Sweden is neither at war nor at peace

“Sweden is not at war, but not at peace either. True peace is freedom and the absence of serious conflicts between countries,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at the annual Folk och Defense Forum in Salen, central Sweden. He talks about hybrid attacks and a proxy war waged on his soil.

“We and our neighbors are subject to hybrid attacks that are not carried out with missiles or with soldiers but with computers, money, disinformation and threats of sabotage,” explained the prime minister. “This security situation and the fact that strange things continue to happen in the Baltic Sea lead us to believe that hostile intentions cannot be ruled out,” he continued.

As a reminder, several electrical and telecommunications cables have been damaged in the Baltic in recent months. These damages, targeting energy and communications infrastructures, are part, according to experts and political leaders, in the context of a “hybrid war” led by Moscow against Western countries.

L’Eagle Sflying the flag of the Cook Islands, an oil tanker suspected of belonging to the Russian “ghost fleet” and of having damaged an electric cable and four telecommunications cables between Finland and Estonia on December 25 has just been banned from navigation .

A bulk carrier flying the Chinese flag, the Yi Peng 3, is also in the sights of Swedish justice regarding the rupture on November 17 and 18 of two telecommunications cables in Swedish waters.

“Proxy” attacks

Sweden and Finland, which recently joined NATO, are particularly attentive to recurring incidents in the Baltic Sea, where tension has increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Prime Minister Kristersson did not point the finger at any country’s responsibility for the damaged cables during his speech. But speaking more generally about hybrid attacks in the region, he declared that “the Russian threat is likely to be a long-term one. Just like our defense must do.

He also claimed that “Iran is using violent organized criminal gangs in Sweden to carry out serious proxy attacks in our country.” Because as a reminder, at the end of May, the Swedish intelligence agency Säpo accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs, including children, to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli interests among others in Sweden, this which Tehran has denied.

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