7/5/2023 0 Comments Investor observerHe takes the reactions from Finland seriously. “Kirkenes is a brand and no brands want a bad reputation and negative associations,” Stålsett says. Kenneth Stålsett, CEO of Sør-Varanger Utvikling, the public Kirkenes-based business development company, fears the lack of will to cancel the friendship agreement with Severomorsk could harm potential foreign investments. Severomorsk is the main base of the Northern Fleet. Today, Severomorsk has only one sister city in addition to Kirkenes: Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic ruled by the authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov. On the waters outside, in Kola Bay, were surface warships and nuclear-powered submarines armed with Russia’s most potent weapons, the ballistic missiles tipped with multiple nukes. The parades consisted of, among others, soldiers that had returned from Syria and the battlefields of the armed conflict in Donbas. The two last as an official guest at the annual Navy Day weapons parade in 20. One is Rune Rafaelsen, the former Mayor of Kirkenes. Very few from Kirkenes have ever been allowed in. Due to its military strategic importance, Severomorsk is closed to outsiders not holding a special military permit to enter. Severomorsk is not an ordinary northern Russian town. It is home to the headquarters of the powerful Northern Fleet. Photo via Telegram / ZATO SeveromorskĪ new friendship agreement was signed between Kirkenes and Severomorsk in 2016, two years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Last fall, the municipality council voted down a proposal by one of its members to abandon the agreement in protest of the war on Ukraine. The Northern Fleet has sent thousands of soldiers to the battlefields. On February 24, local residents in Severomorsk lined up their cars as a Z, Russia’s universal symbol of support to the all-out war on Ukraine. We need to stand on the right side of history,” Valtonen makes clear. Kustaa Valtonen, a co-founder of Finest Bay Area Development together with Vesterbacka, elaborates: “We do a lot of business activity in Kirkenes and would love to do more, but local attitude is very important to be aligned with the reality of a world that changed one year ago. He has later continued in entrepreneurship, including the company planning a railway from Rovaniemi in northern Finland to Kirkenes on the coast of the Barents Sea. Peter Vesterbacka is known for developing the game company Rovio, making the popular Angry Birds mobile game. It is “very clear that this friendship agreement should be ended.” … Severomorsk could of course condemn the war, Vesterbacka adds but underlines: “If they don’t, Kirkenes should end the friendship. Continued Kirkenes-Severomorsk friendship agreement would put foreign investments into Kirkenes in jeopardy, says Peter Vesterbacka to the Barents Observer.
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