It is the first time that a suspected illegalist – a sleeper agent – has been exposed and arrested in Norway.
It is about the Brazilian guest researcher who, at the University of Tromsö, would be researching the security policy situation in the Arctic region.
His colleagues knew him as a nice and curious person who "liked cold and winter much more than heat".
But what they didn't know was that he was in Norway under a false identity, and according to PST, was actually working for the Russian intelligence service.
Unique that the security service tells
Thom Thavenius, deputy head of security at SVT and former first analyst at Säpo, says that there are many considerations that a security service makes when carrying out this type of arrest, and also chooses to go out with information about it.
- They can be legally conditioned, or that they want to show that you have capacity.
It is also a signal to the organization behind it, says Thavenius and continues:
- But then you have to bear in mind that a counter-espionage operation that tracks down an illegal is highbrow.
It requires an enormous strategic resource behind it.
Norway's natural gas resources may be the reason
Since Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has not been able to supply natural gas to Europe to the same extent as before.
At the same time, Norway has replaced much of that distribution, and Norwegian natural gas has thus become a strategic issue for the whole of Europe, says Thom Thavenius.
- Many point out that it is not entirely illogical that Russia then has an interest in creating unrest in Norway because of the role that the country has come to play now that it is not Russia that supplies natural gas.