The Beluga whale was a commodity of the Russian military

The mystery of why a beluga whale appeared off the coast of Norway wearing a harness may have finally been solved.

The fluffy white whale, which locals call Hvaldimir, made headlines five years ago amid speculation it was a Russian spy.

Now an expert on these animals says he believes that the whale was indeed a soldier and escaped from a naval base in the Arctic Circle.

But Dr. Olga Shpak does not believe it was a spy. He believes that the rioter was being trained to guard the pillar and then ran away because he was “a bully”.

Russia has consistently refused to confirm or deny that the beluga whale was trained by its military.

But Dr Shpak, who has been working in Russia researching marine mammals since the 1990s until returning to his native Ukraine in 2022, told BBC News: “For me it’s 100% (certain).”

Dr Shpak, whose account is based on interviews with friends and former colleagues in Russia, appears in a BBC documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whale, now on BBC iPlayer and shown on BBC Two on Wednesdays at 21:00 GMT.

The mysterious whale first came to public attention five years ago when it visited fishermen off the northern coast of Norway.

“The whale starts to go along the boat,” said Joar Hesten, one of the fishermen. “I heard about distressed animals who knew they needed help from people. I thought this was one smart whale.”

This sighting was unusual because the beluga was soft and was rarely seen in places further south. It included a harness, with a camera mount, and had the words, in English, “Equipment St Petersburg”.

Mr Hesten helped remove the harness from the whale, which then swam to nearby Hammerfest harbour, where it stayed for several months.

As it could not catch live fish to eat, it attracted tourists by waving their cameras and even at one point handing back the mobile phone.

“It was very clear that this whale was conditioned to put his nose on anything that seemed to be moving because he did it all the time,” said Eve Jourdain, a researcher with the Norwegian Orca Survey.

“But we don’t know what institution he was in, so we don’t know what he was trained for.”

Fascinated by the story of the whale, Norway made arrangements for the beluga to be guarded and fed. The name it was given – Hvaldimir – is a nod to hval which is Norwegian for whale, and the name of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

Dr. Shpak did not want to reveal his sources in Russia for safety reasons but said he was told that when the beluga appeared in Norway, the Russian marine mammal community immediately recognized it as one of them.

“Through a series of vets and trainers the message came back – that they were missing a beluga called Andruha,” he said.

According to Dr. Shpak, the Andruha/Hvaldimir was first captured in 2013 in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk in the Russian Far East. A year later it was moved from a facility run by a dolphinarium in St. Petersburg to a military program in the Russian Arctic, where its trainers and veterinarians are in constant contact.

“I believe that when they started working in open water, they trusted this animal (it won’t swim), the animal just stopped,” he said.

“What I heard from the guys at the commercial dolphinarium who had him was that Andruha was smart, so it’s a good choice for training. But at the same time, he was like a hooligan – an active beluga – so they were not surprised that he left (following) the boat and went where he wanted.”

Satellite images near the Russian military base in Murmansk show what may have been Hvaldimir/Andruha’s old home. The pens are clearly visible in the water with what appear to be white whales inside.

Thomas Nilsen, of the Norwegian newspaper Barents Observer says: “The place beluga whales are very close to submarines and submarines may tell us that they are actually part of a patrol system.

Russia, on the other hand, has never officially made the claim that Hvaldimir/Andruha was trained by its soldiers. But it has a long history of training marine mammals for military purposes.

Speaking in 2019, Russian colonel Viktor Baranets said: “If we were using this animal for testing, do you think we could attach a phone number with the message ‘Please call this number’?”

Sadly, the wonderful story of Hvaldimir/Andruha does not have a happy ending.

After learning to support itself, it spent several years traveling south along the coast of Norway and in May 2023 it was seen off the coast of Sweden.

Then on September 1 2024 His body was found floating in the seanear the town of Risavika, on Norway’s southwest coast.

Did the long arm of Putin’s Russia catch a reluctant beluga?

It is not visible. Although some activist groups have suggested that the whale was shot, that explanation has been dismissed by Norwegian police.

They say there is nothing to suggest that human actions caused the beluga’s death. An autopsy revealed that Hvaldimir/Andruha died after a stick went into his mouth.