Sweden’s Security Service (Sapo) stated Wednesday that Russia presented a threat to its territorial security, citing increased interest in the Arctic as the Nordic country prepares to join NATO.
Moscow is also becoming a more serious threat to industrial espionage, with Sweden observing an increase in undercover spies from other nations, Sapo warned in its annual threat assessment report.
Sweden ended two centuries of military non-alignment and asked for NATO membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Stockholm expects Hungary, the only holdout, to confirm its membership on Monday.
Sapo stated that Russia, along with China, was “conducting security-threatening activities in northernmost Sweden,” and that Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership would expand the alliance’s boundary in the Arctic region.
“Russia’s interest in northern Sweden primarily concerns Swedish military capabilities,” according to the spy service.
Sapo Director Charlotte von Essen told reporters that Sweden’s security situation had deteriorated following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine continues, the situation in the Middle East is serious after Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7 and in Sweden we have during the last year gone from an elevated to a high terror threat level,” she said in a statement.
Sapo stated that activities compromising Sweden’s security were “conducted on a broad front, and foreign powers act offensively.”
It cited as an example the illegal acquisition of technologies that could subsequently be used in Russia’s military industry.
China, Iran also threats
In January 2023, a former Swedish intelligence officer received a life sentence for espionage for Russia.
In September, a Russian-Swedish national faced trial for allegedly providing Western technologies to Russia’s military. A Stockholm court found he had exported the material, but determined that his activities did not constitute intelligence collection.
Sapo’s assessment came two days after Sweden’s military intelligence branch, MUST, identified Russia as the main threat to the Nordic country.
Sapo has raised concerns about Chinese and Iranian espionage efforts.
China was viewed as a potential economic threat, obtaining “Swedish innovations, technological know-how, and cutting-edge knowledge from industry and universities.”
Sapo also mentioned that Sweden has shifted from being a legitimate target to a more prioritised target for Islamist extremists in the previous year, following a spate of protests involving Koran desecrations in the country.
“The perception of Sweden has ultimately become a question of our security,” she said.
In October, an Islamist gunman shot and killed two Swedish football fans in Brussels.