Norway arrests alleged Russian clandestine spy
The Norwegian counter-intelligence services (PST) announced on Tuesday the arrest of a suspected Russian clandestine spy posing, according to them, for a Brazilian researcher.
The suspect was arrested Monday morning on his way to work at the University of Tromso (North), according to Norwegian public television NRK.
“We think he is a stowaway on behalf of the Russian authorities”, PST number two Hedvig Moe told TV2. Operating under an assumed identity, “a clandestine is a person who collects information, most often for his country of origin, Russia and the Russian intelligence services in this case”she explained.
The PST, which claims to have worked in concert with the intelligence services of allied countries, will ask for its expulsion. In the meantime, the suspect was detained on Tuesday for four weeks.
At the University of Tromso, he worked on Norwegian policy in the High North and on hybrid threats, according to the PST.
This case comes after multiple arrests of Russian citizens accused of flying drones over Norwegian territory in violation of the overflight ban imposed on Russians because of the war in Ukraine, or of violating bans to take photos on sensitive sites.