Norwegian secret service accuses Russia of attempts to influence Nobel Committee

Norwegian Police Security Service claims that Russia in 2015 took steps in order to prevent the Nobel Peace Prize from being awarded to Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, the Norwegian government-owned television broadcaster NRK said on Friday evening, TASS reports.

The PSS told the media Russian secret services were allegedly keen to influence decisions made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which names the laureates of the Peace Prize. In the summer of 2015 on-line resources published a letter signed by Vladimir Groisman (the then Ukrainian parliamentary speaker, currently the country’s prime minister - TASS) addressed to the US charge d’affairs in Norway. Groisman thanked the US diplomats for securing support from two of the five members of the Nobel Committee, but at the same time remarked that what they had managed to achieve did not correspond to the "original agreements" and that for President Poroshenko it was "extremely important to have the guarantees" the prize would be awarded to him. After the document gained wide publicity in the world web two Russian embassy officials requested meeting with the Nobel Committee’s Secretary, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute Olav Njolstad.