Swedes spooked as government, military say to prepare for war
Sweden's government and military urging Swedes to be ready for war has triggered panicked buying, frightened children and a fierce debate in the Nordic country.
While Sweden has contributed troops to international peacekeeping missions, the country has not been directly involved in an armed conflict since the Napoleonic era.
The realities of war are therefore foreign to most Swedes.
«There could be war in Sweden,» Minister for Civil Defence Carl-Oskar Bohlin told an annual defence conference on Sunday, warning Swedes against complacency.
Days later, the sentiment was echoed by the commander of Sweden's armed forces Micael Byden, who showed pictures of burnt out and bombed houses from Ukraine.
«Do you believe that this could be Sweden?,» Byden asked the audience, later explaining that the question was not a rhetorical one.
"Russia's war against Ukraine is a step, not an end goal, for the ambition to establish spheres of influence and tear down the rule-based world order," he added.
Ending two centuries of neutrality and military non-alignment, Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though its bid is currently held up by Turkey and Hungary.
In early December, Stockholm and Washington signed a pact paving the way for US forces to operate in Sweden.
Byden then went on to say that Swedes needed to «mentally prepare for war.»
— Anxious children -
The statements were widely spread by news outlets and social media.
Subsequently, children's rights group Bris said it had seen a noticeable uptick in calls to its support hotline from children worried about the prospect of an impending war.
«Many children already have a level of anxiety that was made worse by this news,»
