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MILITARY

Sweden faces increased risk of Russian retaliation: Swedish Armed Forces

Sweden's support for Ukraine and participation in the coordinated international response to Russia's invasion has increased the risk of retaliation, the Swedish Armed Forces said in the first of its new weekly press conferences.

Michael Claesson, operative chief of the Swedish Armed Forces led the press conference on Thursday.
Michael Claesson, operative chief of the Swedish Armed Forces led the press conference on Thursday. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

“There is a range of possible Russian retaliatory actions which could be aimed at Sweden,” Lieutenant General Michael Claesson, the Swedish Armed Forces’ chief of operations, said. “[Some of the things] in the Russian toolbox include influence operations, discrediting important individuals, cyber-attacks, sabotage, and more.”

Claesson was speaking at the first of the Swedish Armed Forces’ new weekly press conferences on the security situation, which will be broadcast directly at 3pm every Thursday for so long as the Russian invasion is destabilising the region. 

The press conferences will serve a similar function to the daily and then weekly press conferences that the Swedish Public Health Agency used to keep the population updated during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Claesson said that the unexpectedly united response from the EU and from Nato had led to a heightened tone in Russian rhetoric and an increased risk of concrete retaliatory actions.

But he also said that the judgement of the Swedish Armed Forces was that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not going to plan. “The Russian weaknesses and Ukrainian resistance provide hope,”  he said.

While the invasion had brought some new things to light, such as Russia’s effective control of Belarus and its perhaps closer than expected links to China, he said that the Armed Forces did not currently see any unexpected military activity in the immediate vicinity of Sweden. 

Jan Kinnander, head of the Security Office at Sweden’s Military Intelligence Service (Must), said that the intelligence threat against Sweden remained unchanged at the level it has been at since 2016, the fourth-highest level on a five-level scale.

“This isn’t something we have increased now, rather we have seen that this threat has existed for a long time. We increased the level of threat in 2016, and we can see that it is still at that high level,” he said.

“When we discuss the collection of intelligence, we mean technical intelligence such as signal-tracing or cyber operations with the aim of securing information, and we mean a person-based collection of information, which essentially refers to making contact with individuals and trying to gain information.”

He said that he believed that the recent outage on the Civil Contingencies Agency may have been the rest DDOoS attack from a foreign power, although he said it may also have simply been a technical fault. 

Member comments

  1. Level of alert boosted as from……2016 !!!!
    Did anyone listen in Europe ?
    Nope…….even when a country decides to reinstate conscription……and now what ??
    A bit tardy !!

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MILITARY

Swedish parliament votes in favour of Defence Cooperation Agreement with the US

Swedish law-makers have signed off on the controversial Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with the United States, despite critics saying it could lead to the deployment of nuclear weapons and permanent US bases in the country.

Swedish parliament votes in favour of Defence Cooperation Agreement with the US

The DCA is a major step for a nation that in March ended two centuries of military non-alliance to join Nato.

Signed by Stockholm and Washington in December, the deal gives the US access to 17 military bases and training areas in Sweden, and allows the storage of weapons, military equipment and ammunition.

The agreement was approved by a broad majority in parliament following an almost five-hour debate, with 266 MPs voting in favour and 37 against, while 46 were absent.

The main opponents, the Left and Green parties, had argued that the agreement ought to state outright that the Scandinavian country would not allow nuclear weapons on its territory.

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“We want to see legislation that bans nuclear weapons from being brought onto Swedish soil,” Green Party MP Emma Berginger told parliament during Tuesday’s debate.

“Unfortunately, the government has chosen to sign an agreement that doesn’t close the door to nuclear weapons, and therefore the Green Party is going to vote no to this agreement,” she told said during the debate.

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Greens leader Daniel Helldén had argued on Monday that the agreement made Sweden “a target for nuclear weapons” since “we’re going to have 17 bases where the Americans can store (military) materiel”.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right minority government, propped up by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has said the deal respects Swedish sovereignty.

“It is very clear that Sweden is a sovereign nation, and there is no other country that can force Sweden to have nuclear weapons on Swedish soil,” Defence Minister Pål Jonson insisted.

‘Naive’

The Left and Green parties, which also voted against Sweden’s Nato membership, together hold just 42 seats in parliament, which was not enough to block the agreement’s adoption on their own.

The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Association, one of the biggest critics of the move, said two successive Swedish governments insisted during the Nato application process that Sweden would have the same stance on nuclear weapons as neighbouring Denmark and Norway.

“But unlike Norway’s and Denmark’s DCA agreements, there is no clause in Sweden’s agreement against nuclear weapons being brought into or placed in Sweden,” the association’s head Kerstin Bergeå wrote in an op-ed.

In addition, Finland, which joined Nato in April 2023, “has a national law prohibiting nuclear weapons on Finnish territory and Finland’s DCA agreement refers to this law”.

A similar Swedish clause would “strengthen the Nordic region and contribute to a joint de-escalation vis-a-vis Russian nuclear weapons”, Bergeå said.

Nukes in wartime?

Sweden’s prime minister made headlines last month when he opened the door for the possibility of nuclear weapons in the country during wartime.

“In a war situation it’s a completely different matter, (it) would depend entirely on what would happen,” Kristersson told public radio broadcaster SR.

Two Left Party MPs said in an op-ed on Sunday: “That’s an incredible statement and is totally the opposite of what the Swedish people think and what Sweden has long stood for.”

Bergeå questioned whether Sweden would be able to put a brake on the United States.

“An agreement based solely on confidence is not enough in important matters such as these,” she said.

Jonson, the defence minister, has said Sweden needed to strengthen its international cooperation “to defend our freedom and democracy”.

“With the DCA, Sweden can receive early, swift and effective military support from the United States in a deteriorating security situation,” he said last month.

“The agreement acts as a deterrent and is stabilising. It reduces the risk of war breaking out and makes Sweden safer,” Jonson said.

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