Norway on alert after drone sightings near key infrastructure
Norway's domestic security agency has taken over probes into drone sightings near key infrastructure sites.
It comes amid numerous reported drone sightings near offshore oil and gas platforms and other Norwegian infrastructure in recent months.
Last month Oslo tightened security at such sites after the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
“We believe (the drone flights are) carried out in a way that makes it difficult to find out who is really behind it,” but Norwegian authorities suspect Russian involvement in operating unmanned aerial vehicles that “can be used for espionage or simply to create fear,” said Hedvig Moe, deputy chief of the Norwegian Police Security Service.
“Russia simply has more to gain and less to lose by conducting intelligence activities in Norway now compared to the situation before the war," she said during a news conference. "It is simply because Russia is in a pressed situation as a result of the war (in Ukraine) and is isolated by sanctions.
”We are in a tense security-political situation, and at the same time a complex and unclear threat picture that can change in a relatively short time,” she said.
At least seven Russian citizens were detained over the past few weeks for flying drones or taking photographs of sensitive sites in Norway.
A 47-year-old man with dual Russian and British citizenship was jailed Wednesday for two weeks on suspicion of flying drones on Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, NTB reported. He is accused of breaching sanctions which came into force after Russia went to war against Ukraine, Moe said, declining to elaborate.
Under Norwegian law, it is prohibited for aircraft operated by Russian companies or citizens “to land on, take off
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