Sweden launches largest military exercise in 25 years
Sweden on Monday launched its largest military exercise in 25 years, with up to 26,000 troops from 14 countries taking part, as the Scandinavian country faces a stalemate over NATO membership, according to Digi24.
"The exercises are taking place in the air, on land and at sea in a large part of the country," the Swedish armed forces announced in a statement.
The manoeuvres, called Aurora 23, will continue until 11 May and will be concentrated in the north and south of the country as well as on the strategic island of Gotland, the military said. They are intended to practise repelling a major armed attack on Sweden.
Military personnel from the United States, Britain, Finland, Poland, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Denmark, Austria, Germany and France, most of them NATO members, will take part.
Together with Finland, the Scandinavian kingdom applied to join the military alliance in May 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ending two centuries of neutrality and then military non-alignment. Helsinki officially became NATO's 31st member on 4 April, but the Swedish application, which must be ratified by all NATO members, still faces hostility from Ankara and Budapest.
Turkey specifically blames Sweden for not extraditing dozens of Kurdish activists or people accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of participating in a coup attempt in 2016. Some Western diplomats remain hopeful that the Turkish president will change his mind if he wins next month's election or that his Social Democrat rival will give Sweden the green light.
Sweden came closer to the alliance by joining its Partnership for Peace in the 1990s. But without being a member, the kingdom is not covered by Article 5, which guarantees collective defence, France Presse and DPA add, as quoted by Agerpres. A delicate situation: as the only Nordic country outside NATO, Sweden could become strategic territory for Russia in the event of a conflict, experts warn.
