Russia starts Baltic Sea drills following Swedish Nato bid (ironically our bid's likely dead for now

[Celerity]

Dozens of Russian ships on Thursday took part in military exercises in the strategic Baltic Sea, after Sweden and Finland recently announced bids to join Nato.

https://www.thelocal.se/20220609/russia-starts-baltic-sea-drills-following-swedish-nato-bid/

Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that ships of its Baltic fleet will “perform training tasks for the defence of sea lanes and fleet bases”.

It said that 60 ships and 40 aircraft were taking part in the manoeuvres which will also take place on land at training grounds in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The navy drills come amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Nato after Sweden and Finland submitted their bids to join the US-led alliance after the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. If their membership — currently blocked by Turkey — is approved, Russia would become the only non-Nato country on the Baltic Sea.

In a sign of support for Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership, US Chief of Staff General Mark Milley was in Stockholm on Saturday aboard the USS Kearsage, making it the largest US warship ever to dock in Stockholm. His visit came as Nato conducts annual naval exercises in the Baltic Sea called “Baltops 22” that are set to continue until June 17th.

snip

related


Sweden’s NATO Bid Is in Trouble

Domestic politics have elevated a Kurdish parliamentarian, and that worsens Stockholm’s Turkey woes.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/06/swedens-nato-bid-trouble/367877/


also see

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216777931

[Ocelot II]

1. This, from the Defense One article, is interesting:

Enter Morgan Johansson. The veteran Social Democrat politician is minister of justice and the interior in Andersson’s minority government, and he has a dismal record. During his tenure, a wave of gun violence, mostly perpetrated by criminal gangs, has rapidly spread through the country. Already last year, Sweden was among the EU’s deadliest countries when it comes to gun violence, with four shooting deaths per million inhabitants compared to the EU average of 1.5, and since then the situation has further deteriorated. And on June 2, the parliamentary committee charged with scrutinizing government operations unanimously criticized Johansson for obfuscating. The opposition requested a parliamentary no-confidence vote in Johansson.

But instead of treating the parliamentary slap on the fingers as a welcome opportunity to sack a bungling minister, Andersson clung to Johansson—and as with all parliamentary decisions, her government needed every single one of the votes it had managed to sew together when it took office. The most decisive of those votes, the one that gives the government a one-vote majority of support in parliament, belongs to Kakabaveh—and she’d already accused Andersson of giving in to Turkey’s demands regarding NATO accession. She needed to be placated, which she apparently was. She voted with the government—and afterwards told Swedish media that the government had made promises to her regarding the Kurds. These promises, Swedish media report, clash with Erdogan’s demands. And just in case Andersson thought she could trick Kakabaveh, the latter declared after the vote that she’ll vote against the government’s budget in later this month if her demands are not met.

I keep hoping that somewhere, somebody has a better system of democratic government than we do in the US, but it appears that a parliamentary system can also get hung up by just one person (a la Mitch McConnell). I do envy Sweden's "deadly" gun violence rate, though. At 4 gun deaths per million we'd have 1,328 instead of our actual 19,070, just so far.