Stepashin and Kosmo were accompanied by Kirkenes mayor Linda Randal and speaker of the Murmansk regional Duma Evgeny Nikora at the monument honoring the Red Army soldiers that liberated Kirkenes from the Nazi-occupation in October 1944.
During the war, Kirkenes became a Nazi stronghold with between 70-100,000 German soldiers to protect the flank and from which to launch attacks against Soviet- and allied military convoys in the Barents Sea. Based in Kirkenes, the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union in the north in June 1941, but did never manage to take Murmansk.
The main task of Sergey Stepashin’s visit to Kirkenes Tuesday was to sign a memorandum with Norway’s Auditor General Jørgen Kosmo regarding the joint Russia-Norwegian audit review of nuclear safety projects in Northwest-Russia.
