Moscow Again Tests the Limits on Svalbard -- This Time with a Police Car

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 8 – Moscow is continuing to test the limits of the patience of Norway and NATO by small actions, no one of which appears to be enough to provoke the kind of reaction they deserve but that have the effect of creating what diplomats like to call “facts on the ground” that may prove harder to respond to in the future.

            This time, as The Barents Observer reports, Russian officials have brought to Svalbard a vehicle that is “almost identical to police cars in Russia,” despite Norway’s criminal code which “bans the use of foreign marks or designs that pretend to be or easily can be confused with a public authority” (thebarentsobserver.com/news/russia-brings-its-own-police-car-to-svalbard/436459).

Kari Aga Myklepost, a Russian specialist at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, says that the Russian coal company by bringing in this vehicle is “deliberately staging a grey zone situation aimed at provoking reactions and testing how Norwegian authorities will handle the situation.” Such actions put Oslo in “delicate position.”

If the Norwegian authorities react with a tough statement, Moscow will accuse them of Russophobia by making a mole hill into a mountain, she says; but if Oslo allows this to pass, then Moscow will pocket what the Russian government will view as a concession and then come up with a new test.

For background on this pattern in the geopolitically sensitive archipelago, see jamestown.org/program/moscows-first-move-against-nato-could-take-place-in-norways-svalbard-archipelago/,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/05/russian-diplomat-changes-date-of-ve.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/moscow-lashes-out-at-oslo-as-norway.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/duma-defense-committee-member-wants.html.