Sweden investing $10M to modernize civil defense bunkers

Sweden, where the authorities have warned repeatedly that the country should prepare for the risk of war, has announced a 100-million krona ($ 10 million) investment to check and renovate its civil defense shelters, Report informs via The Defense Post.

The Nordic country has 64,000 defense bunkers – more than nearly any other nation in the world — with space overall for around seven million people.

Since Sweden joined NATO in March 2024, its Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has stepped up inspections of the shelters, some of which are large enough to accommodate thousands of people at a time.

According to the MSB, civil defense shelters provide protection against shockwaves and bomb fragments, the blast and heatwaves from a nuclear weapon, radioactive fallout, gas from chemical weapons and biological weapons.

The government is also investing in improving the emergency services’ capacity to operate during conflicts, strengthening cybersecurity and replenishing medicine stocks.

MSB said on Monday it had begun a huge project to modernize the nuclear shelters, a task it expected to take “two to three years.”

So far, work has started on 25 of the 80 especially large shelters, it said.

In 2025, MSB plans to replace filters which help protect people in the shelters from chemical and radiological weapons.

The latter spread radioactive contamination into the environment.