What to do if war comes? This Monday, November 18, Sweden began sending five million brochures to its inhabitants, urging them to prepare for a potential conflict, at a time when Ukraine is struggling against Russian troops.
Since the start of this armed conflict, this Scandinavian country has urged its population to prepare, both mentally and logistically, for the possibility of war, given its proximity to Russia.
Neighboring Finland has meanwhile created a website with similar preparation advice.
The two countries abandoned decades of military non-alignment and entered NATO after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Swedish booklet, called “Om krisen eller kriget kommer”, written by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), contains practical recommendations for dealing with crises such as war, natural disasters and cyberattacks.
“Serious security situation”
Location of fallout shelters, choice of food, reliable sources of information: the 32-page document describes, using simple illustrations, the threats facing Sweden and gives advice such as building up food stocks food and water.
Including this updated version, it will have been sent five times since the Second World War.
The previous version, distributed in 2018 to households, made headlines: it was the first time it had been distributed to the kingdom's population since 1961, at the height of the Cold War.
In March, the Bank of Sweden called on authorities and banking establishments to facilitate the use of cash, fearing a paralysis of society in the event of a crisis or war in a country where transactions are largely dematerialized.
“The security situation is serious and we all need to strengthen our resilience in order to be able to face crises, and ultimately war”emphasized Mikael Frisell, the director of MSB, in a press release.
Military and economic aid to kyiv constitutes a priority for Stockholm, which repeats that a conflict, given the threat posed by Russia, cannot be ruled out.
To warn the population, Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin declared in January that'”there could be a war in Sweden”.
Proposals of retaliation a few days later by the former commander-in-chief of the Swedish armed forces Micael Bydén, who had then encouraged the Swedes to “prepare mentally for war”.
No war since Napoleon
These calls sparked intense debates within Swedish society, unaccustomed to the realities of war.
While Sweden regularly sends troops for peacekeeping operations, it has not been involved in armed conflict since the Napoleonic Wars.
The children's rights NGO Bris, after these statements, recorded a significant increase in the number of calls to its emergency line from children concerned about the prospect of war.
Contacted Monday by AFP, the Minister of Civil Defense did not respond immediately.
Over the next two weeks, 5.2 million brochures – also available online in Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, Polish, Somali and Finnish – will be sent to the Swedish population.
The booklet does not explicitly mention Ukraine or Russia but emphasizes that the military threat to Sweden has increased. “We must prepare for the worst – an armed attack”it says there.
The government of Finland, a country that shares a 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia, also made a website available to its citizens on Monday with advice on how to prepare in the event of a crisis.
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