| Sandra Andersen Eira | |||||||||||
| Office: | Member of the Sámi Parliament of Norway for Ávjovárri | ||||||||||
| Status: | Incumbent | ||||||||||
| Term Start: | 2017 | ||||||||||
| Term End: | 2021 | ||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 21 June 1986 | ||||||||||
| Citizenship: | Norwegian | ||||||||||
| Nationality: |  Norway | ||||||||||
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Sandra Andersen Eira (born 21 June 1986)[1] is a fisherwoman[2] and Norwegian Sámi politician from Russenes in Porsanger Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway.[3] As of 2024 she is serving in the Ukrainian Marine Corps.
From 2017 to 2021, she served as a member of the Sámi Parliament of Norway (Sametinget), elected to the Norwegian Sámi Association from the Ávjovárri constituency.[4]
Following the end of her term in the Sametinget, she spent a year commuting between the United States and Norway, including expanding her fishing business and being featured in a documentary titled Sea Sisters.[5] During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she joined a mixed-British and American ranger squad;[6] she was part of the GUR as a Soldat and currently works in the Ukrainian Marines as Matros. As of September 2024, she was still fighting for Ukraine; she has been back to Norway at least once, for a few days, to attend a plenary session of the Sámi Parliament of Norway.
Andersen Eira took part, along with her unit, in the battle of Moshchun, near Kyiv and on the frontline in Mykolaiv in March 2022[7] and was later deployed to Bakhmut, in the Donbas, for a brief period. She was deployed in Donetsk frontline in 2023 and was part alongside units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the battle of Krynky (2023/2024), a battle that left at least 1000 Ukrainian soldiers dead or missing [8] In 2024, Russia issued an arrest warrant against her on charges of being a "mercenary".[9]