DISINFO: Sweden beef up military strength due to Russophobic rhetoric
SUMMARY
The Swedish armed forces have called for military spending and the number of servicemen to be more than doubled by 2035 to combat future challenges, with Russia listed as the main one. … The “irrational myth about the almighty Russian threat” was recently criticized by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Munich Security Conference. A day before delivering his speech there, Lavrov told Euronews that “only an inflamed imagination” could come up with the idea that Moscow was about to attack the Baltics or Poland, but Russophobic rhetoric in the West never seems to abate. … Crimea reunited with Russia in spring 2014 after the move was overwhelmingly approved in a snap referendum. The popular vote was prompted by a violent coup in Kiev, and the almost immediate offensive on regions in the country’s southeast, where locals refused to recognise the newly imposed regime.
RESPONSE
Russophobia is often used in pro-Kremlin disinformation euvsdisinfo.eu/the-russophobia-myth-appealing-to-the-lowest-feelings/, . In fact, it is Russias own actions towards sovereign states and Russia's own increase in military capacity that results in it being perceived as the main threat to security in the Baltic region, according to the report by the Swedish Armed Forces. Crimea did no "reunite" with Russia. The European Union does not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea and continues to condemn this violation of international law, and that Russia’s illegal actions remain a direct challenge to international security, with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the unity and sovereignty of all States.