#anon_candanga : Ukrainian security forces inspect new brand #Swedish-made AT4 RPGs... https://t.co/TZNR58O3Hl
#anon_candanga : Russian T-72 tank against NATO weapons #Swedish - #British NLAW anti-tank missile in #Mariupol ; not a scratch on it https://t.co/NCO7GCnDsC
#Finland & #Swedish Says It Won’t Host Nuclear Weapons or NATO Bases
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday (May 19) that Helsinki is opposed to NATO deploying nuclear weapons or establishing bases inside Finland if it joins the military alliance.
Marin said she didn’t think there was much interest in NATO for nuclear deployments or permanent bases inside Finland. “Nor do I think there is any interest in deploying nuclear weapons or opening NATO bases in Finland,” she said.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has also said Sweden doesn’t plan on hosting NATO nuclear weapons or bases.
While the US, Britain, and France are the only NATO members with their own nuclear stockpiles, US nuclear weapons are deployed in other NATO states under a nuclear-sharing agreement. Under the agreement, there are US nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday (May 19) that Helsinki is opposed to NATO deploying nuclear weapons or establishing bases inside Finland if it joins the military alliance.
Marin said she didn’t think there was much interest in NATO for nuclear deployments or permanent bases inside Finland. “Nor do I think there is any interest in deploying nuclear weapons or opening NATO bases in Finland,” she said.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has also said Sweden doesn’t plan on hosting NATO nuclear weapons or bases.
While the US, Britain, and France are the only NATO members with their own nuclear stockpiles, US nuclear weapons are deployed in other NATO states under a nuclear-sharing agreement. Under the agreement, there are US nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
The #Donetsk People's Republic investigators have charged a #Swedish citizen who surrendered at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol with participation in hostilities as part of the Ukrainian armed formations as a mercenary, to death according to TASS.
No information is available on the identity of the Swedish Mercenary that was captured.
No information is available on the identity of the Swedish Mercenary that was captured.
#UnitedStates Arleigh Burke conducted PASSEX exercise with #Finnish PGG Hamina and #Swedish HMS Kullen last weekend in northern Baltic Sea.
#Swedish instructors will train Ukrainian civilians in the UK to prepare them for service in Kiev’s military, the Nordic nation’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.
With the British hoping to prepare 10,000 Ukrainians for combat, the announcement suggests that Kiev’s conventional forces are depleted.
The Swedish Armed Forces will send up to 120 instructors to the UK between August 12 and December 31, Stockholm said. The instructors will “conduct basic military training for Ukrainian citizens, divided into several training courses,” the statement continued.
The training program was announced by Britain last month. While Downing Street said that the courses would “train and drill the Armed Forces of Ukraine using battle-proven British Army experience,” those being trained are all fresh recruits.
“These guys are all civvies,” Sgt. Dan Hayes, a British instructor, told The Times in mid-July. “These guys were truck drivers or they worked in quarries or they were shopkeepers.”
Sweden’s statement said that those trained would be given “basic military training to enable them to serve in Ukraine’s armed forces.”
“The aim is to make it possible for Ukraine to maintain and strengthen its defense capabilities,” the statement explained.
The existence of the training program suggests that Ukraine is in urgent need of manpower. While Kiev does not publish casualty figures, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, told the BBC in June that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers per day, not counting those wounded. Around the same time, Zelensky said that 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed in Donbass on a daily basis, with another 500 injured.
Zelensky has since claimed that his armed forces have slowed their losses, with around 30 men killed every day as of late July. Russia does not publish regular updates on Ukraine’s losses, but claimed at the beginning of July that Kiev had lost almost 5,500 troops in the two previous weeks, including over 2,000 killed.
Regarding its own casualties, Moscow has not updated the numbers since March, when it reported 1,351 military personnel killed and 3,825 wounded.
The fighting in Donbass – where Ukrainian troops face a numerically superior and better equipped Russian military – is “hell,” Zelensky said last week. Despite having Western weapons at their disposal, Ukrainian troops have been “unable to break the Russian army’s advantage,” the president said, as Ukrainian reporters described the battlefield near Donetsk as a “senseless meat grinder, where huge numbers of our infantry are chewed up in one day.”
Britain hopes to train around 10,000 Ukrainians every 120 days to shore up these losses. The involvement of Sweden in the program is noteworthy, as the Nordic nation broke with more than 200 years of neutrality and non-alignment in May when it applied to join the NATO alliance along with Finland.
With the British hoping to prepare 10,000 Ukrainians for combat, the announcement suggests that Kiev’s conventional forces are depleted.
The Swedish Armed Forces will send up to 120 instructors to the UK between August 12 and December 31, Stockholm said. The instructors will “conduct basic military training for Ukrainian citizens, divided into several training courses,” the statement continued.
The training program was announced by Britain last month. While Downing Street said that the courses would “train and drill the Armed Forces of Ukraine using battle-proven British Army experience,” those being trained are all fresh recruits.
“These guys are all civvies,” Sgt. Dan Hayes, a British instructor, told The Times in mid-July. “These guys were truck drivers or they worked in quarries or they were shopkeepers.”
Sweden’s statement said that those trained would be given “basic military training to enable them to serve in Ukraine’s armed forces.”
“The aim is to make it possible for Ukraine to maintain and strengthen its defense capabilities,” the statement explained.
The existence of the training program suggests that Ukraine is in urgent need of manpower. While Kiev does not publish casualty figures, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, told the BBC in June that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers per day, not counting those wounded. Around the same time, Zelensky said that 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed in Donbass on a daily basis, with another 500 injured.
Zelensky has since claimed that his armed forces have slowed their losses, with around 30 men killed every day as of late July. Russia does not publish regular updates on Ukraine’s losses, but claimed at the beginning of July that Kiev had lost almost 5,500 troops in the two previous weeks, including over 2,000 killed.
Regarding its own casualties, Moscow has not updated the numbers since March, when it reported 1,351 military personnel killed and 3,825 wounded.
The fighting in Donbass – where Ukrainian troops face a numerically superior and better equipped Russian military – is “hell,” Zelensky said last week. Despite having Western weapons at their disposal, Ukrainian troops have been “unable to break the Russian army’s advantage,” the president said, as Ukrainian reporters described the battlefield near Donetsk as a “senseless meat grinder, where huge numbers of our infantry are chewed up in one day.”
Britain hopes to train around 10,000 Ukrainians every 120 days to shore up these losses. The involvement of Sweden in the program is noteworthy, as the Nordic nation broke with more than 200 years of neutrality and non-alignment in May when it applied to join the NATO alliance along with Finland.
Top #Swedish general reflects on hosting #NATO weapons of mass destruction
The country’s commander-in-chief claims it should allow the bloc to use its territory as they see fit
Sweden should not “set reservations at an early stage” before even joining NATO, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Micael Byden told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
Byden recommended the government present no objections should the US-led military bloc seek to place weapons of mass destruction or bases on Swedish soil.
The commander-in-chief revealed that the armed forces plan to more than double the number of conscripts to 50,000 by 2035.
Stockholm will reach NATO’s required expenditure of 2% of GDP on defense by 2026, earlier than previously believed, thanks to a weak currency and higher costs of military equipment, he added.
The country’s commander-in-chief claims it should allow the bloc to use its territory as they see fit
Sweden should not “set reservations at an early stage” before even joining NATO, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Micael Byden told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
Byden recommended the government present no objections should the US-led military bloc seek to place weapons of mass destruction or bases on Swedish soil.
The commander-in-chief revealed that the armed forces plan to more than double the number of conscripts to 50,000 by 2035.
Stockholm will reach NATO’s required expenditure of 2% of GDP on defense by 2026, earlier than previously believed, thanks to a weak currency and higher costs of military equipment, he added.
A #Swedish research rocket has malfunctioned and landed in #Norway
A rocket launched by the Sweden Space Corporation (SSC) deviated from its course and landed in the mountains of neighboring Norway, the Swedish authorities confirmed on Tuesday. The rocket’s payload was recovered and transported back to the Swedish launch site. No injuries were reported, and an investigation is ongoing.
The TEXUS-58 rocket blasted off from the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden on Monday morning. It “took a slightly longer and more westerly trajectory than expected and landed after completed flight 15 kilometers into Norway,” about 40 kilometers northwest of the planned landing site, the SSC said in a statement.
“It landed in the mountains at 1,000 meters altitude, and ten kilometers from the closest settlement,” SSC spokesman Philip Ohlsson told Reuters.
The SSC said that it contacted the Swedish and Norwegian authorities “shortly after landing.” The research payload has since been recovered, and flown back to Esrange by helicopter. The “technical details around the non-nominal flight path” are now being investigated.
“This is a deviation that we take seriously. We are now investigating the reason why the rocket flew further northwest than nominal,” said Marko Kohberg, head of rocket and balloon operations at Esrange, adding that it’s too early to speculate.
The rocket was part of a program commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA), and flew to the altitude of 250 kilometers with three microgravity experiments on board. Two of the experiments, VIPer and Perwaves, are related to “green transition” research, while the third, dubbed ICAPS, investigated the process of planetary formation.y
A rocket launched by the Sweden Space Corporation (SSC) deviated from its course and landed in the mountains of neighboring Norway, the Swedish authorities confirmed on Tuesday. The rocket’s payload was recovered and transported back to the Swedish launch site. No injuries were reported, and an investigation is ongoing.
The TEXUS-58 rocket blasted off from the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden on Monday morning. It “took a slightly longer and more westerly trajectory than expected and landed after completed flight 15 kilometers into Norway,” about 40 kilometers northwest of the planned landing site, the SSC said in a statement.
“It landed in the mountains at 1,000 meters altitude, and ten kilometers from the closest settlement,” SSC spokesman Philip Ohlsson told Reuters.
The SSC said that it contacted the Swedish and Norwegian authorities “shortly after landing.” The research payload has since been recovered, and flown back to Esrange by helicopter. The “technical details around the non-nominal flight path” are now being investigated.
“This is a deviation that we take seriously. We are now investigating the reason why the rocket flew further northwest than nominal,” said Marko Kohberg, head of rocket and balloon operations at Esrange, adding that it’s too early to speculate.
The rocket was part of a program commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA), and flew to the altitude of 250 kilometers with three microgravity experiments on board. Two of the experiments, VIPer and Perwaves, are related to “green transition” research, while the third, dubbed ICAPS, investigated the process of planetary formation.y