Once a day, a single small bus, traveling from Kirkenes to Murmansk, is allowed to cross Norway´s closed border with Russia. Since Putin´s invasion of Ukraine, western Europe has sealed its borders with Russia.
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00:00A lone woman waits for this bus, in Hykines, on Norway's northern tip off the Barents Sea.
00:12It's the very last direct connection still running between Norway and Russia.
00:17Why is she here? No comment.
00:21Elisaveta Vereikina can't board the bus without seriously risking her safety.
00:26She had to flee her home in Russia and now lives in exile in Norway.
00:31As usual, the bus arrives punctually at 1pm.
00:35Nearly every other border between Europe and Russia has been closed,
00:39but this bus still makes its daily run to Murmansk in northern Russia.
00:46They kept repeating, please, please don't close, we hope they will not close at least this last route,
00:52because otherwise, they told me, families will be torn apart.
00:56Officially, the Norwegian-Russian border has also been closed ever since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
01:03But Norway makes one exception for this minibus.
01:06I'm Håkon Pirkenes, and I visit my home. That's great.
01:12The four-hour trip costs about 50 euro.
01:16The driver says he takes five to ten passengers every day.
01:20Nobody here talks much about politics or the reasons for closing the border.
01:27Vereikina says Russians from all across Europe take advantage of this direct connection to their home country.
01:35This bus is basically the cheapest and the easiest way actually to get from Norway to Russia,
01:43but it's not only Norway, also from other European cities,
01:47because I have met people who are from Paris, Stockholm, Helsinki.
01:54And the bus sets off. Only Russian citizens or travellers with visas are allowed on board.
02:01Just minutes later, the bus is at the Storskog border station.
02:06No private vehicles are allowed through.
02:12Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, traffic was heavy on these roads, says Frode Berge of Norway.
02:19He was a border official for many years and had some extremely unpleasant experiences with Russian authorities,
02:26even spending two years in a Moscow prison, accused of collaborating with the Norwegian Secret Service.
02:33It took long, drawn-out negotiations to win his freedom.
02:39Even so, he remembers the many good years he had manning his former border crossing.
02:45And he says he always had a good relationship with his Soviet and later Russian counterparts.
02:51He seems deeply concerned about the return of Cold War-style relations between the two countries.
03:00The responsibility for the bad relations between our countries lies entirely with Russia and its actions.
03:07All these years we in Hürkines lived very well from the cross-border trade.
03:11We went over to the Russian side, and the Russians came over here, to Hürkines.
03:17We Norwegians had settled into this state of affairs so comfortably that we refused to see the looming dangers.
03:31Vareikene writes about those dangers for her new employer, the Barents Observer.
03:36The online newspaper discusses the threats posed by the Putin regime and includes a Russian-language version.
03:44After she fled Moscow, the journalist began publishing her reports on this platform,
03:50joined by three more Russian colleagues and critics of the regime who no longer felt safe in Russia.
03:56There are a lot of Russians living in Hürkines, and they travel also back and forth every day, some of them.
04:02There's a bus to Murmansk. So I think, in general, Russians here try to distance themselves from politics.
04:09One of the reasons, obviously, is just because they are just not interested, but some of them are afraid, there is a lot of fear.
04:15The fear is quite justified.
04:18Even along the border with Norway, Russia has been known to stage disruptions.
04:23The Barents Observer reports on them.
04:25We have seen cables, subsea cables that are cut.
04:29We have seen mapping of critical infrastructure.
04:33We have seen that the Russian Orthodox Church, that is very closely linked with the Russian military intelligence,
04:40tried to establish contacts with certain areas of the Norwegian society, including those working with subsea technologies and so on.
04:52The long arm of Moscow even reaches into Norway.
04:55Varekina sees another example on her way home from work every day.
05:00And so, this is the main entrance to the Russian consulate.
05:05And right in front you can see a memorial to the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison,
05:13spontaneously created by the local activists.
05:17Sometimes next morning people come over and see that all the photos are scrapped away,
05:23flowers destroyed, some slurs are written over his face.
05:30Unfortunately, this happens regularly here.
05:35Norway's relations with its big and powerful neighbour are more tense than ever.
05:40But one last bus is still making its run to and from Russia.