Stockholm, Sweden
As we all know, Sweden is a neutral country and is not a member of NATO. However, Sweden is now actively developing its military strength. Today, Sweden's military budget will reach $7.9 billion, although this may not be worth mentioning for the great powers, but it is Sweden's largest military budget in the past 70 years and maintains an annual growth trend, which is expected to reach $11 billion by 2025 and Sweden's military number will reach 90,000. The volume of procurement of military equipment and weapons is also increasing. Sweden's era of moving away from military conflict during the Cold War has become a thing of the past.
Although Sweden is not a member of the NATO military bloc, it is still very serious about integrating into it. The Swedish military participates in military operations under the auspices of NATO, the European Union and the United Nations, and Sweden prefers to participate in NATO and EU operations rather than UN peacekeeping operations.
Sweden has defended Russia as a justification for increasing military spending
Sweden has not joined any military blocs for 200 years, and the last war was the Russo-Swedish War in the early 19th century. But recently, Sweden's position has changed. Recently, the Swedish military issued a statement against the Russian threat. Edstraem, the country's air force commander, said that even if it is an opponent of a military power like Russia, we are strong enough to inflict military damage on it. According to him, the Swedish military will target vulnerable parts exposed by Russia during the exercises. The Swedish Army Commander believes that the Swedish army should conduct joint exercises with its neighbor Finland and be ready to operate in strategically important areas of the country. The head of the Swedish Navy, Eva Skug Haslem, said that we cannot avoid a possible conflict between NATO and Russia. In the event of such a military confrontation, the state must be prepared.
Back in 2017, the Kingdom of Sweden Armed Forces Headquarters and NATO co-organized the country's largest international exercise in nearly 30 years, "Aurora-2017". The exercise was held in Sweden and involved more than 20,000 Swedish and NATO soldiers. The envisioned scenario for the exercise was that a peaceful and neutral Sweden was attacked by a major power from a major country in the East. Who else but Russia?
Military exercises involving Sweden and Finland
In 2018, Scandinavia hosted nato's Crusades. About 50,000 people participated, of which 2,000 were Swedish soldiers. In May, Sweden participated in NATO's "Staunch Defenders" exercise.
Sweden's active participation in military exercises in recent years is enough to show that this previously neutral country has clearly fallen into the arms of NATO's military bloc.
The Swedish Ministry of Defense has continued to expand the "Russian threat" in its video, although it is not at all clear how it manifests itself. In fact, during World War II, the Soviet Union had every opportunity to occupy Sweden, but it did not do so. If Sweden maintains its neutral posture and has few potential enemies, where does Sweden's hysterical anti-Russian sentiment come from?
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to such propaganda, bluntly stating: "These fictitious anti-Russian phobias are largely related to the deliberate external pressure on Stockholm, the main source of which lies in NATO."
According to foreign media reports, NATO continues to spread anti-Russian sentiment in Europe and exert pressure to force European countries to prepare for provocations from Russia. Small countries such as Finland and Sweden have clearly succumbed to the panic imposed by NATO.
Russia and NATO
Sweden is actively developing its military forces in order to meet Russia? This kind of headline is a joke in itself, like an ant getting fit against an elephant. As early as the 18th century, the Swedes knew that they could no longer effectively defend against Russia. Russia and Sweden fought three times, the last of which was the Finnish War of 1808. The Finnish War was a crushing defeat for Sweden and the last in Swedish history, sweden lost Finland and Russian troops entered Swedish territory, although the Russians went back afterwards. Perhaps it was the historical war that had a great psychological impact on Sweden, and perhaps at any time Russia could invade Sweden at any time. Plus NATO kept shouting in his ears, "The Russians are coming!" "Sweden is a bit like a bird of prey.
I thought that Sweden, which became a neutral country, was a smart country, but if a neutral country was not neutral, it would have terrible consequences.