Soviet sub. was spying —Swedish report

Press, 21 December 1981, Page 9

Soviet sub. was spying —Swedish report

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm The Swedish Chief of Staff, releasing parts of his report on the grounding of a Soviet submarine in October, said the vessel most likely violated Swedish territory while on an intelligence-gathering mission.

General Lennart Ljung also said that “tests have confirmed that there was a matter of kilograms of uranium 238” aboard the submarine.

“There is no other explanation of the existence of uranium 238 aboard the submarine other than it was equipped with nuclear charges." the report said. The "whiskey” class submarine 137 was beached on October 27 in Gasse Bay on

the doorstep of Sweden’s main Baltic port but,was not discovered until 14 ’ hours later by a fisherman.

The Commander of the submarine Lieutenant-Com-mander Anatoly Mihailovich Gushin, said throughout the 10-day affair that the. submarine had entered (Swedish territory the same day it was stuck on the rocks and that the incident was caused by “mis-navigation due to radar fault and foggy weathep” But the report dismissed that as “partly contradictory and partly preposterous.”

It said there was fine weather with a visibility of between 6 and 11km at the time of the grounding.

Commander Gushin also said his direction-finder, his

gyro corppass and Decca system re faulty. But the report < .aid that “the direc-tion-fisher only recorded margin;/,1 errors and that the crew h ad made changes of certain) gyro compass routes.'/ ’ The j report also said that the Sv redish Navy was testing wpapons in the area at the Ufene of the grounding. GOjieral Ljung said that Swedish interrogators received no credible answers from’ the Soviets about the sui/i brine’s mission in the area,, and thought it likely submarine violated Swedish territorial waters with/ the express purposes of cam ;ing out illegal activity "