Swedes seek answers from Soviet captain

Press, 31 October 1981, Page 8

Swedes seek answers from Soviet captain

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm The captain of a Soviet submarine stranded near a Swedish naval base will be interrogated today as naval experts try to establish what the vessel was doing in a restricted military zone. Defence staff said salvage work would not begin until the captain had satisfactorily explained the presence of the elderly “Whisky”-class submarine inside Sweden’s territorial waters near the Baltic naval base at Karlskrona. Defence staff sources said the Swedish authorities doubted an explanation given earlier by the commander that the submarine’s navigation system had misfunctioned. The vessel ran aground on Tuesday night (local time) in dense fog and has been wedged in mud since.

.The sources said the Swedish Navy could undertake a

thorough examination of the vessel to ascertain whether the captain was telling the truth.

The affair has sparked a diplomatic row between Stockholm and Moscow, and the Swedish Foreign Ministry has sent a sharply-worded protest Note to the Kremlin. Western diplomats in Stockholm said the incident had tarnished Moscow’s credibility in the face of what appeared to be evidence of military espionage on Swedish defence bases.

They said -the Soviet Union’s embarrassment over the affair would be all the more acute because it had been trying to woo Sweden and other Nordic States into agreeing to a nuclear-weapons-free zone. The diplomats said Moscow’s main argument that it posed no threat to the Nordic States had lost much of its

weight because of the incident.

The split between Sweden and the Soviet Union has been highlighted by the decision of the commander-in-chief of the Swedish armed forces to call off a planned visit to Moscow.

In another incident yesterday, Sweden said its naval craft and helicopters had chased an unidentified submarine from Swedish waters.

A defence spokesman said the vessel was spotted just south of the stranded Soviet submarine. It was driven off by naval craft and helicopters which threatened to drop depth charges. A Soviet tug that entered Swedish waters was also chased off. The Swedish Prime Minister (Mr Thorbjorr. Falldin) made it clear that the submarine would be returned to the Soviet Union, but “how and when will depend on the

outcome of an investigation we have ordered conducted by the commander-in-chief." ' He said that any effort by the submarine to escape would be forcibly stopped. Commander Lennart Foreman. commander of the Karlskrona base, said salvage operations would not begin until authorities had finished interrogating the submarine’s captain, identified as Pytor Gushin, aged 35, and his estimated 56-man crew.

He said they would be questioned by a special naval ' team now aboard the slightly damaged submarine. “We want a clear explanation how the sub. could be so far into a clearly marked military restricted zone,” Commander Foreman said. “We expect the captain to be co-operative . . . otherwise his sub. can be left on the rocks.”