Russian GRU’s attempt to block Sweden’s accession to NATO
The Russian military intelligence service has likely used its access and an unwitting ultra-right activist to create obstacles on Sweden’s path towards NATO.
It is according to Robert Lansing Institutea US-based think tank, reports Ukrinform.
Through a demonstrative burning of the Koran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (Military Intelligence) likely took advantage of the unsuspecting leader of the ultra-right party Hard Line, Rasmus Paludan, with the mediation of a local journalist Chang Johannes Frick, who, according to many indications, is a Russian intelligence asset recruited to run psyops. This is according to the Robert Lansing Institute.
“Stockholm’s accession aspirations became a matter for Moscow. As a result, the Kremlin planned an operation aimed at escalating the contradictions between Türkiye and Sweden amid the upcoming elections in Ankara, realizing that an attack on a religious symbol of Islam cannot be ignored during an ongoing campaign,” RLI reports.
According to analysts, Russia’s choice of Paludan fell in connection with his previous infamous stunts when he burned the Koran in Denmark, Germany and France, as well as demonstrating a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad, which is strictly forbidden in Islam.
“Therefore, the scenario was probably chosen as an active action through an act of religious provocation. In the past, similar actions eventually fueled mass riots and even acts of terrorism, as in the case of Charlie Hebdo HQ in France. Paludan’s far-right ideology and anti-migrant politics fit perfectly Kremlin in conducting intelligence operations within the broad framework of the anti-migrant movement across Europe, which Moscow has been generously cultivating since 2015,” RLI analysts note.