Politico<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe concern centers on the church\u2019s sensitive location, very close to a strategically important airport, a water treatment works and advanced energy companies based in the city of 130,000 located just 100 kilometers west of Stockholm.<\/p>\n
Amid a wave of alleged plots by suspected Russian operatives to target infrastructure and murder opponents across Europe, security experts say Sweden should clamp down on Moscow-aligned institutions across the country \u2014 including this church.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe church offers a potential foothold that can be used for information-gathering, both directed at V\u00e4ster\u00e5s Airport and at industrial interests in the form of large companies involved in the energy sector,\u201d said Markus G\u00f6ransson, a researcher focusing on Russia at the Swedish Defence University. \u201cWhen Sweden\u2019s defense forces undertake exercises on or near the airport, as was done in June, they do so under possible surveillance from the church,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
After Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European nations expelled hundreds of Russian Embassy staff from their countries in an effort to blunt Moscow\u2019s ability to infiltrate its neighbors.<\/p>\n
But two years on, it\u2019s increasingly clear that Moscow is continuing to find ways to provide cover for its operatives overseas.\u00a0And that risks consequences.<\/p>\n
The Russian Orthodox Church appears to be emerging as one potential conduit for Moscow\u2019s covert actions abroad.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian security forces raided a monastery in Kyiv early in 2022 to disrupt Russian intelligence operations they said were based there. This August, the Ukrainian government banned the church from its territory outright.<\/p>\n
In the Czech Republic, some lawmakers have recently called on the government to investigate church activities on Czech soil, RFE\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n
Swedish authorities are also starting to react. At the end of May, the Swedish public body that provides financial support to religious groups, known as SST, stopped funding for the church in Sweden after consulting the country\u2019s security police, or S\u00e4po.<\/p>\n
Concerning its statement to SST, a spokesperson for S\u00e4po said his agency had concluded that representatives of the church \u201chave had contacts\u201d with individuals working for Russian intelligence in Sweden. \u201cThe Russian state uses the Russian Orthodox Church in Sweden as a platform to conduct intelligence activities in Sweden,\u201d the spokesperson stated.<\/p>\n
Concerns over the Russian church echo those raised over acquisitions by private Russian citizens of buildings close to strategic military sites across the Nordic countries.<\/p>\n
These include the case of two Russian businessmen who own ski lodges facing a Norwegian military airport at Bardufoss, as reported by Norwegian broadcaster TV 2. A Russian businessman has also bought a waterfront property facing Sweden’s super-secret naval base, Swedish daily Expressen reported.<\/p>\n
In the Finnish town of Kankaanp\u00e4\u00e4, three Russian citizens were recently denied the right to buy a derelict old people’s home close to an army training area on national security grounds, and the Swedish government has suggested it might look to apply similar restrictions in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A recently built Russian Orthodox Church on the outskirts of the Swedish town of V\u00e4ster\u00e5s is an innocent place of worship to its backers; but to an increasingly vocal group of critics, it is a potential threat to Sweden\u2019s national security. That’s according to Politico. The concern centers on the church\u2019s sensitive location, very close […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":208174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"telegram_tosend":false,"telegram_tosend_message":"","telegram_tosend_target":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5142,5147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world-en"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/df.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/34246ac0-fc68-4b88-bba5-cd946b6964ce.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208250,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208247\/revisions\/208250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}