Swedish Psychological Defense Agency's head confident about Swedes' resilience to foreign information operations

RIGA - Although Swedish society is highly resilient to foreign information operations in Europe, Sweden continues to strengthen its resilience by building a strong democracy and transparent society where citizens feel truly involved, Magnus Hjort, Director of the Swedish Psychological Defense Agency, says in an interview with LETA.

The developments in Ukraine in 2014 also had an impact on Sweden's standpoint and way of thinking, which is why in 2015 Sweden renewed its total defense system and also started talking about psychological defense.

"We realized that this was a new situation. It was a time when, after Russia's hybrid warfare in Ukraine, many European countries saw that Russia really wanted to rebuild its empire," Hjort told LETA on the sidelines of NATO's Stratcom Dialogue conference.

Russia invaded Ukraine using troops without insignia, cyber-attacks, disinformation attacks, and rigged and orchestrated referendums.

In 2018, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Leuven announced that he would establish a new Psychological Defense Agency to protect Swedish democracy from information campaigns and foreign propaganda. In May 2020, Hjort was tasked by the Swedish government to set up the agency as early as 2021.

The agency currently has 80 employees and a budget of around SEK 150 million (EUR 13.4 million).

The Swedish government has set the agency two main tasks: to analyze and identify foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations and to build and strengthen resilience of Swedish society as a whole.

"We identify FIMI and conduct threat assessments, raising awareness of threats to Sweden or Swedish interests, as well as to the European Union (EU), our allies or NATO. We regularly report on the situation to the Swedish government and its agencies so that we are better prepared for any future developments," says Hjort.

To strengthen the resilience of Swedish society, the agency organizes various trainings to educate Swedish residents at local, national and regional levels.

"This is our main task - to inform the Swedish public and to strengthen their awareness, preparedness and readiness, to make people better able to understand the information environment, to understand what is really going on, how exactly the threat actors are using a particular tool against us, how they are using social media, gaming platforms or other environments to change the way we perceive reality, to undermine our democracy, trust in institutions and government," Hjort explains.

"The next time Sweden is hit by an information campaign, we don't know what the target will be. Our role will be to support the victims of the campaign, for example by supporting a municipality if it is targeted by the campaign, or to help the Swedish government find ways to fight back," says Hjort.

Furthermore, countries need to continuously work toward building strong democracies, transparent societies so that all citizens can feel truly engaged.

"For me, it is about strengthening society, making people informed," says Hjort. "To be able to check information from different sources if they are not sure whether it is true. These are the societal skills we are trying to promote," he explains.

Hjort also says that fight against corruption is one of the most important priorities, even though the level of corruption in Sweden has always been low.

Freedom of the press is also extremely important, and in this regard, all the Nordic countries are highest ranking the world. It is very important when it comes to resisting foreign information manipulation and interference operations, notes Hjort.

The agency also cooperates with the Swedish Media Agency to strengthen media literacy, a crucial component of the psychological defense process, says Hjort.