Northern exposure: Sweden ponders abandoning neutrality amid fear of resurgent Russia

Sweden's 200-year-old posture of military neutrality has been eroding amid European integration, and a perceived new threat from Russia has politicians now talking about abandoning it altogether and joining Nato.

Swedish forces have been taking part in peacekeeping, military exercises and some Nato-led missions since the 1990s as the country has joined regional and international forces to reduce its vulnerability in a still-volatile region more than two decades after the cold war ended.

Fear of a resurgent Russia is rife in the former Soviet republics across the Baltic Sea, and Moscow's air and naval forces have stepped up patrols near and into Baltic states' airspace and maritime zones over the last two years.

Since the Kremlin seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in March 2014, public opinion has shifted from broad opposition to Swedish membership in Nato to one in three Swedes now telling pollsters they favour joining.

"I think it's the combination of the perceived threat from Russia and a discussion about the armed forces' inability to carry out their tasks which leads to more Swedes being in favour of Swedish Nato membership," Ulf Bjereld, a political science professor at Gothenburg University, told Swedish Radio.

After Swedish media gave broad coverage to rising pro-Nato sentiment, Russia's ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, warned that Moscow might react militarily if Stockholm were to abandon neutrality and join the alliance.