Vardø, Norway. — The population of the Arctic island of vardø in 20 years fell by half, and fisheries, which the islanders lived for many generations, almost came to an end.
But the local power company, referring to the mysterious growth of demand for electricity, last month began work to increase the supply of electricity, paving a thick cable in an underwater tunnel connecting the island to the mainland.
New electrical cable and earthmoving equipment on top of a rocky plateau, from where you can see Russia, indicate that in this part of the Arctic there is still a thriving business. He is to spy on Russian nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles, which in the Barents sea is becoming more.
Additional electricity is needed to power the American radar station being constructed on the island that are foreseeable within the Russian Kola Peninsula. We have the Arctic Russian territory, studded with top-secret naval bases and restricted military zones.
Russian President Vladimir Putin as a priority, strengthening its military and economic presence of his country in the Arctic. He promised to make Russia a dominant player in these high latitudes, as climate change is opening new sea routes from Asia to Europe, allow for the development of new oil and gas fields and create a new arena for the rivalry of the great powers.
According to the She Risk (Katarzyna Zysk), working as an associate Professor at the Norwegian Institute for defence studies (Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies), based on the aspirations of Moscow to the Arctic is that the region plays an important role in the Russian strategy of nuclear deterrence and naval strategy. The main tool of this strategy is the submarine project “Borey”. This submarine of a new generation capable of carrying on Board at least 12 ballistic missiles each with multiple warheads (MIRV) nuclear warheads.
The first submarine project “Northwind” is the name “Yuri Dolgoruky” and is part of the Russian Northern fleet. Only Russia plans to build eight submarines of this class. Overall she has more than 200 submarines, including six submarines of project 667BDRM “Dolphin”, which are equipped with ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. These boats are placed at the bases of the Kola Peninsula, which is only 60 kilometers away from the ward.
“This place is very, very important for America and for the Western world, because here you can watch what you do,” said the former mayor of the ward and a veteran of the Norwegian military intelligence, Hougham Lasse (Lasse Haughom).
“Russia wants to know our secrets, and the United States with Norway want to know what she added Hougham. So is this game.”
And it started in the ward at the beginning of the cold war with the construction of the primitive radar of distant detection. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter century ago, it’s a dangerous rivalry did not stop, and has entered a new, troubling for Russia phase, as the island began the construction of the most modern radar “globe 3”.
This joint U.S.-Norwegian project, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and will consume large amounts of electricity, caused outrage in Moscow, because she sees in him the desire of the Pentagon to encircle and restrain the growing of Putin’s Russia. The Russian Ambassador in Oslo recently warned Norway that it should not “be naive” about the readiness of Moscow to retaliatory action.
“Norway needs to understand that becoming an advanced post of the NATO, it will have face-to-face encounter with Russia and Russian military power, — said the Ambassador Teymuraz Ramishvili Norwegian public company, NRK. — Hence, no peace in the Arctic will not be”.
New radar in Vardo — it’s just an advanced radar system, built by the Americans, and it will continue to perform their tasks. The mysterious announcement came last year from the mouth of the head of Norwegian military intelligence Hagi Morten Lund (Morten Haga Lunde). To these problems, he added, is the tracking of space debris so as to stop their work satellites, and “control over the district of our national interests in the North”.
But the Russian generals and many Norwegians do not believe in the story of space debris. They believe that the new radar “globe 3” is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to deploy a global missile defense system, and in case of conflict, will be one of the main targets.
“Russia sees the ward as a valuable goal,’ said the Colonel Tormod heier (Tormod Heier) that serves as a scientific Advisor at the Norwegian defence University College. In the event of a crisis the ward will be one of the first places which will be hit”.
According to him, Russia is most concerned that the inclusion of the ward in a missile defense system would seriously weaken the latter are undeniable Moscow’s claims to great power status based on its nuclear Arsenal and ability to retaliate against the retaliation forces of the submarine fleet in the Arctic.
Putin included missile defence as a long list of claims to the United States. On 1 June he told St. Petersburg reporters that the us program “is destroying the strategic balance in the world.”
The mayor of Varde Robert Jensen (Robert Jensen) stated that he sees no reason for alarm, and supports the construction of a new radar, because they have additional jobs. “I never thought that Russia will start world war III here,” he said.
According to him, residents of the island are much more concerned about the closing of local fisheries, rather than the appearance of the next American radar.
The reporter of the local newspaper Osthavet Dan Thor jørgensen (Dan Tore Jorgensen) stated that this is true, but only to a certain extent. He noted that an open discussion is hampered by “conspiracy of silence” about what actually happens on the plateau, which is surrounded by fences and warning labels in English, Norwegian and Russian languages stating that this is a restricted military area.
Although today, radar exploit the Norwegians, the reporter said that the hotel Varde are often filled with American technology and spies masquerading as naturalists and nature lovers.
34-year-old fisherman Robertsen Axel (Aksel Robertsen) said that the ward is in dire need of jobs, in order to stop the further decline of the population, which is 2 of 100. He is grateful to military intelligence because it gives people work.
But walking through the old prostopleer remains of fish-processing enterprises, where he worked in his youth, Robertson abuses of power that they turned the island into a “Belgian Congo”, with its dependent territory, which provides employment but does not have voting rights and do not even know what awaits her in the future. “We want to live by fishing and not due to secret radar,” he says.
The veil of secrecy surrounding the radar, gives rise to fears about the fact that the authorities conceal the health risks and other possible dangers.
Radar emitted electromagnetic pulses interfere with radio and television. Some people say that we women have miscarriages, and in the civic quarter close to the forbidden area, people get cancer.
Former mayor and veteran intelligence 72-year-old Maugham States that no danger to health not. “I worked at the facility for nearly 30 years, even inside the dome, when the transmitter worked. What? I’m still alive,” he says.
May Sissel Dorm (May-Sissel Dorme) is one of three women living on the street near the radar, which in 2000 had a miscarriage. She is not sure whether played a role in the radiation of the radar, but I’m sure in one thing: “If war breaks out, the Russians bombed us in the first place”.
The United States insists that the plans to create a missile defense aimed exclusively at the protection against missiles of rogue States such as Iran and North Korea.
However, Russia, which is much weaker than the United States in terms of non-nuclear forces, sees in the American efforts to create a missile defense shield as a direct threat to the area in which she’s still able to create their competition — forces of nuclear deterrence.
“There is a new cold war, but it is more dangerous than the old, because Russia today is much weaker and therefore has become much more dangerous and is more unpredictable, said Lieutenant Colonel Heyer, in an interview in Oslo. — The risk of nuclear war today is much higher than in the years of the old cold war, when the Soviet Union possessed a huge Arsenal of various weapons”.
Expert on radar at the Massachusetts Institute of technology Teodor Postol (Theodore Postol) said that the placement of such a powerful radar as the “globe 3” island ward “doesn’t make sense if its main purpose is to monitor space debris”. According to him, most likely, the radar is designed to track Russian missiles.
Postol doubts that missile defense really work, but noted that Moscow has every reason for concern, although the Pentagon assures her that the U.S. is not trying to weaken Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
“If you have a neighbor who walks along the fence with a gun in his hand, he can say that the gun it’s not loaded; however, you have still a lot of questions arise about his intentions, says Postol. — It seems that the US is doing everything possible to gather intelligence about the new Russian missiles and develop measures to combat them.”
However, Risk from the Norwegian Institute for defence studies, said: “compared with the scale and pace of Russian military development in the Arctic empowerment of Norway’s intelligence gathering is quite a small job.”
Doubt that the radar in Vardo designed to track space debris has increased significantly due to a number of statements made by U.S. officials, contrary to the official line.
Raytheon company created on the ward the previous RLS “globe-2”, first posted on its website and then removed it with a message stating that the radar was “originally designed to gather intelligence on ballistic missiles”.
A journalist from the Norwegian national broadcasting company Wormdal Bard (Bard Wormdal) living near Varde, wrote the book The Satellite War (war Satellite), which filled in the gaps in official history. In an interview, Wormdal said that “intelligence issues are difficult to discuss openly,” but he is concerned about the extreme degree of secrecy and the desire to hide the truth about the radar system, because it leads to the creation of a “separate state within the state”.
Your story gave Henrik Pryser-Libell (Henrik Pryser-Libell).
