On Sweden’s Gotland, Ukraine’s fears for Russia are reviving
Visby (Sweden) (AFP) – “You never know”: like many other Swedes on Gotland, Emelie Cedeskog has filled up with preserves and checked where the nearest shelter is.
In a country that has long been marked by a “fear of Russians”, many of the island’s 60,000 inhabitants have been concerned about the resurgence of tensions between the West and Moscow.
– We are a little worried, we can not really know what will happen, the 35-year-old teacher tells AFP.
One week after the invasion of Ukraine, four Russian fighter jets on Wednesday violated Swedish airspace over the Baltic Sea east of the strategically located island.
Local authorities have responded by appealing for calm.
– We have had many phone calls, people were worried, especially about where the shelters are, where to turn if something happens, says Rikard von Zweigbergk, head of emergency preparedness for the regional authority, to AFP.
Supply rush
“There are a lot of people who have bought a lot of preserves, although there are still some left, but the water containers and the portable stoves are sold out,” he said.
To the most anxious, “we say to them: stay calm, stay cold,” said the official.
“The risk is minimal, even if it is higher than it was before.”
For most Swedes, Gotland is a popular holiday destination for Stockholmers with its small beaches and picturesque medieval town of Visby, with hordes of tourists heading down to the otherwise sleepy island in the summer.
But it is also less than 350 kilometers (217 miles) from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Military analysts believe that Gotland is an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” that can serve as a crucial base for controlling sea and air traffic in and across the Baltic Sea.
At the start of tensions with Russia over Ukraine in December, a Russian television program discussed a plan to invade Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and capture Gotland’s locals.
The island is a time of tension with Moscow.
As part of Sweden’s reduction of its defenses after the end of the Cold War, the country decided in 2004 to dismantle the garrison stationed on the island.
In 2015, a decision was made to re-establish a garrison when Sweden began to reinvest in its military in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and in January 2018, the armored regiment was officially opened.
In January, as tensions escalated between Russia and the West over Ukraine, reinforcements and armored vehicles were sent to patrol the streets of Visby.
Göran Karlsson, head of Gotland’s regiment at the country’s voluntary home defense, tells AFP that they have seen a flood of applications.
“In the last two months, it has increased by 300 percent, so we have about 60 applications that we have to take care of. That is a really good number,” said Karlsson.
“I think people especially want to defend this island. If you see Gotland, the location, what you see is that it is in the center. It can be important for the future,” he added.
The NATO issue
Unlike its neighbors in the Baltic Sea Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Denmark, Sweden is not a member of NATO – even though it has been a partner in the alliance for almost 30 years. ‘
“I do not know if Moscow would see this as a provocation. But it would be nice to have a NATO air base here,” Pelle Torsson, 61, who has spent the past 20 years on the island, told AFP.
Like most people, he does not believe that an attack is an immediate threat.
“But in three, four or five years, if (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is done with Ukraine, what will he do next?”
Sweden has so far confirmed that joining the alliance is not on the table.
But it recently broke with tradition by exporting weapons to Ukraine, the first time it has sent weapons to a country in active conflict since 1939, when it sent weapons to neighboring Finland when the Soviet Union attacked.
Russian intrusion into Swedish airspace has happened before, but analysts say that Wednesday’s event was a clear warning.
“It’s a bit of a paradox because Russia does not want us to join NATO, but it behaves in a way that forces us to join,” said Samuel Lindgren, a 21-year-old Gotlander.
On Thursday evening, more than 2,000 people gathered in Visby in torchlight for a demonstration in support of Ukraine.
In the distance, the occasional thud from a joint Swedish-Finnish hunting exercise was clearly heard.
“It has been two centuries since the Russians last came to Gotland, in 1808,” says Julius Mehler, a 64-year-old former deacon.
“But I feel safer when I hear these plans from Sweden and Finland.”
© 2022 AFP