Stockholm (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Sweden’s military announced on Wednesday that they were tracking a Russian submarine that had entered the Baltic Sea the day before, describing it as a “routine operation” carried out in cooperation with partners.
“A Russian submarine entered the Baltic Sea yesterday via the Great Belt,”
a Danish strait, the Swedish armed forces said in a statement.
“The armed forces’ jet fighters and warships met up with the submarine in the Kattegatt (strait between Denmark and Sweden) and are now following it,”
it said.
The military said it was
“a routine operation taking place in close collaboration with our allies”,
saying that it had a
“good overview of our immediate vicinity”.
Tensions in the Baltic Sea have increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
How has Sweden’s NATO membership changed its defence posture?
In 2024, the country ended two centuries of military non-alliance to join NATO. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson expressed in January that his country was “not at war, but there is not peace either”.
Kristersson stated that the entire Baltic Sea region experienced “hybrid attacks,” including disinformation campaigns and a series of incidents involving damaged underwater cables.
“The Russian threat is very likely long-term. As our defence must be,”
he said.
How often are russian submarines spotted in Baltic waters?
Events of catching Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea have occurred multiple times. For instance, a NATO ally’s anti-submarine warfare aircraft captured photos of a Russian sub navigating the Baltic Sea in July 2024.
The surveillance photos of the surfaced submarine were taken around the same time as Russian submarine drills in the Baltic Sea, during which two submarines participated in a torpedo duel.
NATO Maritime Command released the photos, highlighting that the Russian submarine was captured by a Portuguese P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platform manufactured by Lockheed Martin.
