It’s easy to think that the eccentricities of espionage are the stuff of James Bond novels, and far too outlandish to be put into practice in reality.
Which is why the world was shocked in 2019 when Norwegian fishermen noticed a male beluga whale being unusually friendly, and wearing a harness with a camera mount bearing the words in English, “Equipment St Petersburg.”
The tame whale was named Hvaldimir by locals because ‘hval’ is Norwegian for whale, and ‘vladimir’ after Putin.
An investigation was launched by the Norwegian domestic intelligence agency, which told the BBC in 2021, “the whale is likely to have been part of a Russian research programme.”
Russia has continued to neither confirm nor deny that the beluga whale was trained by its military.
However, in a new documentary on the BBC, Dr Shpak, who worked in Russia researching marine mammals from the 1990s until her return to Ukraine in 2022, told BBC News that she is 100% certain that the whale was a Russian tool.
Dr Shpak explains in the documentary that she does not want to name her sources due to concerns for their safety, however, she had been told that when the beluga first appeared in Norway, the Russian marine mammal community immediately identified it as one of theirs.
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“Through the chain of vets and trainers the message came back,” she said, “that they were missing a beluga called Andruha.”
Dr Shpak added that she learned that Hvaldimir / Andruha had been captured in 2013 and eventually sent to the military program in the Russian Arctic. The documentary also reveals satellite images of what appear to be whale pens, right next to a military submarine base in Murmansk, dubbed a “whale jail” by environmental groups, who have raised a criminal investigation into the compound
The location of the whales suggests to experts that they were not used for spying, but potentially to guard the military base.
While this may also seem farfetched, both Russia and the US have a long history of training marine mammals for military purposes.
The BBC reports that since 1959, the US Navy has trained these ocean animals as companions for sailors and Marines to help guard them from underwater threats. They have also been trained for various things, such as rescuing lost naval swimmers, guarding ships against enemy divers, locating mines, and retrieving equipment.
The tame whale charmed locals by nudging their cameras and, at one point, even returning a mobile phone that a tourist dropped in the water. Initially unable to feed himself, Norway’s fisheries devised a program to help Hvaldimir, and he was finally able to live as a free whale.
Sadly, Hvaldimir’s body was found dead in the sea on September 01, 2024, near the town of Risavika, Norway. Despite theories that Putin had ‘dispatched’ this marine double agent, a post-mortem examination allegedly revealed that Hvaldimir died after a stick became lodged in his mouth.
Why not take a look at our guides to the best cheap drones, the best trail cameras, and the best underwater housings for cameras and phones.
