A submarine wreck discovered off the eastern coast of Sweden probably dates back to World War I rather than last year, which was first suspected, when Swedish military hunted for a suspected Russian submersible.
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Ocean X Team said in a press release on Monday that the submarine was found last week.
Under the project A Bow to the Ships of the Great Victory, Russian researchers have found and studied wreckage from seven Soviet and Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, including the legendary WWI-era Shark submarine. Swedish authorities haven’t confirmed the nationality of the submarine.
But they claimed “Cyrillic letters on the hull indicate that it is Russian”.
The footage of the submarine will now be examined by the Swedish military, who has yet to comment on whether they also believe the vessel is Russian.
Stefan Hogeborn, a diver from the Ocean X Team company that made the discovery, said the vessel is “completely intact” with “no visible damage to the hull” and the hatches closed. Tomas Ries, a lecturer in security policy at the Swedish Defense University, told the Expressen newspaper that it appeared to have been on a secret mission that had gone wrong.
The ensuing standoff between Stockholm and Moscow, instantly dubbed by the media as the Whiskey on the rocks incident, led then Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin to issue an order to the Swedish military to “hold the border” as Soviet ships approached to support the stricken submarine. Sweden may well be keen to avoid open conflict with Russia – but many Russians still bitterly remember how 118 people died aboard a sunken Russian submarine in 2000.
“My spontaneous observation is that it is old”. One expert suggested that the divers had come across a submarine named Som (“Catfish”), which sank in 1916, Swedish English-language news publication The Local reported.
The submarine is about 20 meters long and three and a half meters wide.
As tensions have increased between Russian and the West, concerns about Russian submarines and aircraft have enhanced as well.
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He said there were several theories as to why the submarine had sunk, adding that its commander was inexperienced: “A lieutenant was in charge of our submarine”.
