Suspected Russian spy whale 'Hvaldimir' reappears off Sweden coast after 4 years

A beluga whale which appeared in Norway in 2019 has reappeared off Sweden's coast.

The whale had sparked speculations the previous time that it had been trained by the Russian navy because of a man-made harness it was wearing.

Norwegians nicknamed him Hvaldimir – a pun on the whale in Norwegian, hval, and a nod to its alleged association with Russia.

A marine biologist with the OneWhale organization said, “We don’t know why he has sped up so fast right now.”

The marine biologist, Sebastian Strand, added that it was particularly puzzling because the whale was moving “very quickly away from his natural environment”.

Notably, the whale spent more than three years slowly moving down the top half of the Norwegian coastline, before suddenly speeding up in recent months to cover the second half and move on to Sweden.