Russia poses ‘serious and concrete’ threat to Sweden’s security, Stockholm warns

Sweden has named Russia as its greatest threat and warns that Moscow’s increasingly risky behavior could trigger a dangerous escalation.  

 An annual report released Tuesday by the country’s Military Intelligence and Security Service flagged airspace violations, sabotage and cyber operations as examples of Russia’s belligerent actions in Sweden’s neighborhood, including the Baltic Sea. 

 “Russia is the primary military threat to Sweden and NATO,” the report stated, adding this threat was “serious and concrete” and describing Moscow’s conduct as “opportunistic and aggressive.”

The Swedish assessment comes after Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service last week described Russia as “dangerous despite its incompetence” in its own annual review.  

But the Estonian review also cautioned against “panic,” saying it saw no evidence that Russia intended to attack it or NATO in the coming year and projecting that it was unlikely to do so in the near future, given Europe’s ramped-up defense measures.

During a background briefing last week attended by POLITICO, a senior NATO official echoed that view. 

“What protects us is the strength of the alliance and the faith that we and Russia have in Article 5 [NATO’s collective defense clause]” as well as recent pledges by NATO members to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, the senior official said.

“So long as we continue to make the investments, that’s what keeps us on the side of the equation in which Russia wouldn’t dare.”

Both the Estonian report and the senior NATO official, however, noted that Russia has dramatically increased artillery production, a sign that Moscow will continue to pose a threat even if peace is reached in Ukraine.

Russia is “preparing for its next war,” the Estonian report claimed, estimating that its production of shells and other artillery has increased 17-fold since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now entering its fifth year.

“You don’t simply turn all that off the day the war ends,” the senior NATO official said. “Russia will end up in some areas stronger as a military force than when it began” its war against Ukraine.