Sweden will send 800 soldiers to Latvia. They must guard the country’s border and deter Russia from a possible attack.
The government has decided that the Swedish battalion will join Canadian-led NATO forces in Latvia, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. He added that this could happen in early 2025.
The P7 regiment, currently stationed in southern Sweden near the city of Lund, will be sent to Latvia. The units should move to the Latvian-Russian border using AMV 360 armored vehicles, Stridsfordon 90 infantry fighting vehicles and possibly Leopard tanks.
The Swedish regiment will be part of the Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) forces, allied forces on NATO’s eastern flank. EFP troops in Latvia number more than 2,000. the soldiers are commanded by Canadians.
Sweden warns citizens. ‘War could break out’
Earlier, Commander-in-Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces Mikael Büden and Swedish Defense Minister Karl-Oskar Bulin called on citizens not to rely on more than 200 years of peace and to be prepared for the possibility of war breaking out.
Bulin reminded citizens of Ukraine, which has been defending itself against the Russian invasion since February 2022. It was the war started by Vladimir Putin that prompted Stockholm to apply for NATO membership. Finland, which has already joined the Alliance, did the same. Sweden is still waiting for the green light from Turkey and Hungary, which have not yet ratified the country’s accession to NATO.
Earlier, experts from the German Foreign Policy Association (DGAP) called on NATO countries to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Russia in the next six to ten years. In their view, this is about how much Moscow will need to rebuild its military to attack NATO after heavy fighting in Ukraine ends.
The first victims of Russian aggression could be Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but also Poland.
War in Ukraine. Sikorski: Poland is a frontline state, a hypothetical battlefield
Radosław Sikorski, the new Foreign Minister, said in May last year that Poland is dealing with the war Ukrainehas become “a frontline state and, hypothetically, a battlefield, therefore it must prepare the military for territorial defense, coastal defense and countering cyber attacks.”
– If Putin wins, we will have the Russian army around almost half of our borders. In addition, the country is at risk of using nuclear weapons, which cannot be completely ruled out, Sikorski said.
Poland is the only NATO country that borders both attacking Russia (via Königsberg Oblast in the north of the country) and defending Ukraine (in the southeast).
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
