Sweden says Russia is biggest menace to its safety

Russia poses the best menace to Sweden on account of its aggressive perspective in direction of the West, the Scandinavian nation’s safety service Sapo has mentioned.

It wrote in its annual report that whereas Sweden becoming a member of the Nato navy alliance had strengthened its safety, it had additionally led to elevated Russian intelligence exercise.

Sapo additionally mentioned that the safety state of affairs in Sweden is severe and should worsen -with international powers working in additional threatening methods and resorting to hybrid warfare, alongside incidents of violent extremism.

Charlotte von Essen, the pinnacle of Sapo, mentioned there was a “tangible threat that the safety state of affairs can deteriorate additional” in a manner which may be laborious to foretell.

Sweden grew to become a Nato member final yr, seeing it as the very best assure in opposition to Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That January, its civil defence minister warned “there may very well be struggle in Sweden” within the close to future on account of Russian aggression.

Sapo mentioned on Tuesday that Russia’s intelligence actions have been primarily geared toward undermining cohesion between Nato members, counteracting Western assist for Ukraine, and circumventing sanctions.

It mentioned these actions confirmed Russia was changing into “more and more offensive and risk-prone” within the face of a construct up of Swedish, and wider European, defences.

“When gathering intelligence, the Russian safety and intelligence providers use a variety of assets and totally different platforms,” the company wrote, including that these had been restricted by expelling intelligence officers.

Ms von Essen mentioned Swedes wanted to be vigilant about “widespread anti-state narratives and conspiracy theories” that search to behave as a destabilising pressure, including that it was “vital that we don’t normalise the brand new state of affairs”.

In its report, Sapo talked about suspicious incidents involving infrastructure and which international locations could have been behind “in some instances”.

A collection of undersea cables and gasoline pipelines have been broken in suspected assaults since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting Nato to launch a monitoring mission within the sea.

The newest such breach was reported final month close to Gotland – Sweden’s largest island.

The Swedish authorities additionally recognized Iran and China as posing vital safety threats to the Nordic nation.

Final yr, Sapo accused Iranian intelligence of hacking right into a textual content messaging service to ship 15,000 messages to Swedes, after a number of Quran burnings.

Sapo’s 2025 report mentioned international intelligence threats included cyber-attacks, know-how theft and monitoring the motion of international dissidents dwelling in Sweden.

It additionally mentioned the specter of terrorism stays excessive, however was diversifying to not simply embrace “ideologically motivated actors”, but additionally violence instigated by a international energy and younger individuals with a fascination with violence who’ve been radicalised on-line.

Ms von Essen mentioned that Sapo had seen examples of countries together with Russia and Iran inducing people, usually younger individuals, to hold out acts of violence.

Critical assaults have occurred in France, Germany and Austria, the Sapo chief mentioned.

Sweden itself was coping with the aftermath of “the horrible incident in Orebro”, she famous, referring to Sweden’s worst mass taking pictures final month wherein a gunman attacked an schooling centre in central Sweden, killing 9 individuals.

Sapo mentioned violent Islamist extremism and violent right-wing terrorism remained distinguished threats.

Sweden stays on excessive alert for terrorism – with the menace degree assessed at 4 out of a five-point scale.