Media: Russian ship may have run aground on purpose

Published 21 September 2024 at 13.23

Domestic. A ship passing Sweden loaded with ammonium nitrate – one of the world's most common fertilizers – is likely a Russian attempt at “hybrid warfare” and has run aground on purpose. That theory is currently being launched by the Swedish media, which, however, have difficulty getting experts and authorities on board.

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The ship is carrying 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate and has damaged in a grounding, which sparked the imagination of Swedish newsrooms.

If the diesel tanks were to be damaged and diesel seeps into the cargo, it could explode, which is problematic because diesel-mixed ammonium nitrate (ANFO) is almost half as explosive as TNT.

With a 20 kiloton load means an explosive effect of 8 kilotons of TNT, or about half a Hiroshima bomb.

Now several media believe that the ship has a connection to Russia and that it ran aground on purpose in order to test the Swedish “preparedness”.

Aftonbladet refers to a statement by a Danish person named Jacob Kaarsbo who calls himself “senior analyst”.

– The most likely thing is that this is part of a hybrid war, where they somehow want to scare and see how the Nordic countries react when the ship comes close to our coasts and critical installations, says the senior analyst.

< p>In fact, ammonium nitrate is also used all the time in Swedish agriculture and is transported criss-cross on fully loaded trucks with orange plates.

Perhaps that is why the Swedish authorities are not completely buying into the media's Russian theories this time. .

– We have no information that the cargo would be damaged or threatened, nor that the fuel tanks would be, says Mattias Lindholm, press spokesperson at the Coast Guard, to Aftonbladet.

– Thus is our assessment that the cargo poses no greater threat than it usually does. Ammonium nitrate is not inherently dangerous or explosive. It will be if it is exposed to impact, if it reacts with diesel or strong heat, not if it is transported correctly.