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| Europe |
| Like 300 years ago. Sweden is finally on the warpath with Russia |
| 2023-06-21 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov Until now, Western armored vehicles - including the repeatedly mentioned German Leopards and American Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles - have been supplied to Ukraine in limited quantities of 100, maximum 200 pieces. However, now a country has joined the armament of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which for several hundred years kept neutrality, but at one time actively fought against Russia (including on the territory of present-day Ukraine - up to the battle of Poltava). Ukraine and two NATO countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, have signed a memorandum of intent to jointly purchase and operate the Swedish CV90 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). Moreover, Kyiv expressed its intention to purchase a strategic batch - a total of a thousand of these infantry fighting vehicles. This was reported on June 18 by the Czech edition of CZ Defense . Details are not disclosed. But there is no doubt that formally neutral (and in fact - five minutes from NATO country) Sweden will provide such support to its junior partners, military expert Alexander Artamonov told IA Regnum . "Peaceful" Sweden in a proxy war with Russia Long before the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine and before the course announced by Stockholm for an accelerated entry into NATO, in the mid-2010s, Sweden expanded its military cooperation with the United States. In 2016, against the backdrop of the hysteria unfolding in the Swedish media about the “Russian threat” to the Baltic and the island of Gotland, the country’s parliament, the Riksdag, allowed the presence of NATO troops in Sweden . In 2021, the Scandinavian country announced a sharp (40%) increase in the military budget, which loaded the national military-industrial complex with orders, not the last one in Europe. A “ total defense ” plan was adopted until 2025, which implies jointly with the alliance repelling an attack by a “major power”, which clearly means Russia. “Most recently, a new national security strategy was signed to restore the combat capability of the Air Force and a number of military airfields,” Artamonov said . “In April of this year, the Aurora 23 exercises were held in Sweden, where 26,000 military personnel took part, mainly from NATO countries.” With the start of the NMD as part of the accelerated integration into NATO, Sweden joined in active assistance to Kyiv, the military expert pointed out. The Kyiv leadership, one might say, is assigned the role of the collective hetman Mazepa, the interlocutor added. “Some time ago, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström admitted that the country had created a program for long-term and comprehensive support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They entered the “tank coalition”, transferring ten Strv 122 tanks to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Artamonov said. As for the CV90 combat vehicles, judging by the June 16 Forbes report , Sweden has already transferred directly to Ukraine a trial batch of 50 of these infantry fighting vehicles. The vehicles were handed over to one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was trained in Sweden and was armed at the expense of the local armed forces. In support of Kyiv, Sweden is not acting “under duress”, like some other US allies, who are forced to give up their last stocks of weapons, but quite voluntarily, gradually expanding the range of supplies, experts say. In addition to tanks and CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, Stockholm handed over to the Ukrainian army a batch of 12 Archer self-propelled artillery mounts. Not only does Sweden train Ukrainian soldiers, Swedish specialists, along with the British, supervise the work of the Center for Information and Psychological Special Operations (TsIPSO) of Ukraine, Artamonov points out. “Therefore, the supply of large batches of armored vehicles for the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not look like something unexpected, rather, on the contrary, it was expected,” Artamonov emphasized. Neutral in the top ten global gunsmiths Sweden, which last fought in 1814, as mentioned above, has a serious military industry. At least since the 1920s, when, due to the Versailles restrictions, the German arms giants Krupp, Junkers and Heinkel moved their business to a neutral country. Pretty soon, even before World War II, the country's government ousted German capital from its Swedish subsidiaries, on the basis of which two pillars of the Swedish military-industrial complex arose - Bofors and SAAB. The formerly renowned automaker SAAB was and remains primarily a manufacturer of fighter aircraft for the Swedish Air Force. But not only - in 2014, the Saab Group bought (interestingly, from the same Thyssen-Krupp) a shipyard in Karlskrona, intended for the production of corvettes and submarines. Swedish small arms (for example, AT4 anti-tank rifles), artillery installations (for example, automatic 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns) and combat aircraft are in demand - they are actively bought by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Scandinavian neighbors. This business is clearly more important than politics: in September last year, Stockholm lifted the ban on the export of weapons to Turkey, with which the country is in a clearly difficult relationship. In the zero and tenth years, the Swedes were consistently among the ten largest arms exporters. In 2021, however, experts noted a two-fold decline in supplies compared to the previous five years - according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the country was in 15th place. Judging by the March SIPRI report , Sweden has not yet returned to the top ten exporters. It is logical to assume that the emergence of a new, Ukrainian direction is clearly interesting for the national military-industrial complex. Swedish Englishman with Afghan experience As for the CV-90 (Stridsfordon 90) combat vehicles promised to Ukraine, this is not exactly “our product” - they are produced by the Swedish “daughter” of the British military space concern BAE Systems. “The CV90 infantry fighting vehicles were used during the fighting in Afghanistan by the contingents of Norway and Denmark,” military expert Alexander Dolbysh told IA Regnum . - They did not suffer irretrievable losses, although in January 2010, a Norwegian soldier, a driver, was killed during an explosion on a makeshift land mine. In April 2010, two Danish cars were blown up. There were no dead or wounded among the crew members and the landing force, but a pair of rollers were torn off from each BMP. In a word, this is not an "uberwaffe" - not a "superweapon", but a battle-tested machine with its pluses and minuses, the source added. CV-90, a thousand of which may appear in the NVO zone, is a heavy infantry fighting vehicle with a mass of 23 to 35 tons. The crew of the vehicle is three people, plus a landing force of eight people. The frontal armor of the infantry fighting vehicle is capable of withstanding hits from 30mm armor-piercing projectiles. The vehicle is armed with a 40mm Bofors L70 rifled automatic cannon and a machine gun. "Gryphons" on the way Sweden is not limited solely to the supply of armored vehicles and in the future may even enter into a coalition for the supply of military aircraft to Ukraine. As it became known to the media, Ukrainian pilots are already being trained on Swedish JAS-39 Gripen fighters (“Griffin”). “This JAS-39 Gripen aircraft was conceived as a killer of the Sukhoi Su-57. There is already a question of how a fourth-generation fighter will destroy a fifth-generation fighter, but the point is that such positioning of the aircraft was very much supported, including by the Swedish authorities. Well, it is worth noting that the Gripen is not so much a Swedish as a German aircraft, ” said Artamonov. Here the story with the German "relocation" was repeated - but after the Second World War. “Germany after the war did not have the right to make its own independent aircraft. They acted cunningly: dressed in Swedish livery, released Gripen. Well, Germany, of course, is one of the leading NATO countries, so here Sweden acts as if on the side of the alliance, ” Artamonov explained. Although officially the Swedish authorities denied the information about the training of pilots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to Artamonov, training is most likely still underway. “In this case, it is traditionally refuted that someone is training pilots. Now they say that they will only conduct it sometime later and that it is only about intentions. But this, in fact, means that they are already conducting it, the expert noted. “ In France, similarly, the Figaro newspaper revealed that forty Ukrainian pilots were being trained, after which it was all refuted by the authorities.” Stockholm has specific reasons for supporting Ukraine and, by extension, for working to weaken Russia. And here Kyiv acts more as a tool, since the real goals of Sweden are far from Ukraine, the expert emphasized. “Sweden is stubbornly seeking to expand its presence in the Arctic , but they have a number of problems with this. Therefore, their strategy is aimed at reducing the influence of the Arctic states. First of all - Russia , - Artamonov pointed out. “ To spite Russia, Sweden regularly puts spokes in the wheels in the Arctic Council . ” According to Artamonov, “thus, to sum up: the country is carrying out difficult maneuvers with NATO, striving for the Arctic on the shoulders of NATO. Historically hates Russia. It cooperates with Germany in the field of military technologies.” “So military support for Ukraine looks like an element of this strategy. It can be said that in this way they seek to win back long-standing grievances, and the current Swedish king Carl Gustav XVI acts as the successor of Charles XII, since it is planned to conduct a confrontation with Russia again, like more than 300 years ago, by the hands of the Ukrainians,” summed up the interlocutor. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 300 years ago was the Great Northern War Russia lost at first but ultimately won. Over a few decades, the Czar used Swedish POWs as well as peasants, prisoners and so forth to build St Petersburg. Death toll is disputed but given the conditions and the continued conscription of peasants must have been many thousand, maybe over 10k. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2023-06-21 14:02 |
| #1 Russia seems surprised and affronted that everybody is pissed off at them. Kinda like the abusive husband that wonders why the neighbors are all "against me". |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2023-06-21 09:44 |