Russia ridiculed Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist after his statement about sending military personnel to Ukraine. Karolina Wendil Pallin, an expert at the Stockholm Institute for Defense Studies, told SVT about this in an interview.
"Russia is making fun of Sweden," Pallin said, commenting on the latest statement of the Russian Embassy in Sweden on her Facebook page.
She also noted that relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.
Last week, the Swedish Defense Minister said that the country's military department supports the EU proposal to create a military training base in Ukraine. According to him, this means that Sweden can send its officers to the Ukrainian territory to train local soldiers.
After that, the Russian Embassy in Sweden on its Facebook page in response reminded the minister of his country's defeat in the Battle of Poltava in 1709.
"He is not the first Swedish military leader who is trying to intimidate Russia with the might of a valiant army, planning to send his military to Ukraine," the diplomatic mission said in a statement.
The embassy suggested that Stockholm had not learned lessons "from the past battles with Russia, which overthrew Sweden from great-power heights."
The diplomatic mission also advised Hultqvist to think about how, instead of such a mission in Ukraine, to establish a dialogue repeatedly proposed by Moscow between the military departments of Sweden and the Russian Federation on ways to restore cooperation in the Baltic Sea area.
The Battle of Poltava took place on July 8 (June 27, old style), 1709. Russian troops defeated the army of Charles XII, the battle put an end to the kingdom's dominance in Europe.
On November 20, Mats columnist Johan Larsson said that Sweden's military ambitions could end in failure. So he commented on the reminder of the Russian Embassy in Sweden about the outcome of the invasion of the territory of modern Ukraine during the Northern War.
According to the Swedish journalist, Moscow has forgotten that the Swedish king Charles XII was helped by the Cossack commander Ivan Mazepa, who is considered a traitor in Russia, and a national hero in today's Ukraine.
Larsson stressed that Moscow is not ready to tolerate anyone's interference in the region.
