At the department of reindeer husbandry in Oslo, which is part of the ministry of agriculture, a peppered bill from Russia plopped on the mat at the end of June this year. It came from the Pasvik nature reserve in the Murmansk region, which borders a reserve of the same name in the high north of Norway.
The Russians demanded 47 million Norwegian kroner [€4.2m]. Why?
It turns out that 40 Norwegian reindeer had crossed the border on the frozen Pasvik river and had grazed on the Ru...
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Caroline de Gruyter is an EU correspondent and columnist for the Dutch newspaper NRC. She is also a columnist for Foreign Policy and De Standaard. This piece is adapted from a recent column in NRC.