Licence to krill... is this Russia’s ‘spy’ whale?
THERE she blows... her cover. A whale found strapped into a ‘spy’ harness may have been trained by the Russian military, scientists claim.
Three brothers were fishing near Norway’s Arctic border with Russia when the beluga approached their boat.
It had been rubbing against other vessels to remove the strap, which had a mount for a camera or weapon, and had the imprint: ‘Equipment St Petersburg.’
The fishermen removed it before letting the whale swim away on Thursday.
‘If this whale comes from Russia – and there is great reason to believe it – then it is not Russian scientists, but rather the navy that has done this,’ said Martin Biuw of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway. ‘This is not a method scientists use, and as far as I know, Russian scientists do not tag beluga whales.’
Photos of the whale led to sarcasm on social media, with some Russians accusing the West of paranoia.
Viktor Baranets, a retired Russian colonel, said Norway was responsible for ‘paranoia that sees either our nuclear submarine or our divers in each floating log’. He claimed the whale was probably from a civilian research institute.
‘The Norwegians would, perhaps, want to see a GRU [military intelligence] officer’s identity card attached,’ he added.
Vladimir Putin is known to have military dolphins that can hunt for mines.
The US has also used sea creatures for the same purpose, as well as searching for missing people at sea and finding and lifting objects from the seafloor.
Two years ago the Russian defence ministry revealed a programme experimenting with whales for military purposes.
The aim was to use them for underwater warfare roles including potentially killing intruders. Putin recently reopened Soviet military bases in the Arctic to exploit vast energy resources.
Moscow has not commented.