Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00attack.
00:00:38Nobody wants to cooperate with Russia after this terror in
00:00:41Ukraine, it's impossible, Putin
00:00:43is a swindler, if the West
00:00:47closes the borders, these boys will hate us when
00:00:51they grow up,
00:00:54a Russian came somewhere, now I come to the store, there's a Russian here too,
00:00:57it feels like you have occupied us.
00:01:02and we can only assume that it was a kind of political blizzard,
00:01:06for Russia the door is closing, and we still
00:01:09have everything, everything will be fine.
00:01:12Norwegian Kirkenes,
00:01:22a picturesque land, rugged with fjords and sparsely
00:01:25dotted with small towns and... It is one of the least populated
00:01:31places in Western Europe, a point of contact for three
00:01:35countries. Norway, Russia and
00:01:38Finland.
00:01:39Before Latvia and
00:01:43Estonia joined NATO in 2004,
00:01:46this was the only border of the North Atlantic alliance, first with the
00:01:50Soviet Union, and then with Russia. This has been the case
00:01:54since the middle of the last century, and Murmansk,
00:01:58a strategically important port city, is only a little over
00:02:01a hundred kilometers away,
00:02:03but now, with the Kremlin going to
00:02:06war against Ukraine, NATO has become even closer, after
00:02:09Sweden and Finland applied
00:02:13to join the Alliance. However, among other
00:02:16northern neighbors of Russia, Norway was for Russia an open
00:02:20window to Europe until recently, while others
00:02:24rushed to close their land border crossings for fleeing
00:03:10Yes, such things happen here too, they even tried to close the editorial office, then
00:03:14Atli simply refused municipal support and
00:03:18added the words "Independent" to the name of his publication,
00:03:22independent. In Norway it worked, in
00:03:25Russia it didn't, now journalists from the observer are not
00:03:29allowed in. And the publication itself
00:03:31is blocked.
00:03:35We have quite complex relations with the Russian authorities after
00:03:392014. Then our editor wrote an article about the negative consequences
00:03:42of the annexation of Crimea for international cooperation in the north. And it
00:03:46was very negatively received by the Russian side, our
00:03:49editor was declared persona non grata in
00:03:51Russia. The entire editorial office of Barents
00:03:55is filled with souvenirs. And Atli and his colleagues have been to Russia
00:03:59many times. For journalists from a small
00:04:01Norwegian town, the neighboring huge
00:04:04country is a source of many interesting
00:04:07stories.
00:04:11It is very interesting to follow the events in the Russian North in the Russian
00:04:14Arctic, this region is huge, Russia has very high ambitions
00:04:18there, ambitions in the development of energy, transport,
00:04:20the use of the Northern Sea Route, and at the same time it is curious
00:04:24what happens to people in the Russian North, whose numbers are decreasing, what do
00:04:28these ambitions give them?
00:04:32Kirkenes is located right on the Russian border,
00:04:35a small town, the only one on this side, for many
00:04:38tens, if not hundreds of kilometers around,
00:04:41but to the Russian settlements of Nikel, Pechenga and
00:04:44Zapolyarny it's a stone's throw, tens of thousands
00:04:48of people live there, in Kirkenes something like
00:04:503,500, but if here the population is slowly but
00:04:54surely growing, then on the Russian side, on the contrary,
00:04:57it is rapidly declining.
00:05:12Murmansk, for example, in the late 1980s,
00:05:15the city was larger than Oslo. More than
00:05:184,000 people lived there. Today, only about
00:05:21250 live in Murmansk. And such a sharp decline in population
00:05:25is observed throughout the Russian
00:05:26North.
00:05:31We witnessed this demographic catastrophe many times
00:05:34when we traveled across the Russian North, making films from
00:05:37the Unknown Russia series, including near
00:05:40Kirkenes. in the border town of Nikel, where we were
00:05:44very recently, last winter. Two years ago,
00:05:47the Norilsk Nickel corporation decided to close a huge
00:05:51ore processing plant in this town, and the town began to empty before
00:05:55our eyes, people started leaving, there was nowhere
00:05:59to work, they said, and they will build this, and they will build that, and
00:06:03I generally don't know how much they will build, but there is nothing
00:06:06anywhere, only closures,
00:06:09apartments generally cost pennies, completely unsaleable.
00:06:12nothing, however, before leaving, the corporation
00:06:16created a non-profit organization called Second
00:06:18School for training entrepreneurs, distributing
00:06:22loans and developing projects, then,
00:06:25before the war, the director of the Second School enthusiastically
00:06:29told us about the advantages
00:06:31of proximity to the Norwegian border, we
00:06:34see the desire, for example, of the Norwegians, for
00:06:38this territory to, as it were, prosper, that is, there is a desire
00:06:41to do joint business in this territory, this is a territory
00:06:45that in any case must live, exist, and so on, we understand all this, this
00:06:48is already a question, probably more geopolitical, yes, than
00:06:51political, how this very
00:06:54geopolitical question was resolved, we already know, there is no
00:06:57talk of cooperation anymore, and
00:07:01Finland even announced its intention
00:07:04to build a high fence on the borders with
00:07:07Russia.
00:07:09there were thousands of projects in which I participated. When the Foreign Ministers
00:07:42of Norway and
00:07:53Russia met here and signed a
00:07:56declaration.
00:08:01In the beginning it was very difficult, there was chaos in Russia, even food
00:08:05problems. We prepared ourselves, delivered it,
00:08:08helped. Then it was primitive, but then step
00:08:11by step. culture, sports, business, and the main step was
00:08:15the integration of the Russian economy into ours, here, in
00:08:18Norway. Rune even received
00:08:22the Order of Friendship from the Russian
00:08:25president for his work, although after the start of the war in Ukraine he
00:08:29refused the award, and the Barents Secretariat almost
00:08:32completely ceased cooperation with
00:08:35Russia.
00:08:38Now there is almost no activity there, nobody wants
00:08:41to cooperate with Russia after this terror in Ukraine. It is
00:08:45impossible. Putin is a
00:08:46swindler.
00:08:51One of the goals of joint work was the creation of a large
00:08:54tourist cluster in this region. Finland
00:08:58offered Lapland with Santa Claus and reindeer.
00:09:01Norway - crabs and fjords. Russia -
00:09:04a super-deep well, picturesque ruins of old
00:09:08enterprises and an adventure resort, which,
00:09:11however, was only in the plans,
00:09:14remained in the plans, while neighbors were already reaping
00:09:17the first tourist harvest,
00:09:21all these hotels were full, there were no
00:09:24free rooms, everywhere there were tourists from Asia and
00:09:28the same situation was in the Finnish Arctic, this is winter
00:09:31tourism, and tourists in winter spend much more than
00:09:34in summer, this is a big business, without the pandemic,
00:09:38all this will return, but only without
00:09:40Russia.
00:09:48I think tourism could be a solution for them, but open borders are needed, as long as Putin is in power in the
00:09:52Kremlin, it will be very difficult to establish any cooperation, the
00:09:56nineties
00:10:03were rough for
00:10:04Kirkenes too.
00:10:12the mining and beneficiation of iron ore ceased, that which
00:10:16the city had lived on for decades, the number of residents sharply
00:11:25of neighbors regularly stopped Valentina's car to
00:11:29check her for sobriety, or unpleasant
00:11:32remarks that customers of the store where she worked allowed
00:11:35themselves, I stand, serving her,
00:11:39scanning the goods at the cash register, yes, she tells me: the Russians have occupied us,
00:11:42but they did it very cleverly, I say, how? she
00:11:46says: I came to the polyclinic today, the floors are being
00:11:49washed by a Russian, at the reception
00:12:32called it local products, local products, now Valentina's fish
00:12:35patties go to stores and restaurants
00:12:38of Kirkenes, she would like to enter the Russian market,
00:12:42because on the other side of the border Norwegian products were always
00:12:45valued for their environmental friendliness, but now
00:12:48it will be extremely difficult to do this, if at all
00:12:52possible, everyone is in shock, everyone is" well, everyone is in shock,
00:12:55everyone is afraid to lose this friendship that we have built up for 30
00:12:59years, that is, when we stopped being afraid of each other,
00:13:03that is, Norwegians used to go to Nikel in the Murmansk region
00:13:06absolutely as if it were their own home,
00:13:0930 km from Valentina's home meet the borders of three
00:13:12states - Russia, Norway and Finland, in some
00:13:16sense the borders ran right through her
00:13:19fate, she herself is from Russia, her husband is an ethnic
00:13:22Finn, and they live in Norway.
00:13:25have lived here for centuries, but there have never been conflicts here,
00:13:29maybe there were pouts or something
00:13:31else, but there were no armed
00:13:35conflicts,
00:13:37she hopes that someday this small patch of land will become an example for
00:13:41everyone, an example that you can be in different
00:13:44economic unions, because Norway is not in the EU, and
00:13:48Finland is in different military blocs, but live
00:13:52peacefully, work and trade for everyone's benefit.
00:14:09Kirkenes is like a large ship sailing across
00:14:11the Barents Sea, the city stands on a hill almost surrounded
00:14:15by water on all sides, the cries of gulls and narrow
00:14:18staircases, like gangways, by which you descend from one
00:14:22deck to
00:14:25another, intensify the sensation.
00:14:29On the central street, in a building with the port name terminal
00:14:32B, preparations are underway for the opening of a new exhibition. Artists
00:14:36display works whose creation was inspired by
00:14:40ceramics made thousands of years ago. Such exhibitions are not
00:14:43uncommon here. Modern art became another
00:14:47tugboat that pulled the impoverished
00:14:50commune out of the crisis in the nineties.
00:14:53A creative group works here, naming itself after a series
00:14:56of Edvard Munch paintings, "Pikene på broen", girls on
00:15:00the bridge. It is their merit that the small
00:15:04northern town has become one of the cultural centers of Norway and
00:15:07all of Europe, the festival capital of
00:15:10the Arctic.
00:15:15Bruen is a group of curators and producers working in contemporary
00:15:18art. It was created in 1996 by
00:15:22six female artists. The bridge in the name.
00:15:49a cultural and political mix of theater, discussions, music and
00:15:52cinema, and now here in Kirkenes, groups from all
00:15:56over the world come with their projects, including Russia.
00:15:59Moreover, part of the Barents спектакль events take place
00:16:03on Russian territory, or rather, they used to, and
00:16:07probably for the last
00:16:08time.
00:16:14independent artists, scientists and exhibition curators, many of them
00:16:17do not want to be associated with Russia, many people with
00:16:21whom we cooperated have left the country, this gives us
00:16:24a chance to work with them openly, without putting them at great risk, without
00:16:28creating any problems for them.
00:16:31February 24, when Russian tanks were rushing to
00:16:34Kyiv, and rockets were already falling on residential areas,
00:17:34A fairly large crowd gathered on the Norwegian side. People also
00:17:38gathered near Pavel, although there weren't many of them, but a message
00:17:41came that the event would not take place. Russian
00:17:44officials cited a blizzard and decided that the weather did not
00:17:48allow them to carry out their plan, but we did not see
00:17:51any storm. We can only assume that it was a kind of
00:17:54political blizzard. The Russian ban made
00:17:58the performance even more expressive. In Norway,
00:18:00the siren sounded, and the response from
00:18:04Russia was. Astrid says that the last Barents
00:18:13performance was one of the biggest challenges in her life, it is very
00:18:16difficult to build bridges with those who have already started to
00:18:20burn them, and this does not mean that next year at the
00:18:23festival there will be no Russian speech and that artists from
00:18:27Russia will not be able to present their projects, it's just that
00:18:31Russia itself will remain in
00:18:34silence. And It is important to see the difference between official
00:18:41culture, large institutions that are funded by the Russian
00:18:45state, and the freedom of creativity of independent
00:18:48artists, musicians and writers. They often
00:18:51risk their own safety for their voice
00:18:54to be heard. We need to give them a chance to raise
00:18:58that voice.
00:18:59The next Barents Spektakel will take place at the end of
00:19:02February 2023
00:19:04on the anniversary of the Russian
00:19:08attack on Ukraine, the festival organizers have never
00:19:11shied away from politics, reflecting the actions of societies
00:19:15and states at the center of every event, but what
00:19:19to do when Russia itself loses its borders daily,
00:19:22in all
00:19:23senses.
00:19:27It's very difficult to say what the situation will be in February next
00:19:31year, everything is constantly changing, we will have to
00:19:34improvise, we need to clearly demonstrate.
00:20:07You see the door, the command allowed them to
00:20:11train here, they told the school, you can use this
00:20:14room, until the war starts,
00:20:17In the Kirkenes underground bunker, no high-ranking
00:20:21Norwegian officials are sitting in fear,
00:20:24children are training, their instructor Willi, according to him,
00:20:27is a Norwegian Pomor, who was born and raised in the small
00:20:31town of Vardø, on the Varanger
00:20:34Peninsula, that's at... also in Norway and in
00:21:50Europe, few people travel to Russia,
00:21:53and it's very important to talk to people. How many
00:21:57times have I traveled by train, there's
00:22:00food, beer, conversations.
00:22:02Only this way can you learn the truth about the country. Willi tries
00:22:05to convey the experience and knowledge gained from such
00:22:09trips to his compatriots, including the most highly placed.
00:22:12He is confident that Norway should by
00:22:15no means close its borders.
00:22:18but believes that severing ties with
00:22:50eastern neighbors is a mistake, especially when
00:22:53it comes to children and his beloved
00:22:57sport.
00:23:12closes the borders, these boys will hate us when
00:23:16they grow up. Norway never sought
00:23:23to become Russia's best friend, formally maintaining a detached,
00:23:26cautious position, but at the level of human and
00:23:30economic relations it was always
00:23:33a good neighbor to it, what will happen next nobody
00:23:37knows, however, it's not hard to guess.
00:23:40The part of the economy connected with Russia
00:23:43is approximately 75 million euros. A large segment is
00:23:47the fishing industry. The largest private company here
00:23:50is a shipyard. 80% of their turnover is
00:23:53Russian orders. We have many Russian fishing vessels in our
00:23:57bay. And the Russian crab fleet is located in
00:24:00Kirkenes. But I don't think it will continue that way.
00:24:04Fish will continue to be caught here, if not by Russians, then
00:24:08by locals. Oil and gas, as they were extracted, will continue to be extracted
00:24:11further, and this is a significant help for
00:24:14the Norwegian budget. Well, the recent entry of Finland into NATO...
00:24:18will allow Norwegian military personnel to use
00:24:21the infrastructure of their neighbors again to raise the question of
00:24:25building the Rovaniemi-Kirkenes railway,
00:24:28even the old mines in Bjørnevatn, in the absence of
00:24:31Russian ore, may suddenly find their second
00:24:35wind.
00:24:36Before our meeting, I talked
00:24:39to people who are trying to start nickel mining. We will probably
00:24:43launch a train from Finland, where nickel
00:24:46is being sought, but our port remains. with Russia and dreamed of
00:25:20the unity of the peoples of this harsh polar
00:25:23region, to live in which, in his conviction, is only possible
00:25:26together, cooperating, because the north is cruel to
00:25:30loners, even if it is a large country
00:25:33that, having abandoned the rules of world cohabitation, decided
00:25:37to remain in solitude.
00:25:40Riga bus station, passenger
00:25:59buses depart from here daily, including to Russia and
00:26:03Belarus. The Latvian government plans
00:26:06to ban bus routes to these countries. Politicians refer to the conclusions
00:26:09of law enforcement agencies that bus service between Latvia and
00:26:12Russia and Belarus threatens national security.
00:26:16Passenger traffic between Latvia and Russia and Belarus has already
00:26:20been reduced to a minimum. Planes to these countries do not fly from Latvia,
00:26:23trains do not run, only buses remain.
00:26:26In a matter of seconds, an explosion destroys the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant.
00:26:30An impressive sight, but
00:26:34dismantling the entire plant takes decades, this
00:26:37happens because many materials are radioactive, they cannot simply
00:26:41be disposed of as nuclear waste used to be.
00:26:44Nuclear energy is experiencing a revival worldwide.
00:26:48But have operators considered decommissioning nuclear power plants,
00:26:51what happens when the plant's service life comes to
00:26:55an end? And most importantly, how much will its
00:26:58decommissioning and disposal cost?
00:27:01chemists, girls,
00:27:06dog handlers, sappers-divers,
00:27:08now there are more girls,
00:27:11and I think there will be even more later, because many
00:27:15guys will go to war,
00:27:18water is an important part
00:28:35pristine nature of Pshavi, a region
00:28:38that directly borders the Greater
00:28:41Caucasus Range.
00:28:44The highlanders, Pshavs,
00:28:47speak their own special dialect of the Georgian
00:28:51language, and in many ways differ from the inhabitants of other
00:28:54regions of Georgia, preserving their preferences
00:28:57in religion, traditions, and cuisine.
00:29:01Few people know about this, but Arabs still
00:29:08live in Central Asia, whose ancestors appeared here back in the days of
00:29:11the righteous Caliphs.
00:29:14For almost 14 centuries, they
00:29:21have preserved their identity, calling themselves Central Asian
00:29:25Arabs, or simply Arabi.
00:29:2817 people died as a result
00:30:02of a Russian strike on Ukraine. The military claims they could not shoot down a single
00:30:05missile. Kyiv says there is a shortage of air defense and asks allies for
00:30:09help. This is a live broadcast of the Current Time channel. Here's what else we'll
00:30:13tell you about today.
00:30:15After the strikes on Russia, the
00:30:18oil refinery and the Wildberries warehouse are again on fire. We will tell you about
00:30:21the consequences of such attacks for the environment: chemicals enter
00:30:25the air and reservoirs. In Yekaterinburg, the car of the
00:30:28head of a drone manufacturing plant was blown up. On the same day, Vladimir Putin announced
00:30:32personnel changes in the field of unmanned systems. In
00:30:36Volyn, Polish and Ukrainian specialists discovered the remains of more than fifty
00:30:40victims of massacres during World War II. We will tell you how
00:30:43modern excavations affect the relations between Kyiv and
00:30:46Warsaw.
00:30:50Tonight, Russia launched 24 ballistic missiles at Ukraine.
00:30:54The targets of the strikes were warehouses and logistics
00:30:57centers. 17 people died during the