WThe Norwegian police have arrested the son of the former Russian railway boss and Putin confidante Vladimir Yakunin for illegal drone flights over Svalbard. Andrej Jakunin was arrested on Monday in Hammerfest in northern Norway, police said on Wednesday. The Russian-British citizen admitted to illegally piloting a drone over the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen, a police official said.
Yakunin is in custody, drones and other electronic devices have been confiscated, it said.
It is the seventh arrest of Russian citizens within a few days. They are accused of illegally operating unmanned aerial vehicles or taking illicit photographs in Norway, which borders Russia and is now Europe’s largest gas supplier.
Air traffic had to be interrupted
In connection with further drone flights near Norwegian airports, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Störe told NRK on Wednesday: “It is unacceptable that foreign secret services fly drones over Norwegian airports.” The Russians do not have the right to fly drones over Norway leave, he added.
A few hours earlier, a drone flight near Bergen Airport in the west of the country caused a brief disruption to air traffic.
Like other Western countries, Norway imposed an overflight ban on Russians in response to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Violations are punishable by up to three years in prison.
In Norway, drones have repeatedly been sighted on energy infrastructure, including on offshore oil and gas platforms. These reports and the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea have prompted the country to step up its security measures.
Svalbard is a thousand kilometers from the North Pole and is Norwegian territory. Since Russia also mines coal on the archipelago, it is home to a relatively large Russian community.
