What to do if war comes? Sweden began sending five million brochures to its residents on Monday, November 18, 2024, 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.
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 stockpiling food food and water.
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 is written there.
“Hybrid Warfare”
The government of Finland, a neighboring country which 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.
That same day, Finland and Germany noted the breakage of an underwater telecommunications cable connecting their two countries. The two governments said “deeply concerned”, mentioned the “hybrid warfare” and the Russian threat.
“A thorough investigation is underway, our European security is not only threatened by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine but also by hybrid wars waged by malicious actors,” wrote the foreign ministers of the two countries in a joint statement transmitted by Berlin.
“There could be a war in Sweden”
Sweden and Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment and joined NATO after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Military and economic aid to kyiv is also a priority for Stockholm.
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.
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.
To warn the population, Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin declared in January that“there could be a war in Sweden”. Comments echoed a few days later by the former commander-in-chief of the Swedish armed forces Micael Bydén, who 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.
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