Hmmmm… sounds familiar.
“In early March, a mysterious ship the size of a large passenger ferry left a Romanian wharf, glided through the narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia and plotted a course toward Scandinavia. After a two-year refitting, the $250 million ship will begin its mission: to snoop on Russia’s activities in the Arctic.
‘There is a demand from our political leadership to describe what is going on in this region,’ said Norway’s military intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Kjell Grandhagen.
As climate change eats away at the sea ice covering the North Pole, Arctic nations — the U.S., Canada, the Nordic countries and Russia— are fishing for secrets in East-West spy games echoing Cold War rivalries. The military dimension remains important but this time there’s an economic aspect, too: getting a leg up in the competition for potential oil and gas resources, along with new shipping lanes and fishing waters.”