Finland’s Frontier Guard is investigating a possible violation of Finnish territorial waters by foreign submarines. Crew on the passenger-car ferry Roslagen operating between the Åland Islands and Sweden reported seeing two submarines in the area between the lighthouses of Gisslan and Solovjeva on Thursday.
Visual and radar observations of the suspected submersibles were made in the late afternoon, between 4:46 and 5:19 p.m. Thursday.
Captain Johan Bertell says that he had to make a sharp turn to avoid colliding with the submarines, which came to within about half a kilometre of the Roslagen.
The Gisslan lighthouse is more than seven kilometres inside Finnish territorial waters.
The Frontier Guard said that it was looking into a possible violation of Finnish maritime areas, and gave no other comments on Tuesday.
On Thursday the Finnish Navy was in full readiness to react to the situation. However, no special measures were needed, because the mystery craft soon left Finnish territory for international waters.
A number of Finnish coastguard vessels and a helicopter patrolled the area after the sighting. Nothing out of the ordinary was seen.
The Frontier Guard is responsible for monitoring the sea areas of the semi-autonomous and demilitarised Åland Islands. In exceptional situations the Finnish Navy has the right to take defensive action in the area.
Naval Chief of Staff Commodore Hanno Strang criticised the Frontier Guard for its slow reaction to the news.
Russia’s Baltic Fleet and Sweden’s Defence Forces denied on Tuesday that any of their submarines were in the area at the time of the sighting.
NATO Headquarters said that the alliance had no knowledge of the incident.
