Reporting for The Local Sweden

Part 2 of the Swedish submarine stir

Not the Russian submarine mentioned in the article. Photo: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

Why are Swedes so scared of Russian subs?

UPDATED: News a wrecked Russian submarine had been found in Swedish waters stirred debate in Sweden on Tuesday – nine months after another high-profile hunt for a mystery underwater vessel. The Local asked an expert about the Swedes’ seeming obsession with Russian submarines.

Russian submarines were on Tuesday yet again top of the agenda in Sweden, just nine months after the navy’s massive hunt for a foreign submarine in the Stockholm archipelago last October.

Video footage captured by a team of salvage hunters purporting to show a wrecked Russian submarine in Swedish waters immediately sparked headlines in Sweden when it was released. In Russia itself, the discovery was promptly ridiculed — mocking the Swedes’ “obsession” with mystery underwater vessels.

The submarine was later found to likely be an Imperial Russian vessel which ran aground off the coast of Sweden in 1916. But before the Swedish Armed Forces confirmed this on Tuesday afternoon, The Local asked Tomas Ries, senior lecturer at the Stockholm-based Defence University, why Swedes get into such a frenzy about Russian submarines?

Read Q&A here.