Sweden setting up own ‘MI6’ to spy on Russian leaders – Carl Bildt

Sweden is establishing a new civilian intelligence agency to improve its monitoring of Russia’s political leadership, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt has told The Economist.

First announced in May and modeled on Britain’s MI6, Sweden’s Foreign Intelligence Service (UND) is due to begin operations in January.

In an article published on Sunday, The Economist described UND as Bildt’s brainchild, saying the veteran politician concluded that the country’s existing military intelligence apparatus was ill-equipped to analyze the Russian leadership. In 2022, Stockholm assumed Russia would not send troops into Ukraine and now wants to ensure it “never repeats that embarrassing blunder,” the magazine said.

While the intelligence system was “very good at tracking the military developments on the ground,” it was “not as good at looking at the politics of Russia and where they were heading,” Bildt said.