casbt1osint.blogspot.com October 7, 2022 View Original severomorsk 1984 elena vasilieva osint “When reports of the explosion appeared in the Norwegian media, I confirmed that they knew about it all along,” he said.

Policy: remain silent

Today Oddmund Hammerstad says that it was a widespread policy, not only in Norway, but throughout the NATO alliance: let the Soviet regime itself report on certain events.

“I don’t even remember how exactly we found out about this. Most likely during a weekly briefing from military command or intelligence, says Hammerstad. “Besides, it was decided that there was no rush to report this.”

The situation was very tense then, the former secretary of state recalls.

“Information from Norwegian sensors, be it ground-based radars or the Maryata reconnaissance ship, was often sent directly to the United States, because Norway itself did not have sufficient capabilities or experience to analyze the information.”

“I noted this in the second half of the 90s, when the Lund Commission investigated the work of the intelligence services,” adds Hammerstad.

In an ideal society everything is fine

The Norwegian Ambassador to Moscow in 1984 was Dagfinn Stenseth. It was not easy to navigate Soviet reality, he recalls.

“The fact is that officially no incidents happened in the Soviet Union. It was an “ideal” society, you know. And if something happened, they tried to remain silent so that no one would find out,” he recalls.

The ban on the dissemination of information greatly complicated the life of foreign diplomats in Moscow.

“We diplomats even had to compile our own telephone directories. We often learned about local incidents from the old concierges,” says Stenseth.

This was the case in 1984. Five years later, the Berlin Wall came down and Soviet society opened up to the outside world. But for how long?

Just 30 years ago, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. Has he disappeared? Do we learn about all important events?

Missile tests gone wrong

Nenoksa, August 8, 2019. Missile range 90 kilometers west of Arkhangelsk. Something went wrong during a rocket engine test.

Seven people died. Five are scientists from Rosatom.

The Ministry of Defense after a while issues a vague message that the situation is under control and that all the victims have received medical attention.

There is supposedly no nuclear threat.

A few days later, Norwegian authorities admit that the background radiation did not increase as a result of the explosion.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Three weeks later, evidence appears that doctors treating the wounded were warned about the radiation danger. They were even sent to Moscow for examination. Then the Russian news agency TASS reports that the doctors were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

---