Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘frames’ everything, says Sweden’s new army chief

Russia is the threat against which Sweden must tailor its defences, Sweden's new Commander-in-Chief Michael Claesson said ahead of taking up his new post on Tuesday.

The new Commander-in-Chief of the Swedish Defence Forces, who is due to take up his duties on Tuesday (1 October), gave an interview to the Swedish press agency TT in which he outlined his vision of the tense strategic situation in which his country finds itself.

"The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine frames everything we do", Claesson said.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO. Sweden was the last country to join the Alliance in March, ending 200 years of military non-alignment.

As the new head of the armed forces, Claesson now wants to focus more on Sweden's military and warned that Russia, which is currently strategically unpredictable, may target Sweden directly.

"We should not rule out the possibility that Russia might be prepared to challenge NATO", he said.

In the case of Sweden, Claesson downplayed the threat of a major ground invasion, pointing instead to so-called 'hybrid warfare', such as cyber-attacks and attacks with long-range missile attacks on civilian targets.

"My predecessor has been very clear that war or a war-like situation can also occur in Sweden", he said, adding that despite its readiness, Sweden's air defence lacked capabilities to deal with such threats.

"Perhaps the most important thing is that we are not alone", he said, referring to NATO.

Protecting renewable energies

As winter approaches and the war in Ukraine continues, Sweden - along with its Nordic neighbours - recognises the need to protect renewable energy, which reduces Europe's dependence on Russian energy but also increases the risk of hybrid attacks.

To this effect, NATO last week held the Nordic Pine international military exercise in Jönköping in Southern Sweden and Espoo, near Helsinki, aimed at thwarting hybrid attacks on renewable energy systems such as windmills and solar panel fields.

"We are looking particularly closely at the vulnerability of the renewable energy sector as a source of modern hybrid warfare," NATO's chief scientist Bryan Wells told Swedish broadcaster SVT last week.

For NATO, suspected hybrid attacks by Russia in recent years have led the Alliance to prioritise defence against such attacks, and the fact that Nordic Pine is now an official NATO exercise is part of this effort.

For the Alliance, the nightmare scenario would be a cyber-attack leading to a blackout of electricity systems for several weeks.

The growing threat to renewable energy sources is also about supply chains, where components can come from foreign powers.

"These supply chains have started to be used as weapons, they are used to manipulate or even blackmail, and that is why we are practising this type of threat and risk" exercise leader Freddy Jönsson Hanberg told Swedish media.

[Edited by Daniel Eck]