Swedish Military Steps Up Hunt For Foreign Underwater Activity

Crew members onboard a Swedish Navy fast-attack craft stand guard at the Stockholm archipelago, in Sweden, October 18 2014. Sweden's military said on Friday it was searching an area of the sea around the Stockholm archipelago after a report on "suspicious underwater activity". REUTERS

Sweden boosted its military presence in Stockholm's archipelago on Saturday to scour its waters for "foreign underwater activity" in a mobilization of ships, troops and helicopters unseen since the Cold War.

The search in the Baltic Sea less than 31 miles (50 km) from Stockholm began on Friday and brought back vivid memories of the final years of the Cold War when Sweden repeatedly hunted suspected Soviet submarines along its coast with depth charges.

The operation comes amid increasing tension with Russia among the Nordic and Baltic states over the Ukraine crisis. Finland last week accused the Russian navy of interfering with a Finnish environmental research vessel in international waters.

The Swedish military has said information about suspicious activity came from a trustworthy source, without providing details, and that more than 200 military personnel were involved in the search.

Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the search, said the military operation came after a radio transmission in Russian on an emergency frequency.

Further encrypted radio traffic from a point in the archipelago and the enclave of Kaliningrad, home to the Russian Baltic fleet's headquarters, was intercepted on Friday evening after the Swedish search started, the newspaper said.

Ships, helicopters and troops from an amphibious unit as well as the home guard combed the search area. The forces include HMS Visby, a corvette that has stealth technology and equipment for anti-submarine warfare.

"We still consider the information we received as very trustworthy," Captain Jonas Wikstrom, head of operations for the search, told reporters. "I, as head of operations, have therefore decided to increased the number of units in the area."

In 1981, the Soviet submarine known under its Swedish designation U137 was stranded deep inside Swedish waters not far from a major naval base in the neutral country, sparking intense suspicion about the scale and motives of such incursions.

The military said on Friday there had been no armed intervention and declined to comment on who might be responsible for the suspicious activity, or whether the report had been about a submarine.

Should the search find proof of foreign military activity in Swedish coastal waters it will represent the first real test of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's center-left minority government only weeks after coming to office.

Last month, Sweden said two Russian warplanes entered its airspace, calling the intrusion a "serious violation" and sending a protest to Moscow's ambassador in the Nordic country.

Countries in the Baltic Sea region have become increasingly wary of Russia's military ambitions since Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March.