ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Originally appeared at Zero Hedge In yet another sign of what Russia expert Stephen Cohen has described as the escalating  New Cold War , non-NATO aligned Sweden is initiating detailed plans to  ready itself for total societal mobilization in response to military attack from a major external power.  As Aaron Mehta points out in his exclusive for  Defense News  entitled  Fortress Sweden: Inside the plan to mobilize Swedish society against Russia , that major external power is none other than Russia,  whose heavily militarized port of Kaliningrad lies a little over 220 miles across the ocean from Sweden. During past Cold War decades, Sweden (along with other non-NATO Nordic country Finland) was known for keeping painstakingly detailed survival readiness plans in case of a great power invasion, down to “how parking garages were designed so you could use them as shelters” according to Magnus Nordenman of the Atlantic Council. But the program was left derelict after the collapse of the

Chemical weapon production facilities and 40 tons of poisonous substances have been found in areas liberated from militants in Syria. “The Syrian Foreign Ministry pointed out that more than 40 tons of poisonous substances were found on the territories, liberated from terrorists,” Igor Kirillov, the commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, said on March 21. Kirillov made his comment during a press conference in Moscow concerning the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. The U.K. and some Western states accuse Russia of being behind the incident. Kirillovrecalled the case of Khan Shaykhun (Syria) and said that said the UK and Western states are prepared to use any means necessary to discredit Russia. The alleged chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun took place on April 4, 2017 in an area controlled by militant groups, mostly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda). Up to 100 civilians were al