SWEDEN TO BOOST MILITARY SPENDING OVER UKRAINE WAR

The Swedish government announced on Thursday its plans to increase military spending to two percent of GDP “as soon as possible”, attributing it to the Ukrainian security threat from Russia.

Sweden had earlier ended decades of defense cuts after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, but has now announced that it would resume and said it hoped to reach its goal within a decade but gave no specific date.

“We hope to get there as soon as possible,” Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters.

The Scandinavian country, which during the Cold War dedicated up to four percent of its gross domestic product to the defense budget, drastically slashed its spending during the 1990s and early 2000s, to around one percent.

“The war in Europe is going to affect the Swedish people. We need to continue to strengthen the Sweden defense capability,” Andersson said.

“The security situation in Sweden’s vicinity has deteriorated over time. The Russian attack on Ukraine further exacerbates that,” she said.

Andersson forewarned that the number of people called up to do mandatory military service, which had been brought up again earlier in 2017, would increase as well.

Swedish public opinion seems to see inclusion in NATO in a favorable light for the first time in a while.

However, Andersson opposes the idea saying earlier this week that joining the alliance poses as risky as it may destabilize Northern Europe, seeing that Moscow fiercely opposes the expansion of NATO.

Sweden’s defense budget for 2021 is around 66 billion kronor (6.2 billion euros, $6.8 billion), and the country had already agreed to raise that level to 91 billion kronor by 2025.

In 2020, its defense budget amounted to 1.2 percent of GDP, increasing to around 1.5 percent in the next few years with the investments already announced.

The two percent target is the same level that NATO requires for its members, though many fall short of the goal.

After the invasion of Ukraine, several European nations, including Germany and Denmark, have announced robust investments in their militaries.