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Russia threatens ‘countermeasures’ over Sweden’s Nato membership

Russia vowed 'countermeasures' over Sweden's entry into Nato, in a message from its Stockholm embassy.

Published: 28 February 2024 13:47 CET

Russia threatens 'countermeasures' over Sweden's Nato membership

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Photo: Magnus Lejhall/TT

Sweden on Monday cleared the final hurdle to become the 32nd member of the alliance, when last holdout Hungary’s parliament ratified the Nordic country’s membership.

“Russia will take countermeasures of a political and military-technical nature in order to minimise threats to its national security,” the embassy said in a post on Telegram.

It added that their “concrete content” would depend on the extent of Sweden’s integration into Nato, “including the possible deployment in this country of Nato troops, military assets and weapons”.

Sweden dropped two centuries of military non-alignment in applying for Nato membership alongside Finland in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It is a sovereign matter for Sweden to choose its security policy. At the same time, the country’s entry into a military alliance hostile to Russia will have negative consequences for stability in Northern Europe and around the Baltic Sea, which remains our common area,” the Russian embassy said in its post.

It stressed that the Baltic would never be a “Nato lake” as some observers have dubbed it. Sweden’s accession means that all the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, except Russia, are now Nato members.

It’s not the first time Moscow has threatened “political and military-technical” measures in response to Nato enlargement, which it also did when Finland last year joined the alliance.

Experts have previously interpreted it as for example moving military units and infrastructure, and increasing military exercises.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday played down Russia’s comments.

“It is well known that Russia doesn’t like that Sweden or Finland become Nato members, but we choose our own paths,” he told Swedish news agency TT.

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'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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