‘Russia doesn’t care’: Sweden sounds alarm over unsafe oil fleet

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Foreign minister warns of environmental catastrophe in Baltic Sea as he accuses Moscow of using unseaworthy vessels

Tobias Billström met the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, in London on 15 April. UK and Sweden have close defence links.Tobias Billström met the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, in London on 15 April. UK and Sweden have close defence links.Russia appears prepared to create “environmental havoc” by sailing unseaworthy oil tankers through the Baltic Sea in breach of all maritime rules, the Swedish foreign minister has said.

“We will all be affected if there were a major problem arising from a collision or oil leakage from one of these ships, which also in many cases are not seaworthy, or very close to not being seaworthy,” Billström said.is bad enough. But even worse is the fact that Russia doesn’t care one bit, apparently, about the fact that these ships could cause major environmental havoc in seas, which if you take the Baltic Sea is sensitive as it is.

International law allows ships to be interdicted if they are deemed to be improperly flagged, but some of the law is unclear. Billström agreed that Nato members could hardly risk being seen to be acting like the Houthis in the Red Sea by defying freedom of navigation. Sweden, which has worked alongside Nato in Libya and Afghanistan, has submarine space and cyber-capacities that represent a significant boost to the alliance’s capability. It also has a civil defence capacity that is seen as the envy of. The former UK armed forces minister James Heappey said he kept a copy of the Swedish civil defence manual on his desk as a model for what Britain should emulate.

He pointed to the example of the Nammo arms factory in Karlskoga that now has five shifts running 24/7, with the goal of tripling ammunition production by the end of 2024, compared with 2022.“Decisive military victories in the battlefield are critical because nothing else is going to change the political course of Moscow or the Russian leadership.”

Billström said the Republicans had a tendency to turn isolationist during a Democrat presidency, but he added that it was necessary for Europe to show it understood the connection between Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region.

 

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