More than one in four Norwegians believes that Russia poses a threat to Norway, according to a survey carried out by pollster InFact for the newspaper Dagbladet.
As many as 28.9 percent of those surveyed felt that the threat allegedly emanating from Russia was “high or “very high”. A similar amount (28.7 percent) thought the threat was “small” or “very small”.
In the survey, women appeared generally more worried about Russia than men. Only 6.9 percent of men think the threat from Russia is very high, whereas nearly twice as many women (11.9 percent) thought the same.
The survey also uncovered major geographical differences within the Norwegian population. People in northern Norway, who traditionally have close ties with Russia stretching back centuries - and even enjoyed visa-free travel with neighbouring Murmansk Oblast until the recent frost in relations between Russia and the West - are the least worried. There, only 5.9 percent see the threat as very high. By contrast, people in southern Norway, outside Oslo, are the most alarmed - a total of 34.1 percent believe the threat level is high or very high. On a national basis, this proportion 9.4 percent.
According to Lieutenant-Colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen, the fear expressed in the survey is not irrational, even though there is no immediate threat from Moscow. Overall, he assessed the threat in the long run as substantial – 4 on a scale from 1 to 5.
On 24 February, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk appealed for help in defending themselves against Kiev's provocations and increased shelling.
In the West, though, the operation was widely portrayed as an “invasion”, with the media even promoting fake news about Russia's alleged “brutality”. The combination of harsh political rhetoric and massive sanctions against Russia swayed public opinion and stoked anti-Russian sentiment across the continent, to the point of discrimination against Russian citizens and attacks against people with Russian roots.
The same spin with an emphasis on “protection” from the “Russian threat” forced a swing in popular opinion in neighbouring Finland and Sweden, which abandoned their historic non-alignment and chose to apply for membership in NATO – a move supported by the majority of the populations.