...Swedish authorities (click here) also protested to Moscow last month after the country's airspace was penetrated by two Russian fighter jets. Finland, which shares a more than 800-mile border with Russia, last week complained of a Russian naval vessel interfering with a Finnish research ship in international waters. And in September, Canada claimed that its ships taking part in Black Sea naval exercises with Ukraine were buzzed by Russian aircraft.
...“It could be a submarine, it could be a diver using a moped-like underwater vehicle and it could be divers that don’t have any business on our territory -- that’s the range of foreign underwater activity we are looking into,” the Euronews agency quoted Grenstad as saying.
The Svenska Dagensblat newspaper quoted unnamed sources with knowledge of the search, said to be the biggest in the post-Cold War period, as saying the hunt was triggered Friday after the Swedish military intercepted a Russian-language radio distress call from somewhere in the Stockholm archipelago to a receiver in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the main base of Moscow’s Baltic Sea fleet....
Armed Forces finds probable underwater operations (click here - needs translation)
HEADQUARTERS
The intelligence operation that has lasted for more than two days in the archipelago based on several credible sightings. Over the past few days have made observations at three locations. Armed Forces believes all that much credibility.
- This means that the intelligence operation now seeks to confirm foreign submarine operations, said Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad, Armed Forces Deputy Director of Operations.
Armed Forces confirms that it is likely that there is a foreign submarine activity in the Stockholm archipelago. It is the second highest voucher on Armed Forces self-assessment scale, which means that the operation continues. Armed Forces' assessment is also based on several observations over the years in the same area at Kanholmsfjärden....
There were exercises and Russian can't stand the simple of idea that NATO is prepared for any possible threat. This is from RIA Novosti.
..."This month (click here) five naval ships from the Royal Netherlands Navy participated in the international exercise Northern Archer in the Baltic Sea. One of these ships is HNLMS Bruinvis. The weekend of October 11th the ships visited Stockholm and spend the weekend there. After the weekend they exercised together with the Swedish Navy. This ended on Thursday afternoon, after which our ships set sail to Tallinn, Estonia, where they arrived on Friday morning," Karen Loos-Gelijns, Head of Communications Royal Netherlands Navy, informed RIA Novosti by e-mail....
This is what Russia is hoping for. A NATO that sees nothing, hears nothing and pretends there is no burgeoning conflict. I suppose as far as Russia is concerned NATO forgot to put out it's "No Trespassing in NATO Waters" sign.
Now that Russia has acted foolishly NATO has to worry about a distress call from Russian naval submarines, of in this case mini-sub, so no one dies in another Russia sub accident.
K-141 Kursk (click here)
All 118 men aboard the K-141 Kursk perished when the Russian nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000. Kursk was an Oscar-II class cruise missile submarine commissioned into the Russian Navy in December 1994.
Kursk was one of the 30 vessels that took part in the "Summer-X" exercise. The submarine suffered an explosion while preparing to fire dummy torpedoes during the exercise. The leakage of high-test peroxide (HTP) from one of the Type 65 torpedoes was believed to have caused the explosion.
The explosion completely destroyed the first three compartments. 23 of the 118 crew were left alive in the ninth compartment when the submarine hit the seafloor but they died subsequently due to lack of oxygen.
At least this time it is a mini-sub used for spying rather than a nuclear capacity submarine.
