Vic­to­ry day cele­bra­ti­ons to com­me­mo­ra­te the Soviet Union’s vic­to­ry over Nazi Ger­ma­ny were held not only in Rus­sia, but also in Barents­burg. Such cele­bra­ti­ons have tra­di­tio­nal­ly been held the­re also in pre­vious years, but they used to be of a civi­li­an and cul­tu­ral cha­rac­ter.

This time, things went a dif­fe­rent way. A lar­ge para­de was held with all available and sui­ta­ble vehic­les – cars, snow mobi­les and even a heli­c­op­ter. Lar­ge flags and other Rus­si­an sym­bols, inclu­ding ones of mili­ta­ry cha­rac­ter, were shown in lar­ge num­bers. This is in strong con­trast to pre­vious years.

Vic­to­ry day (2023) in Barents­burg: more of a mili­ta­ry-style pro­pa­gan­da event
(pho­to: Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol social media).

A few weeks ago, the Nor­we­gi­an news plat­form NRK reve­a­led con­nec­tions of the gene­ral con­sul in Barents­burg to the Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry secret ser­vice GRU.

Seve­ral lar­ge com­pa­nies in Lon­gye­ar­by­en inclu­ding Hur­tig­ru­ten Sval­bard and Visit Sval­bard have encou­ra­ged their employees not to visit Barents­burg, refer­ring to pri­va­te visits. Using local wifi is dis­cou­ra­ged in Barents­burg becau­se of data safe­ty con­side­ra­ti­ons, and care is advi­sed when using mobi­le pho­ne net­work. Both Nor­we­gi­an and Rus­si­an mobi­le net­work are available in and around Barents­burg, but mobi­le pho­nes may auto­ma­ti­cal­ly con­nect to Rus­si­an net­work when Nor­we­gi­an covera­ge is unavailable, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.