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BA RUSSIA RETAIN: After her Christmas press conference on Wednesday, Erna Solberg told VG how authorities proceeded to get Russia to stop the GPS interference that disrupted air traffic. Photo: Fredrik Hagen, NTB
According to Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H), the quiet diplomacy against Russia has caused less disturbance to the GPS signals on which air traffic in northern Norway is so dependent.
– We told them that if our emergency services, air ambulance and helicopters will be able to help their citizens at sea. then they depend on the GPS signals.
– Do I help you?
– I think they succeeded, yes, says Solberg.
After a year in which the government and the PST have given Russia responsibility for cyberattacks against the Storting and a number of other anonymous Norwegian companies, the prime minister says nonetheless that relations with Russia in the north they’re good:
– It is good in the areas where we have a relationship with Russia, Solberg tells VG.
– We warn Russia about military exercises and comply with all obligations. And we experience that the Russians largely follow the same rules. Especially on the fishing side, the cooperation is good. But there has been less and less person-to-person cooperation, he adds.
– How will relations with Russia develop in 2021?
– How will the relationship with Russia in the future depends largely on the behavior of Russia, says Solberg.
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More self-aware
For the next two years, Norway will be a member of the UN Security Council, of which Russia is one of the permanent members. Therefore, Norway should be related to a greater extent with Russia as a world political and military actor:
– We have seen that Russia has become more self-aware in some areas. We see that the actions in Ukraine continue and the annexation of Crimea. We also see that your involvement in Syria has made the situation even more difficult. I hope to see a Russia that is more willing to cooperate with us and reduce the humanitarian catastrophe, he says.
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NATO exercise discontinued
Solberg believes that the handling of the GPS disturbances that Russia directed into the airspace in eastern Finnmark is a good example of how Norway relates to our great neighbor to the east.
In the fall of 2017 and during the major NATO exercise in central Norway the following year, significant disturbances to GPS signals occurred. The interference came from the east.
GPS TEST: This map was released by the e-service in January 2019, as evidence that Russia had blocked GPS signals during NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise the previous fall. Photo: The electronic service
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– You have to stop with this
– Instead of shouting out loud, we chose to go very objectively and tell Russia that “you have to stop this.” They said, “We don’t.” But then we have documented it in Russia. And then it has become less, says the prime minister to VG.
Nkom, the National Communications Authority, says they have not been able to track GPS interference in Russia since 2017.
– In September 2017 it was found that the signals disturbing the GPS network came from the east. This fall, we have reports of riots in the Tromsø area in October, and in East Finnmark in September, but then at high altitudes and without us being able to determine where they came from, says department director Per Eirik Heimdal in Nkom.
The authority has measurement equipment on the ground in East Finnmark, but the team has not detected GPS disturbances that could originate in Russia.
