“Hvaldimir”one whale a beluga spotted four years ago wearing a strange harness that raised suspicions that the whale was being used by the Russian Navy is now off the west coast Swedenaccording to an NGO that monitors her movements.

The cetaceans were first sighted in 2019 in the waters of the Norwegian Arctic. The name given to the several meters long beluga came from a pun linking the word whale (hval, in Norwegian) and a common Russian name (Vladimir).

It has been seen swimming in the Oslo Fjord in recent days and yesterday south in the North Sea at Hannebostrand on the west coast of Sweden, Sebastian Strand, a marine biologist with OneWhale, told AFP.

After spending three years slowly descending from the north of Norway, in recent months, for some inexplicable reason, he is heading south.

“We don’t know why it’s moving so fast now,” especially as it’s “moving away from its natural environment,” Strand said.

Estimated to be between 13 and 14 years old, Hvaldimir was spotted in April 2019 near the Arctic region of Finnmark in the far north of Norway.

The biologists who approached her managed to remove the belt tied from her head. The belt was equipped with a mount for a small camera, and on the plastic straps of the belt was written in English: “Equipment St. Petersburg.”

Beluga whales usually live much further north, near Greenland or in the waters of the Russian or Norwegian Arctic.

The Barents Sea and the North Atlantic are strategic areas of the naval forces of both Russia and Western countries, an area with a common zone of contact between their submarines.

According to APE-MPE, AFP