‘Russian Submarine’ Found To Be Too Stealthy, Sweden Pulls Back As Russian Jets Spy Overhead

Sweden has found the alleged Russian submarine to be too stealthy and the Swedish military is pulling back some of its forces as Russian jets spy on them from the skies. But Sweden insists they are not giving up on the hunt for the foreign vessel.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, Sweden has deployed its military in the search for an alleged Russian submarine. The situation quickly escalated and NATO nations have reported that Russian jets were intercepted near the search area. Sweden is still threatening to used armed force in order to raise the potential Russian sub, assuming they manage to find it. But finding the unknown foreign vessel is proving to be the tricky part and the Swedish military admits the alleged Russian submarine is “like Jesus.”

According to the Swedish newspaper The Local, Sweden is pulling back some of the battleships, minesweepers, helicopters and 200 troops that have been scouring the area near Stockholm since last week. They have searched an area that’s between 20 to 40 miles for the unknown foreign vessel, but now armed forces spokesman Erik Lagersten says that “Some of the ships have returned to port.” He added to reporters that Sweden considers this a “new phase” in their search and not a scaling down of the operation.

“Ground and airforce units as well as some naval units are staying in the area,” he said. “The intelligence gathering operation is continuing just as before… We still believe there is underwater activity.”

Why is Sweden having such a difficulty tracking down the underwater noise? According to Johan Wiktorin, a fellow at the Swedish Royal Academy of War Sciences, major defense cutbacks play a role in the failure to find anything.

“One is quality: that is, the lack of qualified anti-submarine helicopters, which are needed to surprise the submerged vessel with their sonars,” said Wiktorin. “Then, in quantity, we have fewer surface vessels and submarines than we used to have 25 years ago. That reduces our endurance in operations, and the possibility to carry out large parallel operations in other areas.”

Officially, Sweden has claimed it is not in the position to “confirm or deny” the unknown foreign vessel in the Baltic Seas is a Russian submarine. The local media made that connection and journalists have repeated the allegation throughout the world. Russia has officially denied they have a Russian submarine in the area and once tried to blame the situation on Holland, who denied their Dutch submarine was still in the area.

Malena Britz, an assistant professor at the Swedish National Defence College, also notes that Sweden has spotted this type of underwater activity but it only became a front page headline for two reasons.

“I think the reason the Armed Forces are actually mentioning this incident at all is because of the increased tensions between Sweden and Russia,” she said. “We have to remember that the Armed Forces have no choice but to be open about this. It’s happening too close to Stockholm to carry out a secret operation. Imagine hiding an operation like that with today’s social media. Facebook would be overloaded with pictures and speculation. Even if they wanted to be secretive they couldn’t.”

In the end, it’s believed the hunt for the alleged Russian submarine will be a catalyst for raising awareness of a Russian threat among Swedes. Britz even thinks that if Sweden finds the unknown foreign vessel, and determines it does indeed indeed belong to Russia, that Sweden may choose to not force it to the surface since “politically, it may not be the best idea.”