MOSCOW, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Finland does not intend to help Swedish forces in their search for what is believed to be a foreign submarine in the waters near Stockholm, Finnish Defense Ministry spokesman Jan von Weissenberg told RIA Novosti Monday.
“We are monitoring the situation around the search and watching the steps taken by the Swedish authorities. I am positive about the competence and adequacy of the efforts being made by the Swedish Armed Forces on this matter,” von Weissenberg said.
He added that Finnish Armed Forces “see no reason to take action” unless they are asked to do so by their Swedish colleagues, but “no such requests have yet been received”.
Swedish forces launched a major operation off the coast of Stockholm on Friday after receiving information, reportedly from a civilian, about the presence of an unknown underwater object in the region.
Both the Swedish Defense Ministry and the country’s prime minister Stefan Lofven have claimed that the operation is “not a submarine-hunt”, but aimed at gathering intelligence information.
Swedish authorities are yet to confirm with certainty that the “suspicious object”, which has been observed three times in the Stockholm archipelago on Friday and Saturday, is, in fact, a foreign submarine.
