Andrei, have you lost another submarine?
MOSCOW — Ships and helicopters of the Swedish Navy searched intensively over the weekend in coastal waters after detecting what the military said were signs of “foreign underwater activity” near the capital, Stockholm.
A Swedish newspaper reported that the military had detected radio signals from a Russian submarine that was perhaps stranded underwater by an emergency.
The development, if confirmed, would have far-reaching implications for highlighting how military tensions between Russia and the West were escalating over the crisis in Ukraine.
Military brinkmanship in the Baltic Sea has risen to near Cold War levels, as NATO has deployed additional forces to the area and Russia has stepped up exercises along its borders. Russia denied on Sunday that any of its submarines were missing.
Swedish ships and helicopters have been zigzagging over a portion of the waterways in the Stockholm archipelago, an area of many channels and islands, since Friday, Swedish media reported.
On Saturday, the country’s military intensified the search and a commander, Jonas Wikström, told journalists in Stockholm that the operation was based on “very trustworthy” information about the underwater activity, without clarifying that information.
Citing unnamed sources, a Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, said the hunt began after the military intercepted a radio transmission on a frequency used by the Russian Navy for emergencies and emanating from an area in the archipelago about 30 miles from Stockholm.
HT: Noah Rothman