View from the West: Sweden itself provokes Russia to be formidable
Russia poses no threat to Sweden, so there is no need to demonize it, argue Erni and Ola Friholt, published by the local newspaper Bohusläningen. On the contrary, it was Stockholm who decided on a clearly provocative policies regarding Moscow, while flirting with the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance.
The authors note that United States civilian and military officials themselves often accuse leaders of different countries of threatening behavior. For example, with regard to Iraq, it has been argued that the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction that are said to pose a threat to the United States and the world.
Independent researchers then immediately declared that these accusations were unfounded, however, using all their military power, the Americans carried out their plan and struck a blow to the social infrastructure of Iraq.
Today, the article notes, Russia is presented in Sweden in a negative light. It was easy to do, because half of the Swedes already perceive the demonization of the Russian Federation with approval, and not as possible disinformation.
The Russian Federation and its leaders are subjected to daily attacks based on distorted, and sometimes completely invented facts. They should point to "the Russian threat to Sweden, the Baltic region and all of Western Europe."
It is likely that the purpose of all these actions is to force Sweden to buy expensive [foreign] weapons systems and force it to join NATO. […] Our government and media are involved in NATO politics and play a role in it. We often pointed to the huge military, economic and NATO's numerical superiority over Russia and the daily movement of weapons, bases and personnel to Russia's borders. But these facts do not seem to affect public opinion. The fact remains: Sweden is not threatened, and Russia is under threat. And Sweden contributes to this
- summarizes in the article.
It is worth noting that Russia is a traditional scarecrow for Swedish society, whose fears are used with pleasure by both local media and officials. After the well-known events of 2014 on the Crimean peninsula in the Scandinavian country, fears arose that the Russian Federation might seize the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Against this background, discussions have intensified on the hypothetically possible joining of Sweden to the NATO bloc.
Currently Sweden and Finland are not part of the alliance, although they cooperate with Brussels on a number of issues.
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