Säpo warns Russian threat to Sweden will intensify, annual report names Moscow as top security concern

• Säpo names Russia as the greatest security threat to Sweden in its 2024 annual report
• Agency head Charlotte von Essen urges Swedish society to remain vigilant
• The threat from Moscow is expected to increase in the coming period
• The assessment comes as Sweden navigates its first full year inside NATO

Sweden's Security Service, Säpo, has released its annual report identifying Russia as the country's foremost security threat and warning that the danger will grow. Säpo chief Charlotte von Essen said Sweden must remain vigilant. "It is important that Sweden as a society continues to be alert," she told Expressen.

The assessment lands during Sweden's first full calendar year as a NATO member — a status that, in theory, places Stockholm under the alliance's collective defence umbrella. In practice, the Säpo report suggests the security environment is deteriorating rather than stabilising. Russian intelligence operations across the Nordic region have not slowed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine; if anything, the Kremlin has expanded its hybrid toolkit — sabotage, influence campaigns, cyber intrusions — to target countries it now views as adversaries rather than neutral bystanders. Sweden's shift from two centuries of non-alignment to NATO membership has made it a more explicit target.

The question the Säpo report does not address is what Sweden intends to do about it beyond vigilance. Sweden's total defence concept — the idea that every part of society contributes to national resilience — remains largely aspirational. Civil defence spending is a fraction of what it was during the Cold War. Municipal preparedness varies wildly. The armed forces are growing but remain small relative to the country's geography and coastline. NATO membership provides a political guarantee, but the practical defence of Swedish territory still depends overwhelmingly on Swedish capability — and on the assumption that Washington will honour Article 5 commitments in a crisis where American interests may point elsewhere.

The Nordic neighbours face the same calculus. Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, has invested heavily in territorial defence for decades. Norway monitors Russian naval activity from its northern coast daily. Denmark has pledged to reach NATO's two-percent spending target. Sweden's intelligence services are sounding the alarm; the test is whether the political system translates warnings into capacity before the threat materialises in a form that vigilance alone cannot handle.

Säpo's report runs to dozens of pages. The core message fits in a single sentence from von Essen: the Russian threat will increase.

Sources: Expressen