Hvaldimir was discovered by fishermen off the coast of northern Norway (Picture: AFP)
‘A whale deployed by Vladimir Putin as a Russian spy’ – it seems like a chapter of an alternative version of John le Carré’s novel ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.
It has long been alleged that a beluga whale was conducting maritime espionage for the Kremlin in the Arctic.
Nicknamed Hvaldimir – a combination of Putin’s first name and the Norwegian word for whale, ‘hval’ – it was first spotted in the waters around Norway five years ago it.
What ignited speculation that the mammal was a Russian agent was the harness around its neck which had the words ‘Equipment of St Petersburg’ on it.
Now, an expert in the species has spoken out about the mystery surrounding the whale, which was found dead in September.
Dr Olga Shpak, who worked in Russia researching marine mammals from the 1990s before returning to her native country, Ukraine, in 2022, believes that the animal did belong to the military and escaped from its naval base in the Arctic Circle.
But she told the BBC that she does not think Hvaladimir was a spy. Instead, the whale was being trained to guard the base.
Dr Shpak did not want to name her sources in Russia for their own safety but said she had been told that when the beluga surfaced in Norway, the Russian marine mammal community immediately identified it as one of theirs.
‘Through the chain of vets and trainers the message came back – that they were missing a beluga,’ she says.
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