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On Wednesday, it emerged that two Russian warships in the dead of night on September 14 raped Sweden at Vinga, outside Gothenburg.
Rapes of the Swedish territory are now rare, but that does not mean that the situation is relaxed and calm. On the contrary: in fact, military exercises, operations and reconnaissance missions are carried out 24 hours a day to an extent few Swedes are aware of.
In a single day, Wednesday 16 September, at least 15 military exercises and operations were carried out in Sweden, according to the DN compilation. In addition to the nine Baltic Sea coastal states, a dozen other countries also carried out military operations in our immediate area.
In recent years, military activity in Sweden has increased, but the crisis in Belarus has taken it to a new level. Niklas Granholm, research leader at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, FOI, says:
– During late summer and early fall, there is often increased military activity. But now the security situation is deteriorating rapidly, now more measures are being taken, says Niklas Granholm.
As the largest country in the Baltic Sea Sweden must react. Russian landing craft with escort ships heading east to Gotland on August 25 prompted increased Swedish military readiness. And last week, the Swedish reconnaissance planes took off every day and went out over the Baltic Sea.
– The security situation has deteriorated over time. It is not the case that these exercises and activities are done by themselves. Without every activity, every exercise contains a security policy signal element, which must be understood, says Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist.
“Every activity, every exercise contains a security policy signal element,” says Peter Hultqvist.
Photo: Thomas Karlsson
Much happens without the transparency of the media and the general public, unless the accident occurs. This is what happened on Wednesday morning when the Russian corvette Kazanets collided with a merchant ship in Danish waters at the Öresund Bridge. The 72-meter-long corvette and a Parchim-class sister ship were later captured in a photo. The ships are built for underwater hunting, and it was these two ships that raped Sweden in Vinga on the night of September 14, DN learns.
September 16 arrived Russian strategic bombing of the Baltic Sea, and on Monday the United States responded. Then a large American strategic bomber of the type B-52 Stratofortress flew east of Gotland, circled south of Tallinn and turned again. And on Friday, two B-52s circled the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad flying in the narrow 60km Suwalki corridor between Kaliningrad and Belarus.
– The situation is tense and then accidents can happen. Russian fighter jets have climbed up and performed dangerous maneuvers around the B-52s. If things go wrong and the planes crash, both sides will accuse each other and it can be dangerous, says associate professor Tomas Ries from the Swedish National Defense College.
Across the Baltic Sea, Russian strategic bombers of the type Tu-22 Backfire and Tu-60 Blackjack have flown along the western border of Belarus this week. On the opposite side of the border, in Poland, American B-52s were circling. The bomber planes on both sides can carry long-range cruise missiles and militarily they don’t have to behave that far, it’s a matter of political brands.
– Russian President Putin gets nervous at home when people get up in Belarus. Putin is taking an increasingly tough line against us, showing his military claws. I do not think Putin is deliberately planning a military conflict with the West. But the situation in Belarus is so unstable that it also affects the Nordic countries, says Tomas Ries, who explains:
– Belarusian President Lukashenko has said that NATO is preparing an attack and other nonsense. The Baltic countries are very nervous and want signs that NATO is behind them. It may be that the Americans have perceived that what the Russians are doing is so dangerous for the Baltics that they have to show their own claws and teeth, says Tomas Ries.
The Russian landing ship Korolev was part of the force that headed east to Gotland in August, the picture is from July 26 this year.
Photo: Alexei Druzhinin / Kremlin Pool
In Belarus it is being practiced right now 1,500 Russian paratroopers from Pskov, a special unit that can be quickly dispatched in different directions. The exercise is called “Slavic Brotherhood”. Across the border in Lithuania, NATO is showing its solidarity. An American tank unit got there earlier than planned and will also stay there longer.
The increase in military activity is also noticeable in the sea north of Sweden. In the Arctic, Russia has built new bases and conducted offensive exercises outside the Nordic region in the Atlantic, as during the Cold War. Also in the Black Sea and the Pacific, Russian and Western forces increasingly stalk each other.
– In general, the United States has now started to score harder against Russia. They recently had a small joint British-American naval unit in the Barents Sea to show that they are not withdrawing from Europe, says Tomas Ries.
Since the war with Georgia in 2008, Russia has been intensively equipped. But it wasn’t until the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 that led to Western countermeasures.
United States: s President Barack In 2013, Obama had taken home the last American tanks from Europe. After Crimea, they were returned to the other side of the Atlantic. NATO responded by sending small multinational battalions of 1,200 soldiers each to its eastern members Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
That is why soldiers from 21 other NATO countries are on the other side of the Baltic Sea, a political-military obstacle against Russia. The reinforcements have continued so far under President Donald Trump, despite the fact that this time they criticized NATO allies.
– The lower levels of the US system are struggling to maintain a military presence and defense ties with Europe. But it is not known at all how President Trump would react in a crisis, it would be a completely unpredictable situation, says Tomas Ries.
Sweden’s Riksdag started change defense policy in 2015 with national defense as the main task and reintroduce compulsory military service. As defense receives more money, military cooperation with Finland and the United States intensifies. On Wednesday Peter Hultqvist signed an agreement with Norway and Finland on joint planning and exercises in northern Calotte.
– To stabilize the situation, we have increased Swedish exercise operations and deepened our cooperation with other countries, says Peter Hultqvist.
Photo: Marko Säävälä / TT
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
The defense minister sees Russia as the biggest problem when it comes to peace and stability in Europe. It lists Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, the ongoing fighting in Syria, the war in Ukraine, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny with chemical weapons, and disinformation to undermine other states as realities.
– What we do is, together with other countries, raise the threshold of possible conflicts. Because it is a fact that Russia is ready to use military force to advance its positions. It is something that must be realized in depth: it is a reality.
Are there those who claim that the Western powers and NATO surround Russia?
– Neither we nor any other EU country, and that also includes NATO, we have territorial ambitions. But all that is done is to maintain the balance, to ensure that international law and law are respected, responds Peter Hultqvist.
In the autumn, the Riksdag will make decisions on how to improve defense by 2030. It is based on a 2019 Defense Committee analysis. But Niklas Granholm, FOI, wonders if development in the outside world is driving Sweden:
– There is a Swedish national political logic, but there is also a military, international logic. The question is: is what we decide enough and are the measures implemented quickly enough?
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