Already in 1984, the debate heated up regarding the navigation error track, especially between Ingvar Myhrberg (the submarine waltz 1985) who wrote for DN and on the other side stood Svenska Dagbladet and the officer corps.
Tommy Lindfors, who wrote below the surface 1996, also became involved in the debate.
SR has an opinion on the matter.
https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/23956
U137 was a major political scandal where both Defense Minister Gustafsson and Prime Minister Fälldin almost pulled a “Tsunami 2004” and were unreachable when they should have been available – Fälldin survived, but the Defense Minister struggled in the media.
But it also had consequences for the Russians, the ship commander Gustjin was rumored to have spent 2-3 years in the Gulag and then there was a lot of vodka in an apartment in a suburb of Moscow. Several in the staff were demoted along with Avrukevitj – not sure exactly what is true there, a lot of rumors.
It was a completely unprepared navy that had to quickly put together what they had available to be able to adequately man some ships, submarines, and artillery batteries when a Russian submarine ran aground in a military protected area not far from Karlskrona, and during ongoing submarine tests in the vicinity.
There is much discussion about our coastal batteries and fire control radar, but what the Soviets were probably most concerned about was our heavy attack, “The Supreme Commander’s Club”. If that swarm had flown in and fired its missiles, that relief force of about ten ships would have needed to be rescued.
The general debate shifted from Soviet violations to also include NATO influence operations, to the point where the Soviets were not really violating us – fluctuating between no Soviet violations at all or that it was mostly NATO.
Below, SVT promotes its own documentary from Uppdrag Granskning 2006 about Hårsfjärden with the words “offensive submarines were from NATO”. It is a truth with modification that is beyond the scope of this article series, but don’t worry, we will come to Hårsfjärden in the future and SVT is bending the truth.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/krankande-ubatar-var-fran-nato
SVT dated 2014.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/u-batsjakter-vi-minns
Or that SVT keeps the question of whether U137 intentionally violated open as late as 2021.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-dygn-som-skakade-sverige
SVT is after all our state television and they should as far as possible stick to the facts, but when it comes to the submarine issue, they have had some difficulties with that.
They still write this under most of their articles;
If you have stuck to honest analysis in the debate, like MANA member Nils-Ove Johansson concluded that NATO was the one violating us with our tacit approval, which they certainly stretched quite liberally, but that it was the Soviets who were preparing for war with us – and that it was the Soviets who were our enemies.
https://kkrva.se/hot/2015:1/rossander_ubatar_an_en_gang.pdf
If the Soviets had not prepared to attack us, the UK and USA would not have bothered to spend large sums spinning around in our archipelago in the small Baltic Sea.
As evidence of the above statement, we refer to what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the calm settled and no submarines violated us for quite a few years – because the USA and UK had no intention of violating us but were just keeping an eye on the Soviets and wanted us to be vigilant.
Now in 2025, we have probably agreed that the USA is doing what is best for them – they are just like the bank, not your friend as we usually joke.
But the USA did not plan to invade us during the Cold War, it was the Soviets who planned it.
Some of the debaters who distinguished themselves in the overall debate focused on NATO’s violations and extrapolated over time to suggest that the Soviets never, or rarely, violated us.
Ola Tunander was influential and launched many of the theories that were picked up by others.
Swedish Radio
https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/25263
Ola was a bit of a Trojan horse as he was part of the expert group that was supposed to clarify the submarine violations and since then has enjoyed accusing other participants, the government, and the armed forces of covering up and lying, where the trust position he was honored to hold became a good springboard. There are countless discussions between older senior officers and Tunander where they spar with the pen.
If you haven’t heard the name before, it doesn’t mean he is marginal in the debate, just that you haven’t kept up – google his name and you will see a flood of opinion articles, books, and participation in all sorts of contexts, this is a person whose opinions have made a big impact in the overall debate and contributed to how the citizens of Sweden over time perceived who was actually behind the submarine violations in our inner archipelago.
Now after 2022, it’s easy to see how Ola Tunander has positioned himself in the Ukraine war – then we have a receipt for how he stands with regard to Russia, right?
On the question – “Has Russia violated international law” when they invaded Ukraine, he draws the following conclusion,
Some may think that Johan No.1 is extrapolating too far, but it is important to understand that since 2022 he has written remarkably much about the Ukraine war – for example, that it was not Russia that killed civilians in Bucha.
What Anders can definitely be held accountable for is that as an author, he has chosen to enhance Ola Tunander’s impact by often referring to him as a reliable source and giving credibility to his theories that the Soviet Union did not violate us.
Anders is a supporter of Ukraine in the ongoing war – no discussion there even if he may not be very engaged in that particular debate.
All the quotes above are what these individuals themselves have written on their open platforms, and I adhere to the quoting right and provide references – so I believe I am doing the right thing and nothing is distorted to fit a narrative I am trying to build – honest as a Catholic priest in Boston.
Some may find it amusing to read about NATO’s reprehensible actions and double standards.
Others may feel that it was humiliating for our defense personnel who risked their lives to defend the country of Sweden when the Soviet Union violated us in our archipelago.
I believe we are on the right track to set the record straight that the Soviet Union did not directly violate us during the Cold War and I don’t like it. History should be described as honestly as possible for the historical record – not whitewashed with an agenda.
This is what a senior officer who was active in the Blekinge coastal artillery during those years wrote to me on one occasion, it was an opinion he had also expressed in other contexts but I omit the name for safety reasons;
“What I find difficult to live with is individuals who still, with misleading claims, try to excuse/minimize the Soviet Union’s aggressive behavior during this period. Without putting the event in its historical perspective. Without sustainable factual arguments. Like you just did.
Even more difficult is to live with the fact that some take the liberty to publicly ridicule the incredibly demanding efforts that primarily the Navy personnel were subjected to during the 80s and 90s. Asserting our territory cost many shattered dreams, economies, relationships, and, indirectly, several comrades’ lives”.
The references I have chosen above are by no means the only ones in the debate, but they cover the entire argumentation and are good examples of the arguments put forward.
Why is this important?
U137 is the only singular event where one cannot dismiss everything as mudslinging and conspiracy, and alternative explanations had to be found as to why the Soviet Union/Russia was not a threat to us.
Today, Russia is doing exactly what the Soviet Union did during the Cold War – violations, sabotage, influence operations, and subversive activities.
Most recently, 15 drones over a Belgian army base that they discovered by chance when they were testing an anti-drone weapon.
But what do you constantly hear from the Russian side?
- 23 drones flying into Poland was a mistake, or maybe they were Ukrainian.
- Drones over airports across Europe are definitely not Russian.
- Russia never intended to attack Ukraine.
- Everything is NATO’s fault.
“They’ve dusted off the Cold War manual,” you exclaim in surprise now, we’ve learned something new after three years of scouring johanno1.se where he just scams us on Swish.
With U137, the Soviet Union did the next best thing – navigation errors, faulty equipment, workplace accidents, or maybe drunkenness were suggested as reasons why the submarine ran aground. Choose whichever you like, they generously offered with a broad Russian grin.
Against the Soviet Union’s constant denials of all violations and the majority of creative explanations that journalists and debaters with large media platforms chose to promote, stood our defense personnel. They were just doing their jobs, didn’t have the same reach as the media, were hurt and insulted by unpleasant journalists – and in the end, they gave up in their attempts to seek redress.
The Armed Forces were completely abandoned, and the men who put in a tremendous amount of effort into debate articles against Ola Tunander are well beyond retirement age but feel that they must clear their names when they should be basking in Sweden’s appreciation for defending us against the Soviet Union.
Was it really wrong to try to make the Soviet Union look as bad as possible?
For almost four years now, we have been trying to talk down Russia in our discussion forums – the worse they look, the better.
Regarding U137, in my next post, I will show that the argument for navigation error is not reasonable – it is a matter of probability analysis and trying to show that the likelihood of that is too small, so the most likely scenario is that U137 accidentally ran aground on a covert mission.
It is also of interest to simultaneously demonstrate how much effort some choose to put into promoting a line that only benefited the Soviet Union, later Russia.
Already in the early 2000s, the line began to be strongly pushed that it was NATO submarines, but I only started to take a serious interest in this in 2015 – it was after I read Jallai’s website, of course, and had the same aha experience as everyone else.
My position at that time was that it was only NATO, and I found it sensational, I had been thoroughly deceived for the first and only time in my life.
When I found the Skalman thread (herring and mink), it took less than half a year before I understood that it was the Soviet Union that violated us – I changed my position because the evidence was overwhelming, you can actually follow in the thread how I slowly transitioned.
We also need to calibrate ourselves to the overall situation to better understand the motives.
In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union initiated Operation RYAN, which was a targeted information gathering effort to understand and receive warning of a nuclear attack from the USA.
It became somewhat of a self-reinforcing loop, and when the USA conducted the military exercise “Able Archer” in 1983, the Soviet Union thought, now hell will break loose – they were so paranoid and easily frightened after completely misinterpreting the situation.
You can google “Operation RYAN” yourselves, it is well described here actually, there are no guesses or speculations at all today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_RYAN
The Soviet Union carried out increasingly aggressive war preparations – as these are not part of U137, you will have to wait for later posts to be completed, I know it can be painful but Zen monks have a special breathing technique for when my posts take too long.
Well, no one really denies this bigger picture, but the interpretation of the perpetrator that follows becomes intriguing.
An honest debater will confirm that the USA/NATO/UK were in our waters partly with the Navy’s approval, sometimes to train us, conduct influence operations here and there – and sometimes they followed sharp Soviet missions where they were exposed to fire since our Navy did not always have good intelligence.
But the offending party preparing for war with us was the Soviet Union – everyone else was here to try to prevent the Soviet Union, nothing else, and our defense forces did their best to make the Soviet Union look bad.
This is where the cards are mixed up by finding the occasions when it was a Western submarine and extrapolating to the point that the Soviet Union never violated us.
The next post will present the arguments for the U137 navigation error against the actual information we have so that you can judge for yourselves what is most credible.
All counterarguments are from official reports or open sources and verifiable.
Johan No.1 has no “confirmation from an anonymous source in the defense forces” to rely on like everyone else likes because we simply cannot evaluate that. Here, only hard verifiable loose assumptions apply straight into the wall.
The next post will leave you almost newly converted with a burning hatred towards the Russians and feel that you really want to give those damn Russians a piece of your mind today for their outrageous audacity to violate us back in 1981.
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Interesting reading! 👍
Had a busy day both at work and in the evening yesterday, have responded to some of the comments in yesterday’s thread.
(https://johanno1.se/sv/nar-kriget-kommer-15-oktober-2025/)
Interesting, really looking forward to the continuation!