The Old Country Newsletter – Bättre Sent än Aldrig

Sweden to Rent Prison Cells Abroad After Social Democrats Back Plan

After months of hesitation, Sweden’s Social Democrats have thrown their weight behind a controversial plan to rent prison space abroad, clearing the way for a policy first floated in the Tidö Agreement.

The government recently signed a deal with Estonia to house up to 600 inmates in a facility in Tartu starting next summer, a move meant to ease pressure on Sweden’s overcrowded prison system. The Social Democrats had initially balked at the idea, citing concerns about moving Swedish jobs and authority abroad. But on Thursday morning, the party confirmed it would support the measure when it comes to a parliamentary vote this spring.

That support is pivotal: the proposal requires a three-fourths majority to pass. While the Center Party has already indicated it will vote yes, the Social Democrats’ backing ensures the government will have the numbers to push the deal through.

Justice officials have warned for years that Sweden’s correctional facilities are stretched beyond capacity, with some prisons operating at crisis levels. Renting foreign space, they argue, is a temporary but necessary fix to prevent the system from buckling under the pressure.

Still, the decision is not without political drama. Critics question whether outsourcing incarceration undermines Swedish sovereignty and risks creating a two-tiered justice system, while supporters frame it as a pragmatic solution to a problem that can’t wait for new prisons to be built.

In the words of one MP leaving Thursday’s announcement, “It may not be glamorous, but it’s what the system needs right now.”

A new investigation has traced a wave of GPS disruptions across the Baltic Sea back to a Russian military base in Kaliningrad, raising alarm among pilots, sailors, and European security agencies.

For months, commercial aircraft and ships in the region have reported GPS blackouts, forcing crews to fall back on backup systems. Satellite images reviewed by Swedish broadcaster SVT show signal towers at the Okunevo base, home to Russia’s 841st independent electronic warfare unit—already sanctioned by the EU for similar activity. Researchers at Poland’s Gdynia Maritime University have triangulated the interference to the same location, calling the evidence “undeniable.”

Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson described Russia’s behavior as “reckless and harmful,” while intelligence services in Sweden, Poland, and other Baltic nations continue to probe whether mobile jamming systems, including ship-based transmitters, are also being deployed.

The interference doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In recent days, drones have been spotted over airports in Denmark and Norway, briefly grounding flights, while Poland has reported a series of drone incursions along its border. Together with the GPS jamming, officials see a pattern of hybrid tactics designed to test Western defenses without triggering outright confrontation.

European leaders are now grappling with how to protect critical infrastructure and civilian transport from these gray-zone threats. As one EU diplomat put it, “This is not a war we can see on a battlefield—it’s happening in our skies, our ports, and our data systems.”