Swedish Commander-in-Chief Gen. Micael Byden is persuading the Scandinavian country's populace that Moscow has "set its sights" on the island of Gotland, in order to take control over the Baltic Sea, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed on Thursday.
"Swedish Commander-in-Chief Micael Byden is convincing Swedes that Russia has 'set its sights' on the island of Gotland that is the 'key to establishing control over the Baltic Sea,'" the SVR said in a statement.
In the meantime, Finland's Stubb has "all of a sudden realized the existence of 'an existential threat coming from Russia,'" and "does not hesitate to call for "paving the way to peace on the battlefield," the Russian intelligence service added.
"Like diligent students, they repeat without hesitation the Russophobic mantras of their American bosses," the SVR said.
The US State Department plans to publish short videos on popular social networks targeting the populations of Sweden and Finland in an attempt to depict the alleged "seriousness of the Russian threat," the press office of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service said.
"The press office of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation reports that numerous facts indicate the ultimate transformation of the US State Department, mired in this reviled anti-Russian hysteria, into an unprincipled propaganda mouthpiece," the report says.
It notes that "under the auspices of the American foreign policy department along popular social networks and messengers in the near future, plans are in store to place a series of short videos to demonstrate 'the seriousness of the Russian threat."
"The target audience of the project is the population of Sweden and Finland, who need to be indoctrinated with 'universal fear' of Washington's far-fetched 'territorial appetites' of Moscow," the SVR noted.