Sweden looking for mystery submarine

quote:

---

The Swedish military said Sunday it had made three credible sightings of foreign undersea activity in its waters during the past few days amid reports of a suspected Russian intrusion in the area.

The armed forces published a photograph taken on Sunday by a passerby showing a partially submerged object in the water from a distance, but it was unclear what kind of vessel was in question.

---

quote:

---

Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad told reporters that he wouldn't speculate on the photograph or sightings except to say the region is "of interest to a foreign power."

The military said the intelligence operation, involving a few hundred people, began Friday. It was sparked by information "from a credible source."

---

quote:

---

Anders Nordin from the Swedish Maritime Administration said a Russian-owned oil tanker, Concord, which had reportedly been circling near Swedish waters for days, started sailing in a northeasterly direction toward Russia on Sunday morning. But it suddenly turned around and headed back in the direction of Sweden, according to Marine Traffic, a website which monitors vessels in the Baltic Sea.

Media reports said the movements of the Liberian-flagged tanker might be connected to the submarine search.

---

quote:

---

Roland Oliphant has more on the theory that the submarine apparently stranded off the Swedish coast was undertaking a top-secret, James Bond-esque spy extraction mission. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But who knows...

"As everyone one knows, the best role of a submarine in any Cold War drama is to deliver or extract spies from hostile shores in the dead of night.
Following that logic, the vessel in question almost certainly ran into trouble while delivering a Russian agent to a remote Baltic island to do something swashbuckling and nefarious.
Exactly what such a spy might be up to is anyone’s guess.
After all, Russia and Sweden are not at war, and Aeroflot flies Moscow to Stockholm twice daily (from a very reasonable £73, according to the airline’s website).
So unless Moscow’s spy agencies have lost the ability to travel incognito, there would have to be a good reason to take such a risky and laborious travel option.
Probably the kind of reason that would make a decent airport paperback."

Remember the reports last night of an enigmatic "man in black" wading off the Swedish island of Korso, raising the prospect that the submarine could have been sent to drop off or pick up an elite Russian spy?
Well, Swedish website DE claims to have found a picture of him, snapped by a local last night:

---

quote:

---

The plot has thickened this morning, with Russia claiming that the mysterious stricken vessel is in fact Dutch.

AFP cites an equally mysterious "source in the Russian defence ministry":
"To remove tensions in the waters of the Baltic Sea and to save money of the Swedish taxpayers we would recommend (Sweden) to turn to the naval command of the Netherlands for an explanation," a source at the defence ministry in Moscow told Russian news agencies.
The source said that the Dutch diesel-electric submarine Bruinvis was carrying out tasks near Stockholm last week.

---

quote:

---

The Netherlands has denied the Russian claim that the mystery sub could be one of theirs.
"To remove tensions in the waters of the Baltic Sea and to save money of the Swedish taxpayers we would recommend (Sweden) to turn to the naval command of the Netherlands for an explanation," the unnamed official was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
But the Dutch defence ministry said its submarine was no longer in the area when the mystery vessel was reportedly sighted.
"We participated in an exercise with Sweden with several ships, but it ended last week Thursday," Dutch defence ministry spokeswoman Marnoes Visser told AFP.
"The Bruinvis then departed for Estonia, where it has been at anchor in the Tallinn harbour over the weekend."
"The Dutch submarine is not involved and we are further not involved in any search action or such," she said.

---