In a move that has annoyed Russia, a Norwegian television channel says it will air a fictional television drama depicting a Russian invasion of Norway after radical environmentalists seize power and freeze the nation’s oil and gas industry.
TV2 drama chief Christopher Haug said Saturday the 10-episode drama that starts Oct. 4 is “foremost about Norway and Norwegians, not Russia or Russians.”
In “Occupy,” Russia partly occupies Norway to resume the oil industry. The series is the most expensive drama in Norwegian television history, costing 90 million Norwegian kroner ($11 million), according to TV2, which said the production company has sold the series to stations across Europe.
Vyacheslav Pavlovsky, the Russian ambassador in Oslo, told Russia’s TASS news agency that “Russia, regrettably, has the role of the aggressor.”
“In the worst traditions of the Cold War, [this show] decided to scare Norwegian viewers with a non-existent threat from the East,” he said Thursday.
Norway’s Foreign Ministry had no comment on the television show.
