In both Finland and Sweden, more than half of the population now supports NATO membership. Many Swedes fear that Sweden will drift into a pawn in Russia’s plans against the West.
This is the first time that a majority of Swedes are in favor of NATO membership. 27% of respondents oppose it. 22 per cent of Swedes do not have a say.
The newspaper commissioned an opinion poll at the Demoscop Research Institute at the turn of February-March, when Russian hostilities in Ukraine were already underway.
In another survey published in Sweden today, support for NATO has also been growing. According to a survey by Dagens Nyheter, 46 percent of respondents support NATO membership.
29 per cent do not want Sweden to join NATO and a quarter of respondents do not know how to express their opinion.
The Swedish views on NATO have thus changed in the same way as in Finland. In ‘s latest NATO survey, 53 per cent of Finns support NATO membership.
Russia’s hostilities in Ukraine are the cause of change in the minds of the citizens of both countries.
Fear of Sweden drifting into a Russian pawn
The Demoscop Research Institute also questioned the fears of the Swedes. Four out of five respondents said they feared Russia’s hostilities would spread. A third of Swedes, on the other hand, fear that a country will occupy Sweden.
According to the poll, those in favor of NATO tend to fear that Russia will use Sweden as a pawn in its plans against the West.
Many who are negative about NATO, on the other hand, fear that the Russian president Vladimir Putin will attack Sweden if the country joins NATO.
– Many now fear that Sweden will not be strong enough in the face of the Russian attack, Demoscop’s Deputy CEO Karin Nelsson says.
– Now the development of security policy must be monitored hour by hour, says Aron Emilsson.
According to him, now in Sweden the movements of the minds of Finns and the formation of Finland’s position must be monitored in particular.
The traditional bourgeois parties in the Swedish parliament have already turned to NATO.
A poll from Dagens Nyheter was added to the story at 8:08 p.m.