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A dead beluga whale was found off the coast of Norway over the weekend, suspected to have been trained by the Russian navy for espionage purposes since 2019. The news was announced on Sunday by the Norwegian NGO Marine Mind, which has been monitoring the movements of the mammal for years, AFP TASR reported.
The whale’s body was found on Saturday near the city of Stavanger on Norway’s southwest coast. “I found Hvaldi (short for beluha’s nickname) dead yesterday as usual… Just 24 hours ago we found him floating motionless in the water and we confirmed he was still alive,” he told AFP Sebastian Strand, founder of the aforementioned group Marine Mind.
He added that the cause of death was not yet known and that an initial examination of the beluga’s remains did not reveal any obvious injuries. The dead whale was pulled from the water with a crane and transported to a cool location at a nearby port, where experts will perform a necropsy and find out the exact cause.
Belukha earned the nickname “Hvaldimir,” a combination of the word “hval,” the Norwegian word for whale, and the name “Vladimir,” a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was first spotted off the coast of northern Norway in 2019. It was wearing a special tight harness that seemed to fit a camera or a weapon, which led Norwegian experts to believe that the animal had received special training in neighboring Russia. In addition, the inscription “Petersburg Device” was found inside the harness removed from the whale.
The whale was also apparently used to the presence of humans, which only strengthened speculation that it was trained as a spy and had apparently escaped from its enclosure. Moscow has never officially commented on these speculations, however.
According to experts, Hvarkimir lived only 14-15 years, so he was a relatively young white female. These whales usually live 40 to 60 years. Over the years, Hvarkimir has been spotted several times off the coast of Norway and even Sweden.
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