Sweden upgrades wartime shelters amid rising tensions with Russia

The Igeldamms car park in Stockholm might look like an ordinary underground parking lot carved into the rock, but it can also serve as a public shelter for 1,200 people in the event of military conflict.

As tensions with Russia have grown since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Sweden’s government has pledged to boost spending on civil defence by seven times.

Since last year, it has set aside about €7.7 million to upgrade the country’s 64,000 shelters built during World War II and the Cold War, to better protect civilians.

The focus so far has been on modernising several dozen large shelters capable of holding more than 1,000 people.

Renovation work on the wartime Igeldamms shelter in central Stockholm was completed in September, while upgrades to 24 of 80 other large shelters are still ongoing.

According to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, the process, which involves replacing diesel generators and updating air filters, can take two to three years to complete.

The government hopes that higher funding over the next few years will help speed things up.

But Anders Johannesson, a shelter specialist at the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, says the annual budget still isn’t enough to repair all 64,000 shelters, let alone build new ones.

Late last year, Sweden’s Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin warned that the threat of a military attack had increased and could no longer be ruled out.

He spoke as he unveiled a new version of a Cold War-era emergency advice booklet.

The guide offers practical advice on everything from cyber and terror attacks to pandemics, environmental crises and conventional warfare. It also covers self-defence, psychological resilience, digital safety and protection against air raids.

The first edition of the booklet was published during World War II.