"The Armed Forces are conducting an intelligence operation in the Stockholm archipelago. . . We are supposed to do this with maximum transparency while preserving operational secrecy. This is how a credible, correct authority should and must act to preserve public confidence. It must be said that the Armed Forces in a sense have failed at this," Sweden's Armed Forces said in a statement.
On Sunday, Sweden's Armed Forces released a photograph of an object, suspected to be a foreign submarine in the Stockholm archipelago and a map, allegedly showing where the photo was taken. The area of the sighting was reported to be Jungfrufjärden, a fjard near the settlement of Dalarö south of Stockholm.
However, an investigation carried out by Sweden's public broadcaster SVT showed that no locations in the area matched the photograph. After being confronted by the SVT's journalists, Swedish forces admitted issuing false information to avoid "helping foreign powers".
Comment: Western governments won't stop at nothing. They will take every opportunity to point the finger at Putin and wail: He did it!
"In retrospect, I should have been clearer during the press conference that I was showing a map with the approximate positions because I did not wish to reveal any exact positions with regard to the operation," deputy operational director Anders Grenstad said late Monday.
Swedish forces first launched a major operation off the coast of Stockholm on Friday after receiving information, reportedly from a civilian, about the presence of an unknown underwater object in the region, suspected to be a foreign submarine.
. . . that ANY official statement or announcement by ANY government official on ANY topic related to gov't functions or activities consists more of self-serving lies than elements of truth. This applies to ALL gov'ts, East or West, "democracies", dictatorships, or banana republics, first-, second-, or third-world.
I expect that more often than not, such a presumption will prove to be valid.
Only if/when a government statement can be verified/proven to be true by corroboration via reliable non-government sources should any such statements be believed.