Trouble seems to haunt Russia’s long European border from the Barents Sea to the Caspian. In Northern Norway, local authorities complain that Russia is jamming GPS-signals, thereby jeopardising possible search and rescue operations on land and sea in the high north.
Further south, Estonian officials claimed that GPS-jamming on the border in 2014 was followed by smoke grenades and an incursion by Russian special services. The unit kidnapped an Estonian intelligence officer and brought him across the border where he was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The officer was eventually traded returned to Estonia in exchange for a Russian spy.
All pales in comparison with Ukraine, where armed conflict still simmers in the east and Crimea remains under Russian occupation. United Nations and rights groups have documented torture, abductions and willful killings of civilians during the armed conflict and occupation. As has been typical for wars in the post-Soviet sphere, there have been many crimes and little justice.
