The Swedish Navy has halted its search for an alleged foreign submarine in the country’s territorial waters near Stockholm, The Local cited the Navy as saying Friday.
“At 8 a.m. local time (06:00 GMT) a major naval operation, launched in the area of the [Stockholm] archipelago last Friday, has completed,” the Navy said in a statement broadcast by the local television.
No reason was given for abandoning the search.
On October 22, the Swedish Armed Forces said the search for an alleged foreign submarine is entering a “new phase” and will continue for as long as necessary.
The Russian Defense Ministry believes the military operation in the Baltic conducted by Sweden in search of possible “foreign underwater activity” can only lead to undermining stability and escalate tension in the region.
Swedish Armed forces were ready to use force if they detected any foreign submarine in the waters of the Stockholm Archipelago, the supreme commander general had said during the operation in search of the “underwater threat”.
“Such unfounded actions of the Swedish Defense Department, fuelled by the Cold War-style rhetoric, are only leading today to escalation of tension in the region,” Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists on Friday.
“It might result not in strengthening of a particular country’s security, but in undermining the principles of the naval economic activity in the Baltic Sea,” he added.
Sweden started its largest since the Cold War military operation in the Baltic a week ago, explaining that the troops were engaged in search of a possible “foreign underwater activity.”