DeepL translation:

**In the coming weeks, 30,000 military and civilian personnel will take part in the major defence exercise Aurora, which will affect large parts of the country.**

**The exercise involves the threat of war, and the NATO countries USA, Finland and the UK are sending troops to Sweden to help the defence forces respond to an attack.**

It is the largest military exercise in Sweden in over 30 years, starting on 17 April and running for four weeks until 11 May. It is called Defence Forces Exercise Aurora 23 and focuses on receiving, protecting and supplying units from NATO countries. After arrival, the foreign units will drive to the defence forces’ various training and firing ranges to practice combat and live firing together with Swedish units.

– “The public will notice extensive troop movements, especially on the ground. We are bringing in large units, so there will be a lot of traffic on public roads. There will be traffic disruptions that the Defence Forces and the Swedish Transport Administration will limit,” says exercise leader Brigadier General Stefan Andersson to DN.

The first foreign unit to arrive is American. On 17 April, a battalion of 700 soldiers from the US Marine Corps rolls across the Norwegian-Swedish border at Storlien. They will travel by road, rail and air to Skövde to train with a Swedish armoured brigade.
In addition to Swedish total defence units, 13 invited countries are participating in the exercise. The civilian medical services will also be trained to receive large numbers of injured people after the airports in Jönköping and Malmen outside Linköping were subjected to simulated attacks.

The purpose of Aurora 23 is to live up to the Swedish Parliament’s defence decision in 2015 and 2020 to increase the capacity of the Swedish Armed Forces. The exercise has been planned for several years – but in the meantime Russia has started a major war in Ukraine and Sweden is about to join NATO. This has not affected the exercise itself.

– “We are about to enter the NATO alliance where Sweden will have a completely different significance. We must now identify whether we have the right resources and methods, military and civilian, to receive and host other countries’ units,” says Stefan Andersson.

The exercise scenario is a tense international situation in which Sweden is exposed to sabotage of electricity and water supplies and IT attacks. The Swedish Armed Forces mobilise and on 24 April the risk of war is so high that the government decides to raise the level of preparedness.

Large parts of Sweden are affected by the exercise, with a concentration in southern Sweden. A British force arrives in Oskarshamn by sea. It will protect the arrival of Finnish units of 1,000 soldiers. Their sea transport across the Baltic Sea has in turn been escorted by fighter aircraft and warships from several countries.

The Swedish exercise takes place in parallel with a major Polish exercise, Anakonda. This makes it possible for Poland to use fighter aircraft to act as a practice enemy against Sweden’s air defence – which in turn sends Gripen aircraft to attack targets on the Polish coast in the Polish exercise. Combat against enemy ships is also practised together with other countries’ aircraft and ships.

To avoid incidents, Sweden has informed all European countries about the exercise. During the last Aurora exercise in 2017, Russia criticised Sweden for exercising with NATO countries. And in the middle of a Finnish-Swedish exercise on Gotland in March last year, four Russian fighter jets violated Swedish airspace but the Russians were repelled by Gripen aircraft.

– “I think we should assume that we will be accused of escalating an already tense security situation. It cannot be ruled out that there will be a number of markings at sea or in the air. We are prepared for this and we can immediately switch from exercises to live operations,” says Brigadier General Stefan Andersson.

Behind-paywall:\
https://web.archive.org/web/20230416153607/https://www.dn.se/sverige/natoforband-i-storsta-ovningen-i-sverige-pa-30-ar/

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