Response to interpellation 2023/24:784 on the threat situation against Sweden
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
I believe that Russia's great power ambitions and the invasion of Ukraine constitute a threat to security in Europe and globally 1. I believe that sustained support for Ukraine is crucial to defending the European security order 1 2. I believe that Sweden needs to move from donation to production to strengthen the defense industrial base 3. I emphasize that NATO membership contributes to stability 3. Elsa Widding claims that a negotiated solution is the only way to avoid an uncontrolled escalation 4. She believes that Sweden is contributing to the destruction of Ukraine and that the Swedish actions are headless 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! Elsa Widding has asked me what reasons underlie the decisions regarding which war materiel and which aircraft Sweden offers Ukraine. Elsa Widding has also asked me how I assess the threat situation against Sweden in a scenario where Ukraine wins or loses the war against Russia. Elsa Widding has also asked me how I intend to act based on my assessment of these scenarios.
Due to Russia, a large-scale war is raging in Europe. Russia's great power ambitions, military buildup, and claims to determine the political choices of other states undermine security in the surrounding area, in Europe, and globally. There is a tangible risk that the security policy development continues to deteriorate. The risk of escalation remains. An escalation could involve attacks against other states but also expanded threats of or use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.
An armed attack against Sweden or our allies cannot be ruled out. It also cannot be ruled out that military means of force or threats of such may come to be used against Sweden or our allies.
Against the background of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland have become members of Nato. Nato membership not only strengthens Sweden's security and defense capability but also contributes to strengthening security in our immediate vicinity and the Euro-Atlantic area as a whole.
Since Russia's large-scale investments in military capability, increasingly aggressive actions from 2007 and the start of the war against Ukraine in 2014, NATO's focus on deterrence and territorial defense within the framework of collective defense has increased.
There is also an ongoing upgrading of Sweden's national defense. Dimensioning the military defense for a high-intensity and prolonged war against a qualified adversary within the framework of the alliance is crucial.
That Ukraine wins the war with maintained independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity will have fundamental significance not only for Ukraine's but for all of Europe's future. The outcome of Russia's war against Ukraine is, not least, dependent on the world's role given the Ukrainian dependence on continued support from international partners. This places high demands on unity, robustness, and determination from the countries that support Ukraine.
Sweden's support for Ukraine must be persistent and long-term. Strong, predictable and persistent support for Ukraine also contributes to defending the European security order, which forms the basis for Sweden's security as well and is our primary opportunity to counter Russia's options for further aggression.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! On my mynewsdesk, there is a post from today containing a mathematical explanation from a professor of mathematics that clearly shows why the Minister for Defence's answer here today contradicts the laws of logic, unless the Minister has the ambition to start a nuclear war. Please take a look at it!
On the same mynewsdesk, there is a list of links to various military experts, all of whom claim that a negotiated solution is now the only way to avoid an uncontrolled escalation of the war.
The Minister and representatives for the government speak about that Russia must not win the war in Ukraine. There is a fear that if Putin is not defeated, he will expand his military actions beyond Ukraine with the ambition to conquer countries in Europe.
Madam Speaker! That hypothesis has been disproved by a long line of experts, including Professor Mearsheimer, whom the Minister surely is aware of. Putin has also, in a long line of interviews, expressed himself in favor of a multipolar world.
The conflict in Ukraine was about to be halted just a few weeks after Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022. But the peace negotiations were stopped by England and the USA. That time, Russia was satisfied with that Ukraine would stay outside Nato and that a referendum would be held in the Donbass region, where a civil war has been ongoing since 2014.
We all remember the coup in Kyiv and the Maidan revolution where the president, Yanukovych, was deposed. Shortly thereafter, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, where the Russians had had their naval bases for decades. Then the West broke the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements. We all know the whole story. It is well documented, but it is not a popular topic of conversation in Sweden.
Professor Mearsheimer otherwise already said in 2015 that if the USA pushes Ukraine towards NATO membership, Ukraine will be destroyed. Mearsheimer was right. The conflict has escalated and today constitutes an existential threat not only to Ukraine but now also to Russia, Sweden and virtually the entire world.
Madam Speaker! Russia is well on its way to achieving its goals of grinding down the Ukrainian army to nothing and demilitarizing Ukraine. All optimistic predictions about Ukraine's successes have been put to shame. The question we must ask ourselves is how Sweden and the West will handle a Russian victory. Russia fires ten times as many artillery shells in a day as Ukraine is capable of. Add to that the fact that Russia has total air superiority in the conflict area.
Money and weapons are prerequisites in all armed conflicts, but it is not enough - the number of soldiers is absolutely decisive. The question is how much the support from the USA will affect the fighting on the ground. Defense Minister Lloyd Austin has explained that 50 billion US dollars of the 60 billion dollar support package goes to the American defense industry. Only 13.8 billion goes to Ukraine.
What is the conflict about then? The war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, and the war in Ukraine have a common denominator, namely the 2008 decision to expand Nato to Ukraine and Georgia. Russia fears Nato's and the USA's military installations near the Russian border. How does the Minister believe the USA would act if Russian or Chinese military forces were placed in Canada or Mexico? What has the Minister learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962?
Russia has made it clear that it views the development of an expanded Nato with Ukraine as an existential threat to the nation and will therefore fight this war to the bitter end.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! Elsa Widding says that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and that the country is heavily pressured and will be defeated. I just want to remind that we are soon 900 days into the war and that Russia made the assessment that they could take Kyiv in 5 days. They failed to do that. Russia still controls less than 20 percent of Ukraine's territory. Why? Well, I dare to assert that three things have been decisive in that Ukraine has fewer military resources than Russia. The first is the Ukrainian will to defend. It is deeply impressive. The second is the resilience of the Ukrainian population. It is also deeply impressive. The third is the Western military support.
There is only one country that should decide whether Ukraine should negotiate, and that is Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia will be rewarded for its aggression, and I do not want to see any negotiations over the heads of the Ukrainians. They must be allowed to decide this themselves. Russia has launched an illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I think that is crucial.
This is also about Widdings opposition to the NATO expansion. We have heard such criticism many times in history, including when it concerned the Baltic states and Sweden's and Finland's membership. There has also been criticism that Ukraine should become a NATO member. We have heard that on repeated occasions.
The yardstick for a European security order is that all countries make their own security policy choices, and that is what we want to stand up for. It should not be the case in Europe that small countries are the backyards of large countries. It is the population in a country that decides for itself whether it wants to seek towards the EU and Nato, and that is then a matter between the EU and Nato and the people concerned. We have seen previously that small states have been the backyards of large states. My view is that we should not return to such a Europe.
The reasons why Sweden supports Ukraine are actually three.
Firstly, Russia has launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion. In my eyes, it is then a matter of decency and humanity to stand up for the Ukrainian people and their right to defend themselves.
Secondly, for Sweden's part, it is also about standing up for important values. Through its full-scale invasion, Russia flagrantly challenged the European security order, international law, and also the law of nations. When we support Ukraine, we stand up for the law of nations, and it is important for smaller countries that the law of nations exists and is respected.
Thirdly – and here my analysis differs from Widding's – Ukraine constitutes a shield against Russian military expansion. I fear that if that shield were to fall because we lack perseverance in our military support, the pressure on especially Moldova and Georgia would become much higher. I fear that it could also lead to continued Russian military expansion. Therefore, our support for Ukraine is also an investment in our own security.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! I understand that the Minister has not learned anything from the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. We received an answer here.
I am sure the Minister also knows why the Russians withdrew from Kyiv during the negotiation. No one wants to negotiate with a gun to their head.
There was a time when a ceasefire was realistic. The Russians already showed in the spring of 2022 that they desired a peaceful solution as long as Nato did not expand to Ukraine, but the West slowed the efforts toward peace. Instead, Ukraine was to receive all the help it needed to drive out the Russians and thereafter become a member of both Nato and the EU. Both parties wanted to negotiate at that time, but the USA and Great Britain intervened and persuaded Ukraine to cancel the negotiations. It has now cost more than half a million Ukrainian men their lives.
Sweden is involved in destroying the last remnants of Ukraine. We are actively contributing to even more Ukrainian men and women being killed, to more families being torn apart and to children becoming orphaned and traumatized. We call it helping.
Now that the Minister and the government have committed Sweden to financing Ukraine's military defense against Russia, it would be reasonable to simultaneously speak about which Russian advantages, concretely on the ground, can be overcome through our support. If one cannot surpass the Russians' superiority in number of soldiers, industrial capacity, bombs, air defense, and air forces, and cannot neutralize all of these and show a concrete way forward, one should also not support this conflict. It will only result in a destroyed Ukraine and more deaths.
Russia's nuclear doctrine states that if the motherland Russia is threatened, all available means will be used - including nuclear weapons. The USA reasons in the same way. Among a long line of experts, there is therefore a consensus that the war in Ukraine must reach a negotiated solution - and immediately! Every day's extension of the conflict costs unjustifiably many Ukrainian lives, for it is precisely in the final stage of a war that the real slaughter of enemies takes off. That is when the soldiers begin to retreat and flee completely unorganized.
How far should we dare to press Russia before we expose Sweden to a disproportionately large risk of escalation to nuclear weapons, as the Russians have pointed out?
Madam Speaker! Only a gambling addict would peek at Putin's cards in this critical situation. And now that a large part of our own weapons have been sent to Ukraine, how will we be able to defend ourselves? What is the logic in provoking the enemy and simultaneously decimating our own defense capability? To me and many others, the Swedish actions appear completely headless. The only winner in this cynical game is the defense industry.
It cannot be that Ulf Kristersson and Pål Jonson are driven by other interests, for example those of the USA's government and military? These are interests that completely disregard Sweden and its population's prosperity and security. It cannot be that we are giving away our country, our resources and our youth's lives? We cannot stake them as pieces in a game where the USA does everything and a bit more to achieve its military-strategic goals. Can the Council of State really consider that Ukraine's right to join Nato is more important than our own civilization's survival? The operation succeeded, but the patient died.
Why does Sweden not advocate for peace, which is our commitment according to the Treaty of Lisbon? It is a commitment that we have always previously made, throughout the world. Instead, we are pursuing a line that primarily guarantees three things: more dead soldiers, a bombed-out Ukraine, and increased corruption. If State Councilor Jonson does not immediately terminate his destructive agenda, perhaps we can soon also add a bombed-out Sweden to the list. The actions have, according to the laws of war, made us a legitimate target for Russian attacks.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! I believe Elsa Widding is quite alone when she meets her Ukrainian interlocutors and says that Sweden contributes to the killing of Ukrainian soldiers. That is not the picture I get when I speak with Ukrainians.
Again: Russia has launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine has the right to defend itself according to international law. We will continue to support Ukraine. As said, it lies in our central interest.
If Russia were to win this terrible war, Russia would also move its military resources much closer to our borders. As I said, I believe that the pressure on both Moldova and Georgia would immediately increase. I can assure you that there is significant concern in Moldova regarding continued Russian military expansion. There is also that in Georgia. This is something we need to take into account.
How do we then ensure that we have long-term and sustainable support for Ukraine? It is a matter of a number of measures. The Government has made a decision - which now returns to the Riksdag - regarding the donation of a total of 43 billion to Ukraine. We have also made a decision to have a long-term framework for the military support to Ukraine of 25 billion per year in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
We will, however, need to move from donation to production. It is very important that we have an industrial capacity that allows us to increase the production of, for example, artillery ammunition. What Elsa Widding says is correct – Russia fires approximately ten times as many artillery shells as the Ukrainians. It is important that the Ukrainians can defend themselves, and therefore they need more artillery ammunition.
Sweden has taken a number of measures to strengthen the defense industrial base, including, together with the EU, directing state investments to production at the ammunition company Nammo. These are a number of things that we will need to do to ensure that we can develop long-term and sustainable support for Ukraine.
Again: The basis for the European security order is that all countries are allowed to make their own security policy choices and that small states are not the backyard of large states. One needs to be careful when spreading a Russian narrative. There is no other country in Europe that threatens and practices with nuclear weapons in the way that Russia does. It is escalating. We are strongly critical of that.
That is why we need to increase our own defense capability, and we are investing significant economic resources in it. Between 2020 and 2024, we have doubled the defense investments from approximately 60 billion to 119 billion for military defense. But that is also why it is good that Sweden and Finland are in Nato. We become safer and Nato stronger. It has a deterrent effect and reduces the risk of us being subjected to an armed attack, because we know that we will not stand alone in the event of an armed attack but can receive support from allies.
Elsa Widding (-)
Madam Speaker! The Minister and I do not at all have the same view of the serious situation we are currently in.
The Minister says that he is critical of escalation. I perceive that the Minister is contributing to escalation. Why is the Swedish government taking a deliberate and calculated risk, as the Prime Minister expressed it, in a war against one of the world's leading military powers, which is also allied with China? What does that calculation look like? That is what we ask ourselves. What are the Minister's references? How many more human lives will be sacrificed?
Does the government really have a mandate from the Swedish people to throw Sweden into a bloody war? Where is the democratic process and the debate? Should we not, as an outspoken democracy, have an extensive debate before the government implements total changes to our country's security policy and puts the nation in existential danger and a situation where nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out?
The Minister understands very well that it is the Swedish government that has acted destabilizingly in our immediate vicinity, contrary to what the Minister said in the previous interpellation debate and what he now repeats. Sweden contributes with Pål Jonson as a conductor to an escalation of the conflict, not least when we stand behind long-range missiles from the West being allowed to be fired into Russia - and by that, I do not mean only into eastern Ukraine.
I hope for God's sake that our colleagues here in the Riksdag have the sense to vote no to the DCA agreement on June 18 in accordance with Hans Blix's strong recommendations. There must now be an end to the warmongering from leaders who no longer care about lost lives or their nations' future. Apparently, it is no longer every government's primary task to protect its own population or to work towards the EU's goals for peace according to the Treaty of Lisbon.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! The threat of war and the escalation in Europe comes from Russia. Russia is a country that invades and occupies other countries. Georgia experienced this in August 2008. Ukraine experienced it during the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Ukrainian people experienced it on February 24, 2022. It is the invasion and occupation of other countries that is escalating and destabilizing and creating tensions. There are no other countries in Europe acting in the way Russia does.
Elsa Widding requests historical reference frames. Yielding to such an action here does not instill hope. Sometimes it is portrayed as if Russia is provoked by strength. My experience is that Russia is provoked by weakness and tries to exploit the weakness of other countries.
The warfare that Russia is conducting in Ukraine is indiscriminate. Civilian targets are systematically attacked. There is no respect whatsoever. This also calls for reflection, Elsa Widding.
We have also seen horrific violations of human rights. Russia is deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. It is a horrific Russian action that we condemn with determination.
Russia also tried to prevent Sweden from becoming a member of Nato. They sent letters to European capitals and said that there would be no more Nato expansion. But Sweden is a free country. We make our own security policy choices. This is a matter between Sweden and Nato. Nato membership, according to both my assessment and the Defence Committee's assessment, contributes to stability and security. It reduces the risk of being subjected to an armed attack, and it reduces the risk that Russia will be able to escalate the war beyond Ukraine's borders.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.