Hunting for the "mysterious" submarine: Is Sweden's purpose clear?

The Swedish military has ceased its search for a mysterious submarine believed to be operating stealthily beneath the Stockholm archipelago.

DailyMail reports that top Swedish naval officers were forced to admit on October 24th that, despite underwater activity, the military ruled out the possibility that it could be a Russian submarine.

The decision was made after Moscow criticized the hunt as an unfounded action by the Swedish military, based solely on Cold War-era claims.

The week-long manhunt, involving more than 200 soldiers, stealth ships, and helicopters, swept the waters off Stockholm. The search for "underwater activities of a foreign state" in the Baltic Sea was the country's largest military mobilization since the Cold War.

Earlier, at a press conference on the morning of October 24, the Swedish military confirmed that there was some underwater activity, but it was not submarine activity because the area where such activity occurred was too shallow.

Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad said the country's military could not prove the type of ship, its nationality, or its activities. However, a search was still underway as mentioned above.

The Swedish armed forces are searching for the mysterious submarine.

The information that Sweden admitted there were no submarines further clarifies previous assessments by experts. According to observers from the Russian newspaper Rossaya Gazeta, the real purpose of this special search operation was not to find a submarine, but possibly to secure a decision to increase the defense budget.

According to them, the issue needs to be viewed from a year ago, when the then Swedish Defense Minister made a controversial statement that, in the event of an attack, Sweden could only hold out for no more than a week.

Experts in this country have conducted numerous research reports and concluded that it is necessary to strengthen defense policy and increase military spending. However, steps to implement this policy have yet to be taken.

And now, according to Russian observers, with the imminent threat combined with an unprecedented media campaign, the Swedish public is seeing that while the Russian submarine may not be found, the costs are being incurred daily, and that is the truth.

According to Reuters, Sweden's submarine detection capabilities are currently very weak, due to its defense budget accounting for only 1% of GDP and undergoing continuous cuts.

Sweden is a neutral country that has not experienced any wars in the past 200 years, and its budget is primarily focused on social welfare.

Given the current shortcomings in submarine detection, many in Sweden believe that increased investment in defense is necessary to enhance submarine detection and hunting capabilities.

Currently, the Swedish navy has only five anti-submarine patrol vessels, fewer than Norway, a country with only half the population of Sweden. They also have no anti-submarine helicopters, as those that have reached the end of their service life are now on display in museums.

Even with current anti-submarine vessels, Sweden would find it difficult to effectively search the Stockholm archipelago, which comprises 30,000 islands of varying sizes and hundreds of waterways for ships, leaving them "powerless".

Source: Dat Viet Newspaper