Sweden plans to boost coast guard surveillance in Baltic Sea

Sweden is proposing measures to increase security in the Baltic Sea, including legislation to expand maritime surveillance for its coast guard, the Nordic country’s defense ministry said on Friday.

The Baltic Sea region is on heightened alert following a string of undersea cable and gas pipeline outages in the years following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as well as recent drone sightings and airspace violations.

“We have not chosen our external situation, but we must deal with the reality we face,” Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin said in a statement.

NATO, of which Sweden is a member, said on Saturday that it was upgrading its mission in the Baltic Sea with an air-defense frigate and other assets following drone incursions in Denmark.