A beluga whale suspected of being trained by Russia to be spy has been found dead near the Norwegian town of Risavika.

The whale was first found in Norwegian waters five years ago with a GoPro that read "equipment of St. Petersburg" attached to it.

Footage from November 2022 shows the whale nicknamed Hvaldimir interacting with a diver in Norway.

That's probably what a super-intelligent male beluga whale, first spotted in 2019 off the coast of Norway, would present himself if he could talk.

On the Internet, however, he is better known as Hvaldimir, named in a national media poll after a play on the Norwegian word for whale "hval" and the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Hvaldimir's story is still shrouded in mystery. Three years ago, he appeared near fishermen from Norway. Around the body of the large marine mammal, anglers saw a belt for an underwater camera and the inscription "Equipment St. Petersburg".

This gave rise to a series of speculations, and his baptismal name Hvaldimir. It is believed that the beluga was actually an escaped specimen from the Russian Navy's Marine Mammal Combat Training Center in Murmansk.

Satellite images showing special cages for bottlenose dolphins and belugas near a Russian naval base have further fueled speculation that Khvaldimir is in fact... a Russian deserter.

James Belugov is certainly used to human presence. In 2019, he pulls a mobile phone out of a young lady's pocket and returns it to its shocked owner. In the same year, the beluga managed to take a diving knife from a diver, later stole a kayaker's camera and played with a rugby ball washed up in the waters off the Norwegian coast.

Agent James Belugov is now engaged in more serious activities. For several months he has been "working" almost daily with Bulgarian divers in the Norwegian fjords. Belugov clearly has feelings for Bulgaria.

A few months ago, the Bulgarian diver Martin Radev filmed the mammal trying to "help him" in the underwater work.

Radev told me that agent Belugov "monitors" the work process almost daily.

"We accept him as our colleague, but also as a pet" adds the diver.