Sweden ‘cannot rule out Russian attack,’ defense minister says

Russia could attack Sweden for control of the Baltic Sea, Stockholm’s Defense Minister Pål Jonson said Wednesday.

“Russia poses a threat to Sweden, as it does to the rest of NATO. We cannot rule out a Russian attack on our country,” Jonson said in an interview with Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

Though the Kremlin’s forces are “tied up in Ukraine,” Moscow has shown it is “willing to take serious military and political risks,” he added, with Russian naval fleets still docked in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

Due to the Russian threat, Sweden was “implementing an ambitious program of expanding” its famed navy, Jonson said.

Sweden applied to join NATO shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and became the transatlantic military alliance’s 32nd member in March.

Russia has repeatedly threatened NATO and its allies in recent years. Moscow’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov said last month that the Kremlin is “fully ready” for war with the alliance’s Arctic members, of which Sweden is one.

The Kremlin also rankled Baltic and Nordic countries in May by proposing to unilaterally redraw its border in the Baltic Sea before deleting the draft decree without explanation.

“After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the military and trade importance of the Baltic Sea for the Kremlin increased even more,” Jonson said. “Therefore, we must take into account Russia’s aggressive intentions in our military plans.”

His warning echoes that of Michael Claesson, supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, who last month called Russia “strategically erratic” and said times are more dangerous now than the Cold War.

Claesson’s predecessor, Micael Bydén, said in May that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has both eyes” on the Swedish island of Gotland.

“If Russia takes control and seals off the Baltic Sea, it would have an enormous impact on our lives — in Sweden and all other countries bordering the Baltic Sea. We can’t allow that,” Bydén said.