‘Spy dolphin’ fled from Russian army, but was not a spy after all

Hvaldimir, as the Norwegians affectionately called him, first appeared in Norwegian waters in 2019. He was wearing a harness that seemed to indicate that Russia was using the beluga dolphin for espionage. A camera could be attached to the harness and the equipment was stated in English as ‘Equipment St Petersburg’.

Not a spy, but a security guard

Zookeepers also pointed out that the white dolphin showed ‘atypical behavior’: it was not shy of people, a sign that it was used to people and had probably lived in captivity for a long time.

Now scientist Olga Shpak claims that the white dolphin was indeed trained by the Russian army, but not as a spy. Shpak told the BBC that Hvaldimir was to help secure a Russian naval base. But he allegedly fled the training because he was ‘like a hooligan’.

“I am 100 percent sure,” says the scientist, who studied marine mammals in Russia since the 1990s until she left for Ukraine, where she was originally from, in 2022. She heard through the grapevine that the Russians were missing a beluga dolphin ‘named Andruha’.

Conversations with former colleagues

Russia has never commented on the animal. In early September, Hvaldimir was found off the coast of Norway. By the way, ‘the long arm of Moscow’ was not involved: there are stories that he died of an infection, but probably a stick got stuck in his mouth.

Shpak bases her conclusion not only on her own research, but also on ‘conversations with friends and former colleagues in Russia’. She also told her story in the BBC documentary Secret of the Spy Whale, which aired last night.

After the dolphin showed up in Norway, its harness was removed and it lingered near the coast for months. It seemed that he was unable to gather food himself, so he begged for food from tourists and fishermen. He conquered the hearts of the whole of Norway, which earned him his nickname Hvaldimir: hval is the Norwegian word for whale, and the ‘dimir’ is borrowed from Vladimir – Putin, that is.

Later he learned to catch his own food.

Cages in the water

According to Shpak, Andruha (or Hvaldimir) was captured by the Russians in 2013 in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, on the east coast of Russia. He is said to have been trained first in St. Petersburg and later at a naval base. His trainers would have trusted that he had become tame, but once they let him swim in open water, he took off.

“I heard from the people in the dolphinarium that Andruha was smart,” says the scientist, “but also stubborn, a bit like a hooligan. So they were not surprised that he went his own way.”

In the article, the BBC also publishes satellite photos of the naval base near Murmansk, which clearly show cages in the water off the coast, in which white dolphins also appear to be swimming.