STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's biggest
submarine hunt since the dying days of the Soviet Union has put
countries around the Baltic Sea on edge.
In a scene
reminiscent of the Cold War, Swedish naval ships, helicopters and ground
troops combed the Stockholm archipelago for a fourth day Monday for
signs of a foreign submarine or smaller underwater craft that officials
suspect entered Swedish waters illegally.
While
Sweden hasn't linked any country to the suspected intrusion — and
Moscow suggested it was a Dutch sub — the incident sent a chill through
the Baltic Sea region, where Russian forces have been accused of a
series of border violations on land, sea and air in recent months.
"Closely
following events in the Swedish territorial waters, may become a game
changer of the security in the whole Baltic Sea region," Latvian Foreign
Minister Edgars Rinkevics wrote on Twitter.
Swedish military
officials say there have been three sightings of the elusive craft since
Friday, just 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Stockholm amid the myriad
of islands and skerries that stretch from the capital into the Baltic
Sea.On Sunday they released a photograph taken at a distance of what they said could be the mystery vessel — a dark speck surrounded by foaming water.
Military spokesman Jesper Tengroth said more than 200 personnel were involved in the operation, but stressed that unlike Sweden's submarine hunts in the 1980s, the military wasn't using depth charges or other anti-submarine weapons.
Speculating on whether the suspected underwater intruder was linked to a mother ship, Swedish media zeroed in on an oil tanker owned by Russian company Novoship, which had been circling near Swedish waters. In a statement Monday, Novoship President Yuri Tsvetkov said he was "flattered" by the attention but said the ship was charted for transporting oil from Russia to the U.S. and was drifting on standby awaiting loading orders.
Daily Svenska Dagbladet has reported that Swedish intelligence picked up distress signals suggesting a Russian mini-submarine had run into trouble in Swedish waters and could be damaged.
Countering such claims, a Russian Defense Ministry official quoted by the Tass news agency suggested that the search was triggered by a Dutch submarine that participated in an exercise with the Swedish navy last week. The unidentified official suggested Sweden should save "taxpayers' money" and ask the Netherlands for an explanation.
The Dutch navy, in turn, said that submarine left Sweden on Thursday and had been in Estonia since early Friday. In Sweden, Armed Forces spokesman Philip Simon said the Dutch submarine was not what triggered the Swedish search.
In the final decade of the
Cold War, Sweden launched a series of unsuccessful submarine hunts after
a Soviet sub carrying nuclear weapons was stranded off its southeastern
coast in 1981.
The events in the past days have sparked alarm
across the Baltic Sea in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — three small
former Soviet republics already spooked by Russia's intervention in
Ukraine.Estonia stepped up surveillance of its territorial waters, with the border guard looking out for "potential anomalies," spokesman Priit Parkna said.
Lithuanians
were concerned over the safety of a floating natural gas import
terminal currently being transported on the Baltic Sea to the Lithuanian
port of Klaipeda. The terminal will be key to Lithuania's plans to
reduce its reliance on Russian energy.
Meanwhile,
Russian media suggested the Swedes were overreacting. The Nezavisimaya
Gazeta newspaper even speculated that the submarine hunt could be a ploy
by the Swedish military to boost its defense budget, which has
undergone a series of cuts since the Cold War.
The official government
newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta questioned whether there was any submarine
at all, noting the Swedes hadn't found anything.
"Either
Sweden's echo location equipment is working badly or, as the old saying
goes, the eyes of fear see danger everywhere," the paper said.
The
submarine scare in Sweden comes after a string of border incidents
involving Russian forces that Western analysts say signal Moscow's
growing assertiveness in the Baltic Sea region.
Finland's
Environment Institute said last week that Russian military ships had
twice intercepted one of its research vessels in international waters.
On
Sept. 5 an Estonian security service officer was detained on the
Russian border — Estonia and Russia disagree on which side of it — and
is still in custody in Moscow.
Both
Sweden and Finland, which are not NATO members, have reported airspace
violations by Russian military aircraft in the past two months. Even
when they stay in international airspace, Russian aircraft are
conducting more ambitious maneuvers than at any point since the end of
the Cold War, Western analysts say. During Easter last year, Russian
warplanes exercising over the Baltic Sea appeared to simulate attacks on
targets in Sweden, embarrassing the Swedish Air Force which didn't have
any jets on standby.
"These
are aggressive attack drills where they make a clear statement to their
neighbors," said strategic analyst Magnus Christiansson of the Swedish
National Defense College.
NATO
says Russian airborne military activity in the Baltic region so far
this year is two-and-a-half times higher than last year, and the
alliance has boosted its own air patrols over tiny members Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania.
However,
a submarine sneaking into another country's territorial waters would be
much more serious than muscle-flexing maneuvers in the air,
Christiansson said. "To have military forces operating secretly on
another country's territory, that's something different," he said. "It
is a hostile act."
___
Matti
Huuhtanen reported from Helsinki. AP reporters Lynn Berry in Moscow,
Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Rayyan Sabet-Parry in Riga, Latvia, Liudas
Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia,
contributed to this repor