Rus­si­an deli­very stop­ped – Rus­sia reacts with irri­ta­ti­on and cyber­at­tacks

It is an issue that has kept Nor­way and Rus­sia busy alre­a­dy for some weeks: a deli­very for Barents­burg, said to include main­ly food, is kept on hold at the bor­der bet­ween Rus­sia and north Nor­way. The deli­very was to be trans­por­ted over land to Trom­sø and from the­re by ship to Barents­burg.

Barents­burg during brigh­ter times (here in 2019).

But due to the sanc­tions intro­du­ced after the Rus­si­an war of aggres­si­on and des­truc­tion began in Febru­ary, Nor­way does not allow the goods into the coun­try. The Spits­ber­gen trea­ty gua­ran­tees all signa­to­ry par­ties – this includes Rus­sia – free access to Sval­bard, but accor­ding to Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties, this does not auto­ma­ti­cal­ly include the right to cho­se a rou­te through the Nor­we­gi­an main­land. Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als say that Rus­sia at any time has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ship goods from their own har­bours to Barents­burg. Sval­bard ports are not included in the ban on Rus­si­an ships in Nor­we­gi­an ports, and offi­ci­als indi­ca­te that Nor­way would con­sider an excemp­ti­on to the ban on Rus­si­an pla­nes on Nor­we­gi­an air­ports if the Rus­si­an side filed an appli­ca­ti­on for a flight to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The Rus­si­an reac­tion is main­ly irri­ta­ti­on, poli­ti­cal thre­ats – recent­ly, Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ves have repea­ted­ly poin­ted out that Nor­way breaks the Spits­ber­gen trea­ty – and alle­gedly cyber­at­tacks. The­re have been seve­ral cyber­at­tacks on public Nor­we­gi­an web­sites recent­ly, which Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties asso­cia­te with Rus­si­an hacker groups, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten and other Nor­we­gi­an media chan­nels.

At some stage, Rus­si­an repre­sen­ta­ti­ves rai­sed con­cerns about a serious shorta­ge of sup­pli­es in Barents­burg, which was descri­bed as an over­re­ac­tion by Nor­way. Now it is said that the sup­p­ly in Barents­burg is sta­ble, due to deli­veries from other sources, accor­ding to NRK.

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