The mystery of why a beluga whale appeared off the coast of Norway wearing a harness appears to have finally been solved.
The white whale, which locals named Hvaldimir, made headlines five years ago amid widespread speculation that it was a Russian spy.
Now, a beluga expert says he believes the whale was indeed military property and escaped from a naval base in the Arctic Circle.
But Dr. Olga Shpak doesn’t think he was a spy. She believes the beluga was being trained to guard the base and ran away because he was a “bully”.
Russia has always refused to confirm or deny that the beluga whale was trained by its military.
But Dr Shpak, who worked in Russia researching marine mammals from the 1990s until returning to Ukraine in 2022, told BBC News: “To me it’s 100% (certain).”
Dr Shpak, whose statements are based on discussions with friends and former colleagues in Russia, appears in a BBC documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whale.
