sure how many people and states that really believe it, but some certainly do. It can be used as a leverage on Norway in a wider international perspective. 

It is also part of the Russian success to foster this kind of military patriotic narrative inside Russia. And Svalbard is part of this broader performance by the Kremlin to that effort, to build up an image of the West as hostile to Russia and the need for military patriotic, to build up a military patriotic identity and culture in Russia. 

How is history and religion used in this hybrid strategy by Moscow? 

I think it's really interesting because Russia is a country which emphasises history and values and traditions highly. And this goes very long back and Russians are history loving people really. So it's a sentiment that is there and is for real. 

But it can also be instrumentalised and manipulated. For instance during the Cold War there was a Soviet attempt really to prove that the Pomors were the first. So history has been used also back in those days. And this continues even today. 

It's about approving the old Russian history on Svalbard and thereby legitimising Russian political positions which is to say that Russia should have a special saying together with Norway in deciding Svalbard matters. So Russia uses history instrumentally in that way to kind of bring itself in a special position towards Norway. 

It's a little bit different when it comes to religion because I think that the religious aspect has been highlighted very much over the very recent years, really over the last three or four years I would say. The most topical expression of this is the erection of this Russian Orthodox cross in Pyramiden in 2023 and which was done in the presence of Bishop Yakov who is a very prominent person in the Russian Orthodox Church. 

We know that the Russian Orthodox Church is very much tied up with Kremlin to address the political questions both in Norway and elsewhere. This was really also a provocation. It functioned as a provocation. You could use religious symbols as a provocation because Norway as a Western liberal country values religious freedoms, freedoms of expression. So it is one would assume that Norway would have no problem with religious artifacts also on Svalbard. 

But the Russian actors that were involved in this matter, that is Yakov and Trust Arktik Ugol, they deliberately erected this cross outside the treaty property in Pyramiden and thereby also acted against Norwegian rules and regulations on Svalbard. So Norway had to respond. One might think, did they not know this? But of course the answer is the opposite. They perfectly knew that it was just outside the treaty property and this would have to trigger a Norwegian response. 

It was a deliberate provocation. 

What then are the main risks for Norway, NATO from these hybrid operations? 

Well, I think there are several. Norway is part of a broader Russian information campaign where the Western cohesion sanctions regime is being tested. There are several indications of that also with regards to Svalbard and other issues in Norway also. To test if there is a kind of a coordinated Western response, that is one issue. And that is also one risk. If Russia finds out that Western countries really do not coordinate their responses and that this can be used, that's one issue. 

Another issue is that fits with another concept that we have been using. It's the concept of subversion. Subversion is about trying to weaken another actor, in this case Norway, and weaken Norway's possibilities to manage its policies over its own territory and its sovereignty. 

That's really a crux here. Russia tries to weaken Norway and weaken Norway's position on Svalbard and has done so very much over the recent years. But there are also older traditions for this. So that's really nothing new but it has been growing over the last years. Then there is the question of these narratives that I've been talking about. 

If you don't counter narratives that Russia is setting up and if you don't counter provocations that Russia is or deliberately doing, then these narratives can build and become more and more powerful in the future. So there is that risk too. 

Let's look at today, Russia is waging a very aggressive war in Ukraine. Is this war somehow affecting policies towards Svalbard and the Arctic? 

I think so. There is a spillover from the war in Ukraine. You can see that it manifests itself in different ways. You can see it in the military activities in the Arctic. Russia has concentrated its military resources in a more restricted bastion in the Barents Sea over the last years. It's really clear that the Russian naval activities are concentrated on that part. You had more activities in the Norwegian Sea in the previous years but this is more concentrated now. 

This concentration is behind the Bear Gap, the line you could stretch between the Svalbard archipelago, Bear Island and the Norwegian mainland. So there is a kind of a strategic imaginary line there where you can see activities now. And also these hybrid threats have increased in this period, in the same period from 2022 onwards and provocations are regularly being done by Russia on Svalbard and also on the Norwegian mainland. And they are meant to sow distrust. They are meant to divide us, erode the opposition against Russia. And you see that very much. 

Do you think Norway has the resilience to withstand these hybrid attacks? 

I think Norway on the outset is in a good position because of the strength of the civilian society on the Norwegian part. Norwegians are in general literate. They orient themselves through media, serious media. Political articles on these matters, they also tell that same story that Norwegians don't easily manipulate it. But there are concerns of course also here. 

And one is the involvement of media itself, where social media is taking a lot more attention and Russia is able to make use of social media in new ways. That's kind of a new aspect. We don't have the tradition of handling as we have with other media. But it is crucial in order to make this work, to deter these kinds of hybrid threats, that you tailor the response. So it's important on the Norwegian part for independent media and also for researchers and officials in Norway to be able to address certain issues that are important and that we want to contain or address or state as false narratives or as provocations. 

This means that there are some minor issues perhaps that we should not put our attention on. We won't use all our attention on that, but focus on some really important aspects. That's crucial. Because if you want to maintain the resilience in people in the broader sense, then it is really, it works better if they are able to identify certain narratives and threats from the start. If there are too many things that you should be aware of, they won't be able to do that. So you have to tailor your response and that is more effective. And also we have to continue to support independent research, independent media. That's crucial to be able to respond to such threats. 

That is a resource for a liberal democracy like Norway, but it is equally a threat to Russia because this is the kind of information that Russia does not want to see. So it's a really important aspect there as well. 

You don't see any chance that Russian hybrid threats could turn into some kind of military engagement, some kind of a military invasion of Svalbard, do you? 

I don't really find that plausible. And the main reason for that is Svalbard is not easily accessed in a military or made use of in a military conflict because of long range distance weapons mainly and the use of other weapons that could take out military personnel there rather effectively. 

It was another time during the Cold War where that could be a plausible scenario, but I don't think that's very likely now. But now it's more the attention brought to this by Russia that is the threatening part of it because Russia can make us believe that Russia has the capacity and perhaps will be able to make use of Svalbard in the event of a major crisis, for instance. 

And that makes Western politicians and individuals stop and say, "Oh, perhaps now we should be a little bit careful here." So it's kind of, it makes its presence in our heads, that idea. And that is a powerful idea.