Newly Alarmed Sweden Concludes Military Drill With U.S. Marines

With tensions raised across Europe over a newly belligerent Russia, Sweden’s military and the United States Marines concluded a drill on Sunday on Gotland, a Swedish island with strategic significance for control of the Baltic Sea.

“A lot of us thought that there wouldn’t be a need to defend Gotland after Soviet collapse,” Col. Magnus Frykvall, commander of Sweden’s Gotland regiment, said in a telephone interview. “This has been put in a totally new point of view since the war in Ukraine in 2014, and it was even more clear to us with the current invasion.”

The drill came as fears of military conflict with Russia, which not long ago seemed unimaginable in Sweden, have led the nation to apply for membership in NATO. Gotland poses a critical area of concern for Sweden, which like Russia borders the Baltic Sea. Gotland is the Baltic’s largest island.