The headquarters of the Swedish Armed Forces announced Tuesday that the military had initiated a “high readiness action” in the southern and southeastern Baltic Sea due to “the current, extensive military activity in the Baltic Sea region.”
“There is currently extensive military activity in the Baltic Sea, conducted by Russian as well as Western players, on a scale the likes of which we have not seen since the Cold War,” Swedish Armed Forces Commander of Joint Operations Jan Thornquist was quoted as saying.
According to the military, the “high readiness action” will mean increased Swedish sea and air-based surveillance of the Baltic, and a reinforced presence in Gotland, the Swedish island in the Baltic situated between mainland Sweden and the Baltic States.
Peter Hultqvist, Sweden’s Defence Minister, told Swedish news agency TT that the military’s deployment would be meant to send a “signal, both to our partners and to the Russian side, that we stand up for Swedish integrity and sovereignty.”
The Armed Forces also says that it considers the possibility of a military attack on Sweden as “low.”
Despite formal neutrality, the Kingdom of Sweden, whose armed forces include 22,500 active duty personnel and 34,500 reservists, regularly carries out drills with its NATO partners, including exercises in Eastern Europe along Russia’s western borders. The country took part in the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya, and increased cooperation with the bloc in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis in 2014.
On Monday, a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet scrambled to intercept unidentified aerial targets approaching Russia’s maritime borders spotted a Gulfstream reconnaissance aircraft operated by the Swedish Air Force, with US and German aircraft operating nearby.