Main photo: malselvfjellandsby.no

Igor Morar, the mayor of Murmansk, Viktor Saygin, a deputy of the Murmansk Regional Duma, and Alexander Timofeev, the head of the exhibition center "Atomic Icebreaker Lenin," are owners of cottages at the Mølselev ski resort in Norway. Adjacent to their cottages is the Bardufoss military airbase, where NATO military personnel participate in exercises, reports Dossier.

According to TV 2 and Dossier, Viktor Saygin became the owner of three land plots in Mølselev in 2009. Later, two of them were transferred to Morar and Timofeev. Currently, the plot owned by Saygin formally belongs to his daughter, Tatyana Zemlyanoy.

From the windows of their cottages, the runways of the Bardufoss military airbase are visible, where the headquarters of the Norwegian army is located, and a unit of the Air Force is based.

In early 2024, the NATO large-scale exercise called Nordic Response took place at this base. Norwegian authorities suspect that such close proximity could be used for espionage purposes.

"We express concerns that foreign countries, including Russia, are acquiring real estate and investing money to gain access to information about the situation in Norway," said Inger Haugland, head of Norwegian counterintelligence PST.

Igor Morar holds the position of mayor of Murmansk and is a businessman. He has been dubbed the "billboard king" because his company controlled most of the billboards in the city, obtaining them through a contract with the city administration. 

In 2018, Vladimir Putin awarded the official with a letter of commendation. He became the head of Murmansk in March 2022. Currently, Morar is a member of the parliamentary United Russia group and actively supports Putin's military aggression against Ukraine.

"Congratulations to us on the day of the reunification of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as part of Russia," the politician wrote in his Telegram channel.

The cottage of Igor Morar and Yuriy Vinogradchego. Photo: TV 2

Viktor Saygin is the deputy chairman of the Committee on Security, Military-Industrial Complex, Military Personnel, and Closed Administrative-Territorial Formations in the Murmansk Regional Duma. Among other things, Saygin heads the Murmansk branch of the "Russian Peace Foundation." This organization is involved in spreading the Kremlin's "soft power" abroad. The main division of the foundation organizes and finances trips to Russia for foreign figures and politicians who may be of interest to Russian intelligence services or officials.

Saygin at the patriotic center. Photo: VKontakte

Trainees at the patriotic center. Photo: VKontakte​

Alexander Timofeev is the director of the exhibition center Atomic Icebreaker Lenin. The icebreaker is part of the Atomflot Federal State Unitary Enterprise, which is under US and EU sanctions.

The properties owned by Murmansk officials overlook the runways of the Bardufoss military airbase, where the headquarters of the Norwegian army is located, and a unit of the Norwegian Air Force is stationed. For many years, the British Royal Navy and the British Royal Marines have been conducting military exercises at Bardufoss.

Furthermore, the base is important for NATO and the United States: for example, in early 2024, large-scale Nordic Response exercises took place there. These exercises involved 20,000 soldiers from 13 countries, which alarmed the Kremlin. The Russian Foreign Ministry called these exercises "demonstratively provocative," and pro-Kremlin media outlets claimed that they were practicing offensive operations against Russia. Therefore, the Kremlin closely monitored NATO's maneuvers.

View of the military base from one of the cottages. Photo: TV 2

The proximity of Russians to such important military facilities concerns Norwegian intelligence services.

Even if the officials from Murmansk did not initially purchase these cottages for espionage purposes, the situation may change with the deterioration of relations between the Kremlin and NATO, according to Tom Rozet, an associate professor at the Department of Intelligence Studies at the Norwegian Defence University.

"Whether it's at the request of intelligence services or military objectives related to these properties, these individuals will not be able to resist. They are loyal to the Kremlin, and they will certainly do what the Kremlin wants," explained the expert to TV 2.

And while dissenting Russians may lose their property at home for so-called army fakes, the real estate of Russian officials in Europe seems to be safe.