Today, a meeting of communists opposed accession of Norway to Western sanctions against Russia was held in Murmansk. Zyuganov supporters gathered at the monument to Lenin with placards with texts in two languages — "Is Norway a free country? Or the United States make decisions for you?", "Sanctions are not one-sided! Near neighbor is better than distant relatives — we are closer than the United States", "Norway, do not go on about USA!".
Indignation of сommunists is aroused by the fact that last week the government of Norway has decided to accede to the EU sanctions against Russia. Country outside the European Union, imposed restrictions on the Russian economy, similar to European. We are talking about sectoral economic sanctions and expanded list of individuals and companies whose financial assets in the country will be frozen. There will also be a ban on the import of goods from the Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as the import of weapons from Russia. Restrictions will also affect the export of products used in deepwater exploration and production of oil, as well as in the search for oil in the Arctic.
Arctic communists consider it "crossing the line and jigging to the tune of the United States".
“Norwegian explorers extracted valuable information for our command in the Great Patriotic war so that civilians and ships didn’t perish. They have done a lot together with the Soviet comrades, in submarines, in the depths of the rear, and they did everything they could to finish the war quickly. This is our historical allies. And though once Norway was a capitalist country, and Russia — a socialist one, we all lived together, we were friends. And now? They make sanctions; they are under the heel of the Americans! I'm surprised that they followed the Americans, and it hurts me,” a member of the Union of Soviet officers Oleg Zubrin said.
“With today's picket we wanted to show that the simple residents of Murmansk also monitor the progress of the development of international relations and want to contribute to the strengthening of friendly relations with our neighbors. I believe that ordinary people suffer, i.e. us. Soon we will be simply banned from entry into Norway. But we stand for friendship,” Elena Filatova, communist standing with placard "Is Norway a free country? Or the United States make decisions for you?", said.
The journalist of "Severpost" Dmitry Vysotsky became one of the ideologists of the rally at the monument to Lenin. In the past he was a correspondent of All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company in the Murmansk region and he visits Northern Kingdom regularly; he believes that Russia and Norway have now reached an impasse because of the events in Ukraine.
“We are the only region of Russia, which borders with the Kingdom of Norway, and I don’t care about these products, for which residents of Murmansk regularly go there. For me the most important thing is the relationship between people. But over the past 20 years, these relations were trending up. A couple of years ago we achieved the appearance of "Pomeranian passports". But now it seems to me, that all of these emerging issues have crossed 20 years of cooperation. And why do I agree with every word said at today's meeting? Because it's all politics, as in the proverb "When masters fall out their men get the clout". There are great politics somewhere, which sit above the map and draw new borders of influence, but we are just people, we have so many destinies connected. For example, my brother studied music and lives in Tromsø now. And today we say, "Let's breathe out, let's not jump to conclusions, let's live in the North, in peace and harmony". I think that our relationships with the Norwegians are better than the relationships of the Norwegians with the Finns, and we should keep it, regardless of future relations with Ukraine. We need to be smarter and more restrained,” the journalist said.
The outcome of the meeting was a resolution that representatives of the "Communist Party" took to the Norwegian Consulate.
Alexander Borisov, «7x7»
