Nepal has issued permits for a record 463 climbers so far for this spring season’s expeditions to Mount Everest even as experts worry about dangerous overcrowding at the summit.

Spring is the prime time to climb Mount Everest, although some mountaineers might climb in the less favorable autumn season.

Most climbers try to ascend the peak in May. There’s a brief window of time – usually after mid-May – when temperatures are warmer, and the high-altitude winds known as the jet stream have moved away from the mountains.

The climbers, along with staff members and Sherpa guides, would spend nearly two weeks hiking to the Everest base camp, which sits at an altitude of around 17,000 feet (almost 5,200 meters).

They would then spend about two weeks adjusting to the altitude and waiting on good weather conditions before continuing for another four days, reaching other camps and finally ascending to the summit.

Warnings of too many people on Everest

Mountaineers have warned of the dangers of overcrowding on Everest.

Large numbers of people trying to reach the summit during a short time frame have led to traffic jams at the summit in the past, with hundreds of people waiting in line to reach Everest’s top.

The more than 460 climbers who have received permission to climb this spring will be accompanied by more than 1,500 Nepali Sherpas and other staff at the base camp and above. To avoid overcrowding, Nepali authorities say they are setting up more than one rope wherever possible.

Three Sherpas died earlier this month after being buried by a block of snow on Everest, according to the official. They were delivering materials to construct and clear a route to be used by climbers to get to the top of the mountain.

Nepal is home to eight of the 10 highest mountains in the world, so mountaineering is a significant source of revenue, employing large teams of people to support climbers.

It’s becoming quite the season for goalkeepers in Chile.

Just weeks after Leandro Requena scored what could be the longest range goal in history, Deportes Temuco goalkeeper Yerko Urra also got himself on the scoresheet.

With his team trailing 1-0 at home to San Marcos de Arica in the 97th minute, Urra ran the length of the pitch to attack what was surely Temuco’s last corner of the match.

After a teammate flicked the corner on at the near post, Urra reacted brilliantly to leap forward and head the ball into the roof of the net – a finish any striker would have been pleased with.

It was a crucial goal, too, as the draw helps Temuco keep pace with early leaders San Luis and La Serena in the race for promotion back to Chile’s top division.

“A goalkeeper always goes [up for a corner] with the intention of helping or bothering [the opposition] so a teammate can score,” Urra told AS Chile.

¡TUVIMOS GOL DE ARQUERO EN EL ASCENSO BETSSON!

Yerko Urra fue el héroe de Deportes Temuco en el choque ante San Marcos de Arica, al anotar de cabeza el empate 1-1 con que terminó el encuentro en los minutos finales. pic.twitter.com/LQHNxCcQYY

— TNT Sports Chile (@TNTSportsCL) April 23, 2023

“This time it was my turn and I never imagined it [would happen].”

Urra credited Temuco head coach Juan José Ribera for giving him permission to go up for the corner kick.

“Otherwise I would have stayed in goal, since if I went up then they could write me down in a counterattack,” Urra said. “It’s details that make the difference.

“I thank the coach for giving me permission, although I also went with the conviction that I could do something.”

Urra also added that he loved the feeling of scoring a goal.

“In my position we’re not used to it,” he said.

Urra said that he would always watch Rogério Ceni and José Luis Chilavert, two legendary South American goalkeepers who earned reputations for scoring goals from free kicks and penalties.

“I love that, but there are already designated players here,” Urra added. “At least this time the opportunity arose and I managed to convert.”

A little part of Ukraine is reborn in southern Brazil.

Just over a year ago, Ukrainian soccer team FC Mariupol disappeared, as the city it represented was pummeled by Russian artillery and bombers.

On March 19, 2022, the team was due to welcome FC Kollos to the Volodymyr Boyko Stadium for a match in the Ukrainian Premier League.

But by then, its training center had been bombed; the club’s campus had become a Russian barracks.

When the Ukrainian professional league resumed, FC Mariupol was missing from the schedule, its squad disbanded and its 12,000-capacity stadium deserted.

But hope was not abandoned.

One idea was half a world away.

“The first country that comes to mind when you think about football is, of course, Brazil. We found a whole province that is almost 80% ethnic Ukrainian, and we found a football club,” Sanin said.

The province, or region, was Prudentópolis in southern Brazil, where a large number of inhabitants are of Ukrainian descent. The town of Guarapuava boasts the largest Ukrainian community in south America – an incredible 75% of its 52,000 inhabitants claim Ukrainian descent.

And the football club? Associação Atlética Batel.

Not exactly a powerhouse of Brazilian football, as the team plays in the third division of the state league in Paraná. But Batel suddenly has an international following. For the next six games, and maybe beyond, it’s changing its name to FC Mariupol, adopting the orange shirts of the Ukrainian side as well as its crest and logo.

For Sanin: “This gives hope that if the club has not died, the city will not die either, and it will be revived.

In Brazil, Batel club president Alex Lopes said: “Our club and our region have a lot in common with the Ukrainian people. Our goal is to help keep FC Mariupol, which was the pride of the city, alive until they can really get back into business.”

On the newly created website FCMariupolLives, Batel commented: “Ukraine has always opened the gates of Europe to Brazilians. Now, it’s time for Brazil to welcome the Ukrainians and keep FC Mariupol alive.”

Sanin says it’s impossible to express how much Batel’s gesture means to the Ukrainian club. He confessed that a video created in Prudentópolis to embrace FC Mariupol reduced him to tears.

The website created by the club says: “We will take care of FC Mariupol until all the Ukrainians can go to Volodymyr Boyko stadium again to watch their home team play.”

Sanin, like millions of Ukrainians, is awaiting the much-heralded launch of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. And he’s optimistic that the Volodymyr Boyko stadium will soon see the orange shirts in action again.

“A few days ago we asked the Ukrainian Premier League to postpone our return to big football for another season. So we can return in the 2024/25 season.”

Wimbledon will cover accommodation costs for Ukrainian tennis players competing at this year’s tournament, organizers announced on Tuesday.

The funding will cover the cost of two rooms for all main draw and qualifying players for the entirety of the grass court season, which includes ATP and WTA Tour competitions in the weeks before Wimbledon, as well as the grand slam itself.

According to Ian Hewitt, Chairman of the All England Club, those players will be given the chance to practice at courts in Wimbledon or nearby Surbiton between the end of their French Open campaigns and the start of qualifying week at Wimbledon.

Hewitt also said that one pound (about $1.24) for every ticketholder at the tournament will be donated to relief efforts in Ukraine, amounting to more than £500,000 (around $620,000), while 1,000 Ukrainian refugees will also be invited to the championships for a day.

Last month, organizers announced that Russian and Belarusian players would be able to participate at Wimbledon as “neutrals” having been barred from competing last year amid the war in Ukraine.

“It was a difficult and challenging decision, which was made with the full support of our UK Government and the international stakeholder bodies in tennis, but does not lessen in any way our total condemnation of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Hewitt said on Tuesday.

In order to compete, Belarusian and Russian players cannot express support for the invasion of Ukraine in various forms and are prohibited from receiving funding from either country – including sponsorship from companies operated or controlled by those states – in relation to their participation at Wimbledon.

When asked if it was expected all Belarusian and Russian players would sign the declaration agreeing to those terms, All England Lawn Tennis Club chief executive Sally Bolton declined to give a figure, saying: “We have a number of players who are in the process of signing or have signed, and it would be hard to say where we finally end up.”

Terms for entry to the Wimbledon grounds have also been updated this year. Russian and Belarusian flags will be prohibited, while any symbols or signs of support for the war or for either the Russian or Belarusian regime won’t be allowed.

Bolton said that the tournament won’t be shown in Russia or Belarus and that Russian media will not be welcome at this year’s event.

Wimbledon, the third grand slam of the calendar year, runs from July 3 to 16.

Twenty river gauges are in major flood stage across the Midwest, with more potentially damaging flooding expected in the coming days and weeks as the snow from this year’s blockbuster season continues to melt.

This year’s river rise could lead to some of the worst flooding in 20 years in some places, with most river gauges in major flood stage along the Mississippi River from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Davenport, Iowa. It follows this winter’s relentless parade of storms soon after the Mississippi River near Memphis had dropped to record low levels from drought.

Now, the Mississippi River at La Crosse, Wisconsin, is forecast to crest near 16.1 feet Wednesday into Thursday – which would be its third-highest crest there and not far off the record of 17.89 feet set in April 1965. At 16 feet, “water is within one foot of Rose Street near Interstate 90, and the eastbound I-90 exit may be closed,” the National Weather Service said.

“We’re expecting a pretty good crest in a week,” Matson said Tuesday. “Whether it’s a record crest or close to a record, there’s not definitive answers yet. But it doesn’t really matter for us because we fight the river.”

Near Davenport, the Mississippi River is already at major flood stage, topping 18 feet with perhaps another 3 feet to go by early next week – which would be just a foot shy of that all-time record. Several gauges to the north, near Dubuque, Iowa, also are forecast early next week to reach their third-highest crest ever, behind 1965 and the river floods in 2001, the local weather service office said.

“We’ve used the lessons learned and the forensic analysis that the (US Army) Corps of Engineers gave us to set the barriers and set the pumps, and we have public works people doing 24/7 shifts,” Matson said. “We’re fully engaged, so we’ll see where Mother Nature and the Mississippi decides to go.”

Here is the current forecast for potential crest heights on the Mississippi River along with a flood category forecast through April 30. pic.twitter.com/Fcnynyw2S7

— NWS Quad Cities (@NWSQuadCities) April 24, 2023

Widely changing temperatures put runoff in flux

Flood warnings now are in place for rivers in the Upper Midwest from the US-Canadian border to north of St. Louis, and such warnings extend more than 400 miles along the Mississippi River alone.

As much of the snow has melted in the Upper Midwest, the resulting swell of water upstream will creep south, causing a slow rise and fall of gauges. In the next few days, nearly 15 more gauges will be added to the list of those in major flood stage as the snowmelt causes a slow rise in the rivers downstream.

“It takes time for that water to make it to the river. It’s not all going into the river all at once. It’s just a longer process,” said Caleb Grunzke, meteorologist with the Twin Cities weather service office.

Unlike flash flooding, which can happen in seconds, seasonal spring river flooding is gradual, though last week’s relative heat wave across the Midwest – with temperatures in the mid-80s to 90 degrees – will “just accelerate the melting,” he said.

“It’s above freezing the whole day, so snow is continually melting over that whole week and you’re getting lots of runoff into the rivers very quickly,” Grunzke explained.

Much cooler temperatures – with dips below freezing overnight – have settled in this week, melting the snow more gradually and “slow(ing) down the amount of runoff that goes into the rivers,” he said.

Exceptional snowfall recorded

Several cities in the Upper Midwest this winter have seen exceptional snowfall:

• Duluth, Minnesota, broke its highest seasonal snowfall last week;

• Minneapolis is experiencing its third-highest season snowfall;

• Madison, Wisconsin, is sitting at its eighth-highest snowfall for the season.

All that snow, too, will melt and contribute to the expended deluge downstream in the coming weeks and months.

In the early days of the invasion of Ukraine, the European Union and Russia closed off their airspace to each other – an aerial blockade that has remained in place ever since.

Now that China has reconnected to the world after almost three years of Covid border closures – welcome news to the world’s recovering tourism markets – some in the European aviation industry are calling out what they feel is an unlevel playing field.

During a visit to China in April, French President Emanuel Macron announced that France-headquartered Airbus landed huge deals in China, as the two countries vowed to “resume airlinks to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as possible.”

However, reviving these air links could be a much simpler prospect for Chinese airlines than European.

Longer flights, more fuel

Like other passengers flying on European carriers to Asia, Macron did not take the quickest route between France and China – his plane avoided flying over Russia for both political and security reasons.

But because Beijing and Moscow are still friends, direct, quicker routes remain open over Russian airspace, requiring less fuel and bringing better profits.

“This has resulted in longer flight times and added to the fuel used on these flights.”

The biggest airline association in Europe, A4E’s members include major players such as British Airways, Air France, KLM, Lufthansa and Finnair, all of which have had routes and flight times affected by the closure of Russian airspace.

Finnair, which operates out of a major aviation hub at Helsinki, has been hit the most due to its proximity to Russia, according to Donceel. A flight between Helsinki and Singapore now has an additional 1,400 kilometers (2,250 miles) to negotiate.

Between Helsinki and Seoul, that’s an extra 4,000 kilometers one-way.

“To put that in context, 1,400 kilometers adds 1.25 hours to the flight, and 4,000 kilometers adds seven hours on a round trip between Helsinki and Seoul,” Donceel said.

While that certainly spells more inconvenience for passengers, Donceel added that it also has commercial implications.

“This does put European airlines at a competitive disadvantage,” he said.

Ban demands

Ben Smith, CEO of the Air France-KLM Group called it an “unfair advantage” in an interview with British newspaper Financial Times published on February 17.

Currently China Eastern’s direct flights from Shanghai take 12 hours, while Air France, which it partners with through the SkyTeam airline alliance, takes 14 hours.

Similarly, the direct flight from Frankfurt to Beijing on German carrier Lufthansa takes 11 hours while its Chinese partner in Star Alliance, Air China, needs only nine hours.

Star Alliance declined to comment on this issue.

Some Western airlines have abandoned routes to East Asia. Virgin Atlantic put an official end to its London to Hong Kong route in March after almost 30 years of service, citing the logistical impact of the detour.

Founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson expressed his support for a ban on all Chinese carriers flying to the UK via Russian airspace in an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph at the end of 2022.

He told the newspaper that airlines flying over Russia were indirectly helping the Kremlin’s war effort.

Safety implications

Russian airspace bordering Ukraine has been closed to all commercial airlines since the start of the invasion.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), in its latest conflict zone information bulletin update on March 16, also advised that airlines flying over Moscow-administered airspace should exercise caution due to “heightened military activity which may include launches of mid-range missiles penetrating into controlled airspace.”

The risk of flying in proximity to active conflict zones was brutally highlighted in 2014, when Malaysian Airline MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.

Investigators later concluded that the missile which downed the plane was fired from a launcher belonging to Russia’s 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade.

China’s European routes do not fly near Ukraine airspace. They primarily enter or depart Russian airspace above the Baltic Sea, near St. Petersburg.

Whether Chinese travelers – or passengers heading on the return leg from Europe – are concerned about the risks of flying through any Russian airspace remains to be seen.

For now, Chinese airlines have yet to return to full pre-pandemic capacities. For instance, China Southern Airlines, with its base in the southern city of Guangzhou, will still only have one flight per week for its routes connecting Guangzhou to Paris and Frankfurt for the summer fall season of 2023, while pre-pandemic level was at one flight per day.

But as Chinese airlines gradually return to normal and the war in Ukraine continues to rage on, European airlines could potentially face more fierce challenges on routes between Europe and East or Southeast Asia, creating some interesting choices for passengers.

The ramifications of California’s extreme winter and early spring weather continue.

Most of Yosemite National Park will be closed to the public starting Friday night as flood concerns awash the region, the park announced Tuesday.

Yosemite is expected to remain closed until Wednesday, May 3, “but could last longer,” the National Park Service said in the closure notice.

As one storm after another dumped huge amounts of snow in the area, Yosemite was forced to close last month, and remained shut down for over three weeks. More than 15 feet of snow fell on the famous Tuolumne Meadows in less than a month.

While the record snows were a relief in a state plagued by years of severe drought, that much in one season has also raised concerns for weeks now for flooding once the snows start to melt, creating something of a dripping time bomb.

Meanwhile, snow is expected to persist at Yosemite and could remain well into July, the park said, warning hikers that trails are expected to be wet and muddy.

Snow-covered trails could be difficult to follow, and hikers are urged to use maps and GPS to navigate.

Immediate refunds will be given to those with lodging or campground reservations, which will be automatically canceled.

Dozens of people were killed in a crowd surge in Yemen’s capital on Wednesday as needy residents in the war-torn nation flocked to receive charity handouts from local merchants during the holy month of Ramadan, officials have confirmed.

Video of the tragedy in Sanaa showed a chaotic scene with dozens of people packed tightly together, unable to move and shouting for help.

Those trapped formed a tangled wall of bodies with some desperately stretching out their arms for help. A couple of men who were freed could then be seen attempting to pull others out of the deadly crush. Images from the aftermath showed shoes and slippers heaped into piles as well as scarfs strewn on the floor.

“What happened tonight is a tragic and painful accident, as dozens of people were killed due to a large stampede of a number of citizens caused by a random distribution of sums of money by some merchants and without coordination with the Ministry of Interior,” the spokesman of the Houthi-run Ministry of Interior, Abdul-Khaleq al-Ajri, said in the statement.

At least 78 people were killed in the crush and dozens injured, Mutahar al-Marouni, the director of the Houthi-run Health office in Sanaa, told the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

According to Reuters, hundreds of people had crowded into a school to receive donations of about $9.

The incident came just a few days ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. During this time of the month, people start giving away Zakat al-Fitr, or the Zakat of Breaking the Fast of Ramadan, to people who are in need.

When officials in charge of the distribution arrived and opened the door, “a lot of people rushed into the school.”

“This is a disaster to find people sacrificed their lives for just 10 dollars,” Shaker said. “People are very hungry people are very poor.”

Another eyewitness who was inside the school when the crush happened told Houthi media that more than 3,000 people had gathered to collect donations, and that they were all “standing, pushing and climbing on top of each other.”

“We tried reasoning with them, told them to go back. But there were too many people,” he said.

Police and rescue teams rushed to the scene, according to the Interior Ministry statement.

“The dead and injured people were transferred to hospitals, and two merchants in charge of the matter were arrested,” the statement added.

The head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi Al-Mashat, ordered an investigation into the incident on Thursday.

The Houthi-run General Authority for Zakat announced in a statement it would give one million Yemeni Riyal (about $4,000) to each family of the crowd surge victims.

It also said it would take care of the treatment of those injured and pay 200,000 Yemeni Riyal (about $800) to each injured person.

Spiraling poverty rates

The stampede and its overwhelming death toll reflect the current poverty rate in Yemen, said Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

And while the humanitarian situation is dire all over Yemen, it is particularly bad in Houthi-held areas, he said, noting that nearly 65% of Yemen’s population is under Houthi control.

Houthis deal with the economic problems in areas under their control “as if they are not responsible,” attributing the different crises plaguing their cities to the war, the blockade, or other foreign actors in Yemen, Nagi said.

“Assistance is not enough,” he said, “And the authorities are not concerned with society’s conditions … that is the root cause of the problem.”

Yemeni journalist Shaker said Wednesday’s tragedy was the result of years of economic desperation and the international community should “act now” to stop the war.

“People are no longer killed by air strikes or by shelling of warring parties. Now they are dying because they are rushing to get food,” he said.

World’s worst humanitarian crisis

Yemen has been described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Nine years of war have killed thousands, destroyed the economy and left 21.6 million people – two-thirds of the country’s population – in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Tens of thousands of Yemenis are living in famine, according to the UN.

The country’s conflict began as a civil war in 2014, when Houthi forces stormed the capital Sanaa and toppled the internationally recognized and Saudi-backed government. It spiraled into a wider war in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened in an attempt to beat back the Houthis.

But it eventually became a proxy war between Iran – which has been accused of arming the Houthis – and Saudi Arabia, and the main arena for their competition for regional influence.

On Sunday, a Saudi delegation arrived in Sanaa for talks with the Houthis aimed at securing a permanent ceasefire. Last Friday, negotiations bore their biggest fruits yet with a three-day prisoner swap of nearly 900 detainees from both sides. Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam tweeted on Friday that talks had been “serious and positive.”

A cheetah from Africa has died two months after being reintroduced to India as part of an intercontinental effort to revive the big cat in the country, the second animal from the program to have passed away in less than a month.

The cause of death was not immediately known and authorities will perform a post-mortem to find out more, the outlet reported.

Uday – who was named by Indian citizens in a contest – was among 20 cheetahs airlifted to India over the past few months from Africa. The Indian government’s ultimate plan is to introduce 50 big cats over the next five years.

The news of the deceased 6-year-old cheetah came just three weeks after his fellow feline, Sasha, died from a kidney infection.

Uday was one of 12 cheetahs flown across the ocean from South Africa in February. Sasha hails from another group of eight sent from Namibia in September last year.

South African veterinarian Adrian Tordiffe, who helped coordinate the move earlier, said experts were investigating various possibilities and awaiting tests for further confirmation.

“At this stage, it appears to be a rare random cause that is unlikely to pose any risk to the other cheetahs,” he said, adding that possible causes could range from severe botulism to a snake bite.

Laurie Marker, founder of the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which also helped with transferring the animals, said re-establishing a population is very difficult.

“Losses are to be expected and for unexpected reasons,” he said. “We are looking at populations which individuals are a part of and we all care about these individuals, but we also have to think of the big picture.”

While two cheetahs have died since being reintroduced, the overall population has nonetheless grown.

In late March, the country welcomed four newborn cheetahs for the first time since the species disappeared from India more than 70 years ago.

Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, but the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change hopes they’ll be able to bring the species back.

The animals chosen were selected “based on an assessment of health, wild disposition, hunting skills, and ability to contribute genetics that will result in a strong founder population,” according to CCF’s earlier statement.

The cheetahs were first sent to a quarantine enclosure before being moved to acclimatization zones and eventually released into the park’s hunting enclosures.

Cheetahs are found in southern and eastern Africa, particularly in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, with less than 7,000 left in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund (WWF).

Russia has a fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters as part of a program for the potential sabotage of underwater cables and wind farms in the region, according to a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

The broadcasters used data analysis, intercepted radio communications and intelligence sources to show how around 50 boats had been gathering intelligence for the past 10 years, using underwater surveillance equipment to map key sites for potential sabotage, Norway’s NRK and Sweden’s SVT reported.

The Russian vessels have been sailing past military training areas, important oil and gas fields, small airports, deep-water quays, and strategically important hubs for the Norwegian Armed Forces, according to NRK. The investigation also said Russian ships appear suddenly following NATO exercises. Norway and Denmark are founding members of NATO, while Finland joined earlier this month – to Moscow’s displeasure – and Sweden is seeking to follow suit.

One ship at the center of the investigation, the Admiral Vladimirsky, is officially used for underwater research expeditions, but is, according to the report, a Russian spy ship. The broadcasters tracked the boat’s movements and found it had traveled for a month through Nordic waters with its transmitter turned off to remain hidden, sailing close to wind farms, as well as through naval training areas of the Swedish Armed Forces, SVT reported.

When a TV crew from Danish public broadcaster DR approached the ship on the sea between Sweden and Denmark, a masked man emerged on deck who appeared to be wearing body armor and armed with an assault rifle, with the incident caught on camera.

The investigation also said that the Russian fishing vessel Taurus, which delivered fish to Norway between 2015 and 2022, has appeared in unusual places, heading straight towards military firing ranges and close to military bases where all naval traffic is prohibited. In one case, it appears Taurus had stopped fishing and gone directly to the city of Ålesund, passing by a major NATO exercise in the region of Trøndelag, NRK reported.

“We see it very clearly now. Russia says cooperation with the West is over, now it is confrontation,” the head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, Nils Andreas Stensønes, told NRK in response to the report.

The investigation comes after Dutch intelligence officials warned Russia had tried to gain intelligence to prepare for the potential sabotage of critical infrastructure in their patch of the North sea.

“We saw a couple of months ago that Russian ships, a Russian ship, wanted to enter the area where Dutch windmill parks in the North Sea are located with the intention to see how the command and control structure of these windmill farms, how it is operated,” Jan Swillens, head of the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD), told reporters. “So that was a threat … It was the first time that we saw a Russian vessel enter the area of the windmill farms to do their reconnaissance.”

Royal Norwegian Naval Academy researcher Ståle Ulriksen, who has been assisting with the investigation, told NRK he believes there could be more than 50 Russian spy ships in Nordic waters. “We are talking about a very large system. Quite a large fleet. Altogether, we are talking several hundred,” he was quoted as saying.

The first of several reports will be broadcast Wednesday on DR in Denmark, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and Yle in Finland.

Diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Helsinki have been heightened following Finland’s accession to the alliance. The country scrapped its longstanding position of neutrality to become a NATO member as domestic support for joining the alliance surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The accession marked a major shift in the security landscape in northeastern Europe, adding some 1,300 kilometers (830 miles) to the alliance’s frontier with Russia.

At the time, Moscow warned that further NATO expansion would not bring more stability to Europe, and said it would scale up forces near Finland if the alliance sent any troops or equipment to the new member country.