Snow Clearing Complaints Could Help Putin, Warns Swedish Spy Chief

STOCKHOLM - Swedes grumbling about snowed-in streets this winter may want to choose their words carefully. According to the head of Sweden's military intelligence, that frustration is exactly the kind of thing Russia could exploit.

Lieutenant General Thomas Nilsson, chief of the Military Intelligence and Security Service, says Moscow has learned to use everything from everyday irritations to major crises to sway public opinion in the West.

"If people feel snow clearing isn't working, that could well be exploited," Nilsson told the broadcaster TV4. "You drive a wedge between the public and society, so that people distrust the authorities. You fan certain things."

The agency's job is to supply the government and the Supreme Commander with intelligence on threats to Swedish security. It also works to raise public awareness of the security situation.

The latest message, in other words, appears to be that Swedes' annoyance with the winter roads can count as a security risk.

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"Not a gentler form of war"

Nilsson says Russia's overall aim is to weaken cohesion in the West, and that it has become better at seizing on current events to deepen divisions that already exist.

His remarks come after a string of incidents across Europe - bomb threats, drone alarms and cyberattacks - that have fuelled growing unease.

"We often talk about hybrid warfare, which I want to stress is not some gentler version of warfare," he said. "What we have seen recently are very serious incidents, or things that could have become very serious."

He also pointed to how digitalisation has made society more vulnerable. In early November, around 30 Swedish grocery stores were hit by a cyberattack aimed at their refrigeration and freezer systems.

"The battle for the narrative"

It is not the first time the intelligence chief has turned his attention inward. At the Folk och Försvar national security conference in Sälen in early 2025, Nilsson described Swedes who do not follow "the narrative" as one of the military's most important battlefields.

"And perhaps the most important - the last battlefield is the fight over the narrative. The story. It is directed inward at our own population, and outward at others," he said at the time.

He added that not everyone has reached the same conclusions as Sweden, the EU and NATO about Russia and Ukraine, and that Sweden can also "act" in the battle over which picture of reality reaches the public.

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Accused of information war

Nilsson has stirred controversy abroad as well. Earlier this year he told the Financial Times that Russia was systematically manipulating its economic statistics to hide a deeper crisis behind its war economy.

German economist and Russia expert Janis Kluge hit back hard. In an interview with Der Spiegel, he said the Swedish intelligence claims were either based on misunderstandings - or part of the "information war" itself.