How much more BS

Allegations of Russian nuclear weapons in Swedish airspace are being questioned

Domestic

March 31, 2022

at 20.15

0
TV4 reported yesterday that Russian fighter jets that violated Swedish airspace at the beginning of the month were equipped with nuclear weapons. The allegations are now being questioned. Among other things, it is pointed out that the type of cruise missile that two of the aircraft are said to have been equipped with cannot be carried by the type of aircraft in question.

It was on Wednesday, March 2, that two Russian fighter jets, two fighter jets of the type SU-27 and two attack and bombers of the type SU-24, violated Swedish airspace.

"The violation was short-lived and took place across the sea east of Gotland," the Armed Forces wrote on its website in connection with the incident.

Two Swedish Gripen planes met the Russian battle planes and took pictures of them, among other things.

Nuclear weapons on board
On Thursday, TV4 followed up the incident and claimed that the two Russian attack and bombers carried nuclear weapons at the time of the violation just over four weeks earlier.

"The violation of Swedish territory lasted for about a minute. The air force deployed two JAS 39 Gripen that could meet away and take pictures of the intruders. That was when it was confirmed that the Russian planes were equipped with nuclear weapons ", TV4 reported , among other things.

A first news release from the TV channel claimed that the two Suchoj SU-24 aircraft were equipped with the KH-32 cruise robot. KH-32 can, among other things, be equipped with a nuclear warhead.

KH-32. Photo: Russianplanes.com
Questioned
But that the Russian planes that violated Swedish airspace would have been equipped with nuclear weapons is something that is questioned from several quarters. One of those who is critical is the defense debater Johan Wiktorin.

The Su-24 is certainly designed to carry tactical nuclear weapons, but in the form of bombs. So they have to fly to a destination. The formation with escorting SU-27 that was described in connection with the violation also speaks against a behavior that one should have with such a load ", he writes on Twitter.

Another who questions the information is Andreas Hörnedal, missile specialist at the Swedish Defense Research Agency.

"Not so high-resolution images of the violation so far, but do not the beam positions look quite empty, except on some lavet?" he writes on Twitter.

Can not carry missile
While many based on the Armed Forces' relatively low-resolution images try to find out if and in such cases what the Russian planes have for missiles under the wings, others point out that SU-24 is not adapted to carry the cruise robot KH-32.

KH-32 was put into operation in 2016 and is a further development of the missile type KH-22. The robot is said to be almost 12 meters long and have a wing width of three meters. Thus, it would be almost half as long as an SU-24 plane.

Furthermore, the KH-32 has a mass of 5.8 tons, a range of up to 1000 kilometers, and is said to be able to travel more than four times faster than the speed of sound.

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