The planes practised an attack on Sweden,” reported the “Svenska Dagbladet” daily on Monday.
The Swedish daily writes that 2 heavy Tu-22M3 bombers and 4 Su-27 fighters started on Good Friday (29th March) after midnight from Petersburg. However, instead of flying to the Kaliningrad District, the flew to the west towards the Stockholm archipelago.
As the sources of the daily, coming from the Swedish army, inform, the aim of the sham attack on Sweden were “2 most important military objects,” in the Stockholm region and in the south of Sweden.
According to the daily, the Russian planes surprised the Swedish defence, which did not react to the incident. The NATO immediately sent 2 Danish fighters from the base in Lithuania. The Russians withdrew. The “Svenska Dagbladet” reminds that the Swedish army should have at least 2 fighters ready. In February the Minister of Defence, Karin Enstroem, said that “the aim of the defence policy was readiness for an unexpected event 24 hours a day.”
In Sweden the debate concerning the safety policy started at the end of December 2012 when the Head of the General Staff, general Sverker Goeranson, admitted in an interview for the “Svenska Dagbladet” that in the case of a military attack Sweden was able to defend itself on its own for only a week. The result of such an estimation is political pressure on increasing the funds for the army, decreasing within the last years.
As part of the reform of the 1990s, they got rid of important military bases, e.g. on Gotland, which in the times of the Cold War was at risk of an attack on the part of the Warsaw Pact. In 2010 obligatory military service in Sweden was abolished.