On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it is withdrawing certain troops located near the Ukrainian border.

Possibly a positive signal, says Foreign Minister Ann Linde, who, however, does not want to draw too great conclusions from the information.

- Of course, it is better to give signals to continue negotiations than to enter the military.

But no major troop withdrawals have been seen yet.

Nor does Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist want to deduct too large amounts of information from the information.

He believes that much more is needed to be able to talk about a change in the Russian strategy.

- Things must happen in a real sense on the ground in order to be able to regard it as a change in a deeper sense.

- Such things can fluctuate over time and we have seen far too little of this at the moment.

From our side, we want to see much more to see that there should be a new line in the context, says Hultqvist.

Still serious

Ann Linde describes the situation as still serious and says that no diplomatic breakthroughs have yet been seen.

That is why this weekend they decided to go out with the strongest advice that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has in its toolbox and urged Swedes who are in the country to travel home, says Linde. 

- We have been working all weekend with emergency preparedness issues, what happens based on different scenarios, including for our own embassy, ​​which must adapt its operations to what is happening.

That Sweden maintains a presence in the country is important, says Linde, who among other things wants Sweden to continue to participate in the OSCE's civilian observation mission SMN.

- Unfortunately, several have left but Sweden does not want that, she says.

Long-term crisis

The government is prepared for the crisis to continue for a relatively long time to come.

- There has already been war (in eastern Ukraine, editor's note) for eight years and almost 15,000 people have lost their lives.

- Even if nothing happens this week, we must be prepared for it to continue to be a serious situation and that is what we are planning for, says Linde.