“The Russians wanted to learn about the methods we use… That’s why their intelligence attempted to insert their people into our Police Security Service”, the country’s top counterespionage officer, Arne Christian Haugstøyl, told NRK radio and television company earlier this week.
He claimed that Russian intelligence targeted ethnic Norwegians as well as Norwegian citizens of Russian descent.
Arne Christian Haugstøyl admitted, however, that he was not 100 percent sure about that, saying only he hoped that the Russian “spies” had never achieved their goal.
Relations between the two countries have soured over the past year. NATO-member Norway ceased military cooperation with Russia in the spring of 2014, and has backed the European Union's anti-Russia sanctions.
In a major blow to Norway’s fishing industry, Moscow responded with a one-year ban on certain food imports from the countries, including Norway, which introduced sanctions against it.
