The other day, thread participant Bal at johanno1.se reached a breaking point and got upset about the Russian environmental influence operation, you are reading the thread available in both Swedish and English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one is saying that we want to bring back the hole in the ozone layer or the acid rain – just that there are sensible things, there is a commercial fraud, and then there is a Russian influence operation simmering. When we shut down six fully functioning nuclear reactors, new electricity production needed to be built, right – good business for everyone except the taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was a bit inspired by Bal’s broadside and today I want to tell you about the submarine intrusions in the 80s where I myself commanded the destroyer Halland and the entire coastal fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since we now have the same situation with a very offensive Russia that has begun its sabotage, it is a bit easier for you to put it into context, I hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweden was politically and socially infiltrated by Russia, and no one really knew who they could trust outside their group of long-known individuals with something we usually call a verifiable CV when we hire. A deep blue faction to the right saw it as their highest task to protect the country from the Soviet Union, and they believed that they could stretch the limits of national security quite far. To the left, one was either far left deep red in Soviet solidarity, in the middle trying to balance realpolitik with the deep reds to the left, a bunch of defectors within their own organization, and then preferably survive the dark blues to the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The climax (or maybe low point) was a prime minister assassination, and then it gradually calmed down to a final major violation in the 90s where we chased away a Piranha – then and there, the Swedish submarine hunt was at its absolute peak and there was probably surprise that turned into full panic in the Piranha that was not supposed to be detected as it majestically glided over the seabed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Ingvar Carlsson took office, he was sleeping in the prime minister’s residence when two well-built men with short hair knocked on his bedroom window and waved before disappearing. The Prime Minister had just been shot, do you think that after that greeting, Ingvar dared to stick his neck out too much when whoever it was that wanted to influence him sent two operatives with the instruction to climb up on the roof, knock on the window, wake up the Prime Minister, and then wave friendly to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Cold War’s end, we had the world’s best submarine hunting as the Baltic Sea had been one of the hotter areas during the period, and we had received a lot of free training – but we started from almost zero and had to try to self-teach as best we could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This meant that officers and employees at all levels tried to drive development forward with a limited budget, sometimes against political will and with an increasingly scrutinizing media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, the Armed Forces are a large pot of officers who all look suspiciously at any attempt by other officers to do something that would make them not look as good. Unless there is a war and the personnel pool is expanded with resourceful civilians, things usually continue in established tracks, and there are no problems in preparing for yesterday’s war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The smallest mistake was on the 8:00 PM news for the whole of Sweden to see – you couldn’t get away with anything, and since mistakes happen all the time in an upward trend, there was a lot to criticize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allowing the navy to try to do its job in peace was something no one even reflected on, and when they tried to counter in the media by advertising their honorable work of protecting the country, every little effort was scrutinized in-absurdum. When they found something amusing like herring shoals or minks swimming around the microphones, it became the headline on the 9:00 PM news instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Budget submarines” quickly became popular – the navy just wanted more money and made up the whole story. Everyone preferred to talk about mistaking minks for Russian submarines rather than our navy defending us against Soviet war-preparing sabotage according to the job description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are some highlights – one was when we were supposed to test an Italian submarine hunting torpedo that, after firing, made a wide turn and locked onto the ship that fired it, causing some panic on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It all started when a destroyer fired submarine rockets at a presumed offending submarine, and a damaged Polish submarine appeared just outside the territorial waters – or it signaled increased ambition from the Soviet Union and sent shockwaves through the Swedish navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over time, we moved from trying to sink submarines to forcing them to surface instead, which worked sometimes but most of the time they managed to escape – which may have been a hidden agenda from some who advocated that approach, who knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it all began, we were as poorly prepared as Poland is today in 2025 and tried to equip ourselves with patrol boats and minesweepers to create equipment that could see\/hear underwater, detect hostile submarines, and intercept them. This was long before we almost got a clear picture of what lies beneath the surface that we are used to today – you could listen, and if you were close, try to see shapes deviating from the seabed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At each incident, men in suits (or uniforms, I don’t know because on the destroyer Halland, we just sank everything so no one came) and all involved had to sign confidentiality agreements that they still consider themselves bound by today – I find it strange, but that’s how it is because we have tried to get witnesses to speak even anonymously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surprisingly few speak, and those who do try to be dismissed, and they often do not have the full picture. Yet, there were thousands of conscripts who witnessed incidents and had information that we would have liked to access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me, this is perhaps Sweden’s most important series of events after the assassination of Palme and something every journalist with a bit of pride should make it their life’s mission to unravel, but that’s not the case. After various journalists and media outlets concluded that everything was the USA’s doing, it’s dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now my memory is a bit rusty, so there is a risk of a misstep as I write freely from memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I analyzed these violations in the Skalman forum for 3-4 years following the same principle as here – we have information from open sources to analyze and make reasonable assessments and put the pieces together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything can be dismissed as “you have no evidence and are guessing,” but one never has indisputable evidence, and somewhere it is the assessment of reasonableness that matters. If one engages in honest debate, one will eventually arrive at a likely situation picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We did not have the luck as in the Ukraine war where Ukraine and Zelensky started talking, and we had our guesses confirmed almost immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything was in a secret or quasi-secret archive where the latter means that you MUST say “no, it doesn’t exist” if asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes information was identified that we amateurs tried to declassify, but then that particular page was torn out when it was declassified – someone beat us to it. We guessed that others besides us were reading the Skalman thread and knew what we were looking for, so they hurried off to the archives. We had already done the work for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If you look at the bottom of the page and see that they refer to the report *insert any report* and page 3. If we could get that declassified, we would know the nationality of the submarine that was sighted.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After two months, Jan Bj\u00f6rklund returns to the forum and announces, “I have been to the archive and got the report, but page 3 was missing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Navy were like cowboys trying to learn submarine hunting, and it was a delightful mix of everything, for example, West German submarines were there as observers, and sometimes the Navy mistook them and tried to sink them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine the panic when the operations chief receives a call that the submarine he is about to blow to atoms is one of their own \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On more than one occasion, there was a need for a hasty interruption of an operation, which those lower down the chain perceived as Palme wanting to release a Soviet submarine. An operation against a submarine that was interrupted coincided in time with a call from the West German embassy to someone in the government or high military command, can’t remember which. The picture arises from piecing together various pieces of information that occurred during the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The USA and UK were our allies, and the Soviet Union was our enemy actively preparing for war against Sweden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have evidence (as far as one can go) of a psyops operation involving our very own Carl Bildt, where they used an Italian mini-submarine and blamed the Russians, so we were not entirely innocent. Do you think the newspapers were interested in that scoop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First a book by a former British submarine officer describing a Russian mini-submarine that matched an Italian Maritalia perfectly – it was a section in one of the chapters, the rest of the book was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An article in SVD by a journalist who later became Bildt’s press secretary about how a Russian submarine violation with a submarine that was exactly like the Italian one would unfold, the journalist had probably managed to find the book, and the article came with a highly detailed illustrated image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This type of submarine was probably also a category in the Navy’s classification of submarine violations – I remember it was called “valryggen,” or at least that it fit the description very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then a violation in T\u00f6re where they now had a book and a newspaper article that already described the Russian submarine behaving almost as if it wanted to be discovered. Then the submarine hunt was abruptly halted just as they were about to blow the crap out of the vessel, and everyone left to the army’s great irritation, which apparently was not aware that it was a double bluff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were two very different violations in T\u00f6re over a few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then Carl Bildt jumped straight into the debate and made a big deal out of it to discredit the Soviets, get more resources, and something else I’ve forgotten. There are transcripts of his speeches from the early 90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have all the clippings for all of the above somewhere, so nothing is guesswork – everything is in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As is well known, I am intellectually honest and wanted the truth, so I immersed myself wholeheartedly in this mess and was quite disappointed when no one cared – I thought the media liked to dig into things that could be traced back with a whole chain of evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
H\u00e5rsfj\u00e4rden was Russian submarines with West Germans following and Swedish efforts dropping depth charges on everything they could find: wrecks, West Germans, Russian submarines, and the seabed. In addition, there are many confirmed violations, damaged Russian submarines, and surfaced Russian submarines (even if the latter is just words and we haven’t seen any film or photos of it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only thing I haven’t been able to find is the Russian dry submersible that left tracks on the seabed. We found a diving robot on tracks and a dry vessel that could possibly have track equipment, but there was no photographic evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tracks of the diving robot did not match the seabed tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don’t know exactly what they used for the seabed tracks, but that was my “smoking gun” – if we had found it, we could have linked the Soviets to the violations with the width and design of the tracks, as the tracks were well documented. A fingerprint, in essence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I talked a lot with HI Sutton, who tried to gather information through his Russian sources and a guy who had a robotics zoo but later died in a motorcycle accident, unfortunately – we all came up empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know they had diving hatches on Whiskey, dry submersibles with good range, launched sonars from the torpedo tubes, and had track-carrying robots for seabed work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were war preparations in our naval bases, coastal forts, and mine lines where mines were moved or cut off. They were supposed to enter through the archipelago, and one of the tricks was to violate further north or south with a submarine so that our submarine hunt would be drawn there, allowing the main force with the actual mission to slip in unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where U137 ran aground, there was an FRA listening station a few islands away, and their cable ran right nearby – I proved through empirical lab tests that the U137 grounding was not an accident but deliberate and a small mistake at the end. Many others said it was drunkenness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The whole side that knew about it is bound by confidentiality agreements through the secrecy pacts, and those who were higher-ranking officers are starting to die off now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conscripts who were there can tell puzzle pieces but rarely the whole picture – and many choose to remain silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You never know who is spreading disinformation either; I have caught S\u00c4PO trying to disseminate disinformation in the debate at least once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then you have a whole cadre of researchers like Tunander and other debaters who pushed forward all sorts of false leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have a particularly strong dislike for the magazine Filter because I thought they wanted an honest debate before I understood their purpose. I was lured there by someone in the forum I trusted and fell right into the trap – they are, along with the devil, among the worst, rattlesnakes without a rattle so you get no warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point, authors latched onto the NATO track – for example, Jallai, and I am still angry with him after a discussion that ended with his not-so-honest words “I lean towards everything being NATO.” It sold many books, and even though the shame stings, I know the champagne and bundles of dollars probably soothe it, unfortunately, that bastard \ud83d\ude21<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They weren’t minks or herring schools – they were Russian submarines. Of course, there were minks, herring schools, seabirds, seals, and fish in the water too, along with the Soviet submarines, but it wasn’t them violating us for warlike purposes \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were also NATO submarines in the archipelago, but we didn’t try to sink them.<\/p>\n\n\n
Minks do not try to start wars, they do not steal underwater mines or microphones placed under the water, and they also do not leave traces on the seabed as if a large excavator had been circling around at the bottom near our underwater mines located at the entrances to our inner archipelago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crew of U137 was not recklessly drunk, they were a few seconds (3sec – 8sec) late in making a final course change, which led to them running aground. They probably hadn’t been drinking either because Gugi had a four-man group on board along with a very high-ranking officer from the home base – I would guess they were sober.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the media and our writers have managed to push out that image to the citizens of Sweden, so most people now believe that it was all a major American influence operation, and on the occasions when it couldn’t be covered up because a whole damn submarine ran aground – then it was by mistake, all the equipment was defective, or they were completely drunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you try to engage in the discussion, you’ll have Tunander or Magasinet Filter coming after you, who are paid to talk you down while you’re sitting in your free time trying to get the truth out. Jallai has already won over everyone with his books, so no one is interested in the Soviet violations anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the malicious disinformation debaters even pushed the theory that the CIA had equipment to remotely hijack U137 and ran it aground when they hijacked the steering with some secret equipment that only the USA had access to, radio waves or microwaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was during a time when the Soviet Union believed that the USA would go to war with them – the early 80s were a very tense period because the USA did not realize that the Soviet Union seriously thought they would start a war and provocatively behaved as they always do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During that time, the number of violations in our archipelago escalated, especially during the autumns when it was most difficult to identify submarines – they moved around in the storms and the equipment available couldn’t see\/hear through different layers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are various players in this mess – one was marked with an S who wanted to protect his party, another was the navy that wanted to cover up their mistakes, a third was a Russian\/Soviet influence operation to exonerate the Soviet Union\/Russia, and a fourth was a Western influence operation marked by Carl Bildt in at least one instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s difficult to find the truth in all of this, but for me, it shows how dangerously effective Russian subversive activities are – they can rewrite actual history even though the truth is right there in front of you, impossible to miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can also win wars like in the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then they can bring down countries like South Africa (which arguably deserved it), and it was also the Soviets who created the Israel-Palestine conflict, even though today Israel makes it easy not to like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, South Africa is a bad example because they got what they deserved, but after the government fell – how many of the groups that protested against Apartheid care about the country today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have had enormous problems with xenophobia against immigrants from neighboring countries and outright pogroms. Women are in danger, and crime is rampant – but no one cares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1967, when things started to calm down, the Soviet Union deceived Egypt and Syria into believing that Israel would attack Syria – they falsified aerial images and other information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1973, when Syria almost pushed Israel into the sea, it was with new Soviet equipment, and Israel had to make do with what they had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only reason Israel exists today is that they are as tough as Ukraine because just like with Ukraine, the Soviets managed to make the West very passive, but they underestimated how poorly the many Arab armies fought and how many Israelis chose life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My guess is that if Israel were overrun and disappeared, no one would care about Palestine anymore, but that remains just a guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Syria, Russia bombed everywhere to trigger refugee flows to Europe – the goal was to kickstart the refugee flows to Europe in 2015, which probably exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as they tried to trigger Ukrainian refugee flows to Europe by bombing cities to pieces. The only problem they have is that the Ukrainian refugees learn the language and work, but they have tried to carry out Ukrainian and anti-Ukrainian attacks to stoke hatred – progress has been slow, only Poland really took the bait with its history with Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s easier when they pay MENA migrants to decapitate an elderly woman in Europe, that stirs up emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burning Qurans in front of mosques or rubbing them with bacon – that has also worked very well for the Russians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year or two ago, some people with Russian contacts were arrested for painting anti-Semitic slogans on synagogues in France – swastikas and other symbols. During the Cold War, we now know that some neo-Nazism in West Germany was (partly) Soviet spies with felt-tip pens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you remember those 2600 pro-Russian traitors that the FBI had a list of, where only 600 were in the USA?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you heard a single name from anyone in Europe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia is a world leader in subversive activities, and many countries have lost their sovereignty or other things to this toxic knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right now, it is aimed at Europe, it is a state priority, with political parties or politicians on its side, as well as gangs, numerous influencers, and the criminal clans who are also on the payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to spies and numerous sleeper agents who took the money and are bought off. There are parliamentarians in established parties all over Europe who receive Russian salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are poorly prepared, and Russian subversive activities are on a significant increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my adult life, I have seen the political parties to the left of center shut down 6 nuclear reactors and invest everything in renewable energy in Sweden despite loud protests from experts. I also see how wind power operates at a significant loss and how electricity prices became very high, now just uncomfortably oscillating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you remember when electricity prices skyrocketed across Europe for a few years – imagine if we had kept our nuclear reactors running until at least 2035, we would have become the Dubai of the Nordics with the revenue from that export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All criticism of dismantling Europe’s best electricity production, which was also fully paid off, was met with “are you a climate denier?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was only a few years before our extremely electricity-intensive arms industry needed to scale up because Russia attacked Ukraine, something they had planned for a long time \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same across Europe – shut down predictable electricity production, make yourself dependent on Russian gas, and build a huge amount of unpredictable electricity production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I sat in the front row when we were about to shut down our hydroelectric power and followed the debate that was stopped at the last second – I never understood why hydroelectric power was bad for the climate, and you don’t either because it wasn’t. It was the electricity production they were after, and it was the most important after nuclear power because solar and wind power are highly variable, but hydroelectric power is controllable.<\/p>\n\n\n
Spain shut down its power plant dams and is now facing huge floods that everyone blames on the climate, but which are actually due to the disappearance of the dams as regulating functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The roll-on\/roll-off port in Gotland without explosive boxes – another modern classic that is difficult to explain away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or Swedish peace in 2025 when we decided not to defend ourselves against invasion and then turn the traffic signs as a defense for peace in our time if we are invaded – they sit on TV and pronounce these words after three years of war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have heard Amnesty and the UN accusing Ukraine of the war for a long time, only to turn around and dutifully accuse Russia, while downplaying all Russian abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or a Germany that is so politically paralyzed that they dare not send even helmets in the first year – and then we know that half of the STASI got jobs in West Germany post-unification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military were climate deniers when they did not want to give Russia a hidden advance in the Baltic Sea from Kaliningrad with a lot of wind turbines that just happened to be located right where they would have been the best cover for Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or shutting down our cement production, our farmers having had a hell of a time for many years, that we should not have mining, and finally restore agricultural land to wetlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uncultivated land is not a problem – only cultivated land should be restored to wetlands a few years before we enter a global conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time as we become dependent on Russian gas and oil without any protest from environmental movements (maybe you can shake some up), Greenpeace even marketed Russian gas as “clean air gas” or something similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not everything is black and white, but anyone who does not see Russian fingerprints all over this is more than just naive. It is mixed with ideologues, those who want to protect the environment, career politicians, companies seeing good business, and overbought traitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as Russia managed to spin the narrative that submarine intrusions were an American influence operation or explainable mistakes without any intent when it could not be denied that the submarine belonged to the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when we try to make the world a better place, an absolutely enormous number of GRU employees in Russia are working tirelessly to crash our countries, coming up with all sorts of plans, some working well, some excellently, and some not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Cold War, over 80% of the KGB budget went to this because the payoff was huge for a small price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nuclear winter scared us so much that we should not have nuclear power, but when nuclear-armed Russian submarines or cruisers enter the Baltic Sea, you don’t hear a peep from the usual suspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or a modern classic – we all had these agreements against cluster weapons, thermobaric weapons, and mines, all of which have now been used by Russia in the war against Ukraine and have worked excellently. The best weapons of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were heavily criticized and banned and scrapped these weapons, but Russia has kept everything in huge stockpiles, and none of those who criticized us went after Russia at all – completely silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did we negotiate them away just for ourselves \ud83d\ude36<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you know what has also been completely silent from peace and environmental movements – that Russia in Ukraine has used prohibited weapons throughout the war, polluting, causing environmental destruction, and committing Ecocide. Perhaps they have commented on it dutifully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or crimes against humanity, violations of international law, and all the heinous murders, rapes, tortures, mutilations, castrations that the sexual sadist-murderers engage in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, Amnesty and the UN have dutifully condemned it when they had to. The Red Cross, when inspecting the Mariupol prisoners they promised to protect, reportedly stood and laughed at them in the cell doors according to released prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the Mariupol prisoners who have survived have had an absolutely terrible captivity – the Red Cross persuaded Zelensky to capitulate in exchange for protecting the prisoners, which they never bothered to even try to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peace movements and some debaters in Sweden have also tried to initiate a discussion that would lead to a ban on “killer robots,” by which they meant drone weapons. The drone weapon is the game-changer of 2025, and if you don’t have this weapon, you will be overrun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you understand now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the way, do you know why Russia always tries to incite rabid communists, preferably at universities, to carry out armed revolutions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, because that’s how Russia fell in the Russian revolution, in the late 1800s communism was a bit of a trend and it really took root in Russia, especially at universities, and then the country was doomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They use their own country’s fall as a blueprint for what they are trying to do with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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