Sweden announces three credible sightings in submarine hunt

The Swedish military said Sunday it had made three credible sightings of foreign undersea activity in its waters during the past few days amid reports of a suspected Russian intrusion in the area.

Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad said the armed forces had observed the activity in the Stockholm archipelago and nearby coastal area, but declined to give details of the operation.

Sweden beefed up its military presence in the Stockholm archipelago on Saturday to scour its waters, searching for what many say is most likely a Russian submarine.

The armed forces published a photograph taken on Sunday by a passerby showing a partially submerged object in the water from a distance, but it was unclear what kind of vessel was in question.

Grenstad told reporters that he wouldn't speculate on the photograph or sightings except to say the region is "of interest to a foreign power.”

Christian Allerman, formerly Sweden’s marine attaché in Russia, told Swedish news agency TT that Russia was likely behind the activity, saying that “the only nation with a motive is the one that doesn’t want us to continue developing our cooperation with NATO.”

The mobilization of Swedish ships, troops and helicopters in the Baltic Sea, less than 30 miles from Stockholm, began on Friday and reawakened memories of the final years of the Cold War when Sweden repeatedly hunted suspected Soviet submarines along its coast with depth charges.

There is now increasing tension with Russia among the Nordic and Baltic states — most of them European Union members — over Moscow's involvement in 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.

The Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the hunt, said it began 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.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that there were no emergency situations in the Baltic involving its vessels.

"Russian Navy ships and submarines are fulfilling their duties in the world ocean waters in accordance with the plan," Interfax news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. "There has been and there are no extraordinary, let alone emergency, situations involving Russian warships."

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.

Al Jazeera and wire services