Embed with UK's elite paratroopers on the Swedish island ready for war with Russia
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There's an eerie silence over the scene. You can hear birds in the background, but the soldiers are completely quiet. Lots of hand signals being made to each other. They're in full-blown X-Series mode now.

We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. Right now, all eyes are on Washington. But who's actually watching Europe at the moment? To the Middle East now, and more than 50,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began. That's according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. I'm Venetia Rainey, and this is Battlelines.

On today's episode, something a bit different. I'm bringing you a special dispatch from Sweden. I travelled to Gotland Island recently to meet the Swedish Armed Forces' newest outfit, the Gotland Regiment. They're charged with protecting this hugely strategic Baltic outpost from Russia, and they're clear-eyed about the threat that Moscow poses in Northern Europe.

I also managed to see some pretty impressive international military drills, including Britain's elite 16th Air Assault Brigade parachuting out of planes and then conducting an overnight march to capture a tactical landing zone. It was quite a trip, and it began, as these things tend to, on a plane.

So I'm on a small turboprop plane heading over the Baltic Sea from Stockholm Airport to Visby, which is the main city on Gotland. Gotland is a small Swedish island. It's a bit smaller than the county of Essex in the UK or the state of Rhode Island in the US. It's largely known as a tourist destination here in Scandinavia, but that's not why I'm going there.

Gotland is around 190 miles from Kaliningrad, which is the Russian enclave where they house their Baltic fleet. And that makes Gotland a really strategic outpost for NATO. I'm just looking out the window now and I can see lots of tiny islands as we leave the Swedish coastline. But other than that, ahead of me, I can just see an endless stretch of the Baltic. Now under the Baltic, there are these really important data and communications subsea cables, as well as gas and electricity pipelines.

There have been quite a few instances of sabotage over the last few years. And if Gotland fell to the Russians, all of that would be under Moscow's control. So I'm going to find out how Sweden and its NATO allies are making sure that that never happens. Welcome to Gotland and the East Main City. We're your citizens from Scotland. We're the Isles, free from all criminal agendas.

It's a windy, overcast day when I land at Visby Airport. After dropping my bags at my accommodation, I head to the freshly built headquarters of the new Gotlam Regiment that was established just a few years ago. Just ask me questions if you have those. I'm joining some international and local journalists on a tour of the barracks. Our guide is Thomas Angshammer, who's Head of Communications for the P18 Gotlam Regiment. Let's jump into the vehicles.

It's a mix of sleek, Scandi-style buildings, some trees and construction sites. It feels like a mini village in the making. We cut down some trees over there. We're going to build more storage over there. We move away from the building site to outside the new barracks, but it's no less noisy. As an army helicopter flies nearby, Thomas explains the history of the regiment. 21 years ago, Gotland Regiment was the last of the four regiments on Gotland to be decommissioned.

Because times were, as you know, quite different back then. This seemed like a good idea at the time and just a couple of years later it wasn't such a good idea anymore. And little by little the political processes started

to go forward and then of course in 2014 we all know what happened. So the defense bill of 2015 was when the decision was made to re-establish a permanent military presence on Gotland. In the meantime we only had the Home Guard after the

regiments were closed down. When we were going to build new military presence on Gotland, unfortunately the old regiments had been sold. We had no infrastructure left or almost no infrastructure left. So this is the corner of the training field. This was all forest just a few years ago.

As you will see very soon, little by little we started building new infrastructure for the new regiment. The building you saw when we were driving in, that was here. That was built for the Home Guard. So...

This is the new barracks. It was opened in August last year. It has room for 240 conscripts. And in August of this year, it's too small because we're going to have 300 conscripts this year. And in a few years, we'll probably be up to maybe 500 per year. So we're building a second barracks behind this one and we're planning for a third. I think we can go inside.

for a quick look. This is where the conscripts live. 12 to every room. Men and women share the same room here in Sweden. It's all gender neutral. When conscription was reintroduced for all 18-year-olds back in 2017, it was decided to include women as well as men.

Some of those female recruits were sent here to Gotland, including Anna Braden, who is now a battle captain. So I started with a detachment here and then it became a regiment, so I continue my position here.

And why did you want to come here? Did you want to come here? Yeah, I was a volunteer. I applied to go to the island. It's a great place to live with the population here. They are really great. They are kind. And the support for the military is really high. And nature and geographic is beautiful. And there's a lot of history here, especially from the medieval age. So it's a really interesting place to live on. And then we have, of course, the importance of the defence forces.

The Gotland Regiment is banking on that appeal to boost their numbers as fast as possible. As a completely new regiment, PAT needs every man and woman it can get. Local Gotland residents who know the island like the back of their hand are a prime target for recruitment. Numbers were small at first, but they're now picking up. Last year, the regiment got nearly 120 new recruits, and next year they expect more than 200.

A regiment is basically a factory. That's where we produce the wartime units. And we are roughly 400 people working full time at Gotland Regiment. And that includes soldiers, officers and civilians. And we are producing the wartime organisation Brigade Combat Team Gotland. Which when it's fully developed will be

About 4,500 to 5,000 men fully mobilised. When's the aspiration for getting to that 4,000, 5,000 figure? In a couple of years. Are you on track? Yes, we're on track. Gotland's brigade combat team will eventually include everything from an infantry battalion, an artillery company, to a logistics hub, an explosives ordnance disposal platoon.

But the team revolves around the mechanized battalion, essentially a group of soldiers who operate armored personnel carriers and other combat vehicles, including tanks. What kit do you guys have? What weapons, vehicles? So CV-90s, Leopards or Stridsvagn 122 in Swedish, and different variants of the combat vehicle. That's the main kit for us. Inside a giant hangar, we get to see some of their vehicles up close.

So these vehicles we see in this garage is five different variants of the CV-90 family. We have the classic CV-90 for carrying armoured infantry, so to call. We have the recovery vehicle to recover damaged vehicles on the battlefield. We have anti-air system. We have

The latest in the Swedish Armed Forces, the Armoured Mortar CV90. And we have the Fire Support Team Combat Vehicle. So it's five different variants of the same family. I'm just going to climb inside here. It's quite spacious inside actually.

Once you get all the way into the main bit of the body of the mortar vehicle, you can stand up and you can see where all of the ammo shells would sit waiting to be loaded up. And then there are two fold-down seats for the gunners. The soldier I spoke to earlier gives me and another journalist a demonstration of how it all works. Take the grenade, put it here, push it up to this level here.

You push this one up into the loading tube that you can see from the outside. Then we lift the loading tube and push it over. The grenade falls down the barrel. Then from here we can fire. And this guy fires? Exactly, the tank commander. From the structure of the other vehicle we were just on? Exactly. Awesome.

Do you guys get to go out in this much? Yeah, we've been four weeks in the mainland exercising. So we shot over a thousand live grenades in the mainland. Can I ask your name? Alexander...

And how long have you been with the Gotland Regiment? I've been working here since 2018. So when it just started, why did you want to join? For me, it was a fresh start. I'm from the southern part of Sweden. To move to an island in the middle of the sea sounded exciting. Great, so just a bit of life balance, not anything in particular about this particular challenge? No, when I set out to do my military service,

I was only planning to do my nine months conscript, then I was going to be a firefighter. But here I am seven years later. Yeah. What kind of scenarios do you train for here in the Gotland Regiment? We train for everything. To always be prepared. We train for someone to come by sea, by air.

That's the only way to get here, so that's where we train for. And then I guess, yeah, defending the island. What are the island's weak spots? Without wanting to give too much away to the Russians. It's an island, so it's got natural fortifications, but what are the difficulties in defending an island? I can't answer that question. The Russians could be listening. Russia looms large here on Gotland Island. The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad is less than 200 miles away, home to Moscow's storied Baltic fleet.

In the 18th century, that fleet fought multiple wars with Sweden's navy. Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War, but it built up extensive defences to deter any attack from the Soviet Union regardless. After the end of the Cold War, the threat from Russia was deemed to have disappeared. Europe was at peace. Places like Gotland Island were completely demilitarised. But not everyone believed in the end of history. Russia has always been Russia.

And predicting the future is a hazardous business. So, of course, I did not see the point or the value in that decision, no matter what it was based on. Colonel Dan Rasmussen is head of the Gotland Regiment and a native Gotlander.

He was an officer here back when it was disbanded. And when P18 was formally re-established again, he was serving elsewhere in the Swedish army. Being originally from the regiment, it was a great day for me personally, when common sense, in a way, was on the agenda again. Colonel Rasmussen is clear-eyed about the threat Russia poses.

and about the importance of this little island for protecting Northern Europe. In Baltic war games conducted by the US and NATO allies since the annexation of Crimea, Russia's first move is often to try to take Gotland. I ask him why. Because of its geographic position in the Baltic Sea. Because with some sensors and systems based on this island, you can more or less dictate who flies and sails in and around the Baltic Sea and that

of course has consequences for the countries surrounding Gotland if we take a Gotlandic point of view. That means that Sweden and NATO has to be

in possession of the island. Otherwise, reinforcements within the NATO context will be a problem. Can you explain that a bit to me? Because I was just looking at the map and we're talking about reinforcement and resupply to Baltic nations, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Why is Gotland so central to that? Why couldn't you come through Poland or down through Finland? First of all, the Finnish forces, the forces up north, they are dedicated for the Arctic and for the terrain up north.

And with a quick glance on the map, looking at Poland and Lithuania, you will see that the Suwalki corridor with Belarus on one side and Kaliningrad on the other side presents a major challenge in order to reinforce by land.

And then that leaves the air and the sea for reinforcements. And that's where Gotland comes in as key terrain. What would a Russian invasion of this island, hypothetically of course, what would it look like? What kind of scenarios does the Gotland regiment prepare for? It's more or less the same as we've always been prepared for before.

We've had nationally tried to have as much troops on the island as possible in order to create some kind of deterrence that it would cost more to try to take the island than to leave it alone. And now within the NATO context, it's deterrence on a different scale.

And we have prepared for some kind of bombardment, of course, which is the prerequisite for any landing by air or sea in order to...

affect the defenses on Gotland. And back in the Cold War era it was maybe landing by ships that was the formula for invading Gotland. But now the technology has evolved so a lot of harassing can be done from a distance with drones, with ballistic missiles and so on. And that is a prerequisite for how it starts before you put any boots on the ground.

Even in peacetime, defending the island comes with its own problems. Sabotage of undersea cables is increasingly common and Moscow is believed to be responsible. A shadow Russian fleet operates in the seas around the island.

the Gotland Regiment has to be ready for anything. We don't have any tasks or possibilities to operate on the sea, that's the Navy's job, but we do it by enhancing the total defence on the island, by cooperating and coordinating with civilian authorities, municipality and also private stakeholders in order to prepare for being cut off.

The challenges are the reinforcements and the sustainability of course. That's why we are trying to make sure that we have stocks, we have the equipment on the island. That's what we are planning for.

So the only big movements for us in the brigade combat team is the personnel that has to be shipped from the mainland to Gotland. We don't want to have a big operation with a lot of equipment as well. So that's the big challenges. On the other hand, the

The pros is that we are living and breathing here on the island. The Home Guard, they know every path, every road, every suspicious person showing up. It's a home game for us. So this is an island that's ready for war at the drop of a hat? In a way, yes. Coming up after the break, I join elite British paratroopers on an exercise to practice retaking the island from the Russians.

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Exactly what that war would look like if it did break out is anyone's guess. But one of the more extreme scenarios involves Russia capturing the island, allowing it to control key sea routes and cut off resupply efforts to the Baltic states. If that happened, for all their training, the plucky Gotland regiment would need outside help, and fast. Luckily, with Sweden now a member of NATO, Article 5 would kick in. An armed attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against all.

An international coalition of NATO members would quickly be assembled. Some paratroopers would then have to land on the island and secure a runway to bring in weapons and reinforcements in order to retake Gotland. That's roughly the scenario that British, American and Swedish forces came together to practice last month as part of the swift response phase of the US-led annual Defender military drill series.

Standing in a field bathed in blazing afternoon sunshine, I join a group of journalists, soldiers and medics to watch the start of the exercise. So as you can hear, the exercise has begun. That sound is the roar of an A400 plane and dozens of British soldiers behind me are parachuting down. They're all from the 16th Air Assault Brigade. And this may be a drill, but it's a big deal. This is the first UK jump into Gotland and the first tactical jump out of an A400. So it also involves the RAF.

The 16th Brigade are the real deal. They're the British Army's global response force, and basically they have to be ready at a moment's notice to respond to a crisis anywhere in the world. The evacuation of Kabul, aid deliveries after the massive Turkey earthquake, Sudan civil war repatriations, they were there. They're specially trained to deploy by parachute, helicopter and air landing, and this is them doing what they do best. The two A400 planes each come around a handful of times, depositing dozens of paratroopers into the field below.

Slowly, each one packs up his parachute and trudges over to the mobile border control truck to clear immigration. I guess there's some bureaucracy that even major military drills can't get past. I grab one of the soldiers as he walks past. How did it feel coming out of the plane? Yeah, it was great to be fair. It's the first time jumping overseas, so good experience. Anything particular about jumping out of an A400? I know the British troops haven't done that before. Yeah, I think it's the slipstream you get. So when you leave, you get a good exit.

Nice, perfect conditions for it. Yeah, exactly. Perfect weather. And a nice soft landing. Yeah, not bad to be fair. I've had worse. What's going through your mind as the ground gets closer? Just get tight and get your legs ready, prepare yourself, prepare for what's next. And then you guys have to collect your parachutes because this is a drill, right? Yeah, exactly. That pack looks heavy. Yes, it is quite heavy, yeah. Thanks very much for joining me. Thank you.

Hello. Passport control is further down. Yes. Perfect. Thank you very much. Standing alongside me in the field and proudly watching everything is Brigadier Mark Berry, commander of the 16th Air Assault Brigade, the ones who have just jumped out of the plane. It's a very exhilarating thing for soldiers to do. I guess you've done quite a few of these. Yeah, I've done quite a few of my career, yeah. But every single one is as exhilarating as the last. This sort of exercise, what kind of...

real-world situations does this prepare you for? Seizing this piece of terrain, a viable landing zone for parachutists, and then defending Sweden, supporting the Swedes, defend their nation against any aggressor. You could replicate exactly this scenario in any part of Europe.

Last year, for example, this exercise series was in Estonia and we practiced a very similar exercise

on a tactical landing zone in Estonia. From my perspective as 16th Brigade Commander, one of the most important firsts is what you've just seen here is the first time we have dropped what we call the lead company group, so the highest readiness soldiers out of an A400. That's...

That says to me that the A400 and my capability are working well and we are ready to respond to any adversary, as we've just described. The next most significant thing is that we have launched this exercise from the United Kingdom and we have landed in Sweden. The mere fact that we are jumping into...

a piece of Swedish terrain that we have been enabled by Swedish Air Force to do that. The fact that we can see from where we're standing Swedish medics, Swedish soldiers standing around supporting the jump. I mean, you don't get much more obvious example of cooperation there.

And as you well know, it's relatively new for us to be operating this closely with Sweden. And so it's a brilliant opportunity to understand how they operate, for them to understand how we operate, and just to get to know each other a bit better.

So all of this is a really encouraging representation of what is happening across Europe. Armies working together, armies building capability, as you say, responding to the most obvious threat that we face along our border at the moment and getting better. Once the soldiers have all cleared passport control, the rest of the exercise can begin.

I walk a short distance from the field where everyone landed, the drop zone in army jargon, and I meet the man in charge of the troops. They'll shortly begin their march to their destination. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hitchens, commanding officer of 2 Para. We are in Gotland. We've just landed by parachute on a drop zone which is about 2.5 metres.

two Ks from our objective, which is a stretch of road which can double up as a runway. So we're going to seize that and then we're going to enable follow-on forces to come in and project power from here to wherever it needs to be. And what are the guys doing right now, gathered in the woods? Yeah, so as you can imagine, you land on a drop zone, you're all pretty spread out. There were a few issues that had to be resolved, like passport control and we couldn't bring food into the country, so we've had to have a quick

sort of administrative stop to get rations and check passports and things. That aside, what we would do now is we'd rally. The OC would gather his people. And when he reached a pre-designated number of people, so in this case it was about 70%, he'll be good to go and seize the objective. The OC? The officer commanding the company. And can you talk me through, this is for radio obviously, so no one can see what kit you've got on you, what you've got in your backpack, etc.

So you can see that I'm wearing body armour, you can see I have got belt kit, you can see I'm big.

and I weigh a lot, which means I couldn't carry very much in my parachute because I fall too quickly. So I'm going to have a cold night tonight. But yeah, it would be pretty typical of paratroopers in this kind of scenario to travel light. You know, we'd say bullets and beans. So it's, you know, ammunition is a priority, a bit of food, a bit of water and some communications equipment. One of the doors on the planes didn't open, right, when they were doing the drill? Yes.

How do you respond to that? So in a real life scenario, it might not be just the door going, it might be an aircraft that can't take off. And so we have a thing called a bump plan. So you work out who is most important to the mission and you jig people around. So you saw the door broke. There would have been quite a lot of activity in the back of the aircraft going, if we can only get another 15 people out, who does it need to be? And they'll have got the mission critical people out. Thankfully for the remainder, they're going to land down the road and they're going to get bussed in. So it's not the end of the world.

So I'm standing in a field just next to where the soldiers parachuted in. They've gathered, they've had a bit of a briefing, they've got their rations, their supplies, picked up their kit. Now they're heading out, they're moving across this field and they're going to march a couple of kilometres to the tactical landing zone where they're going to try to convert an old road into a runway where they can receive planes with weapons.

There's an eerie silence over the scene. You can hear birds in the background, but the soldiers are completely quiet. Lots of hand signals being made to each other. They're in full-blown exercise mode now, and I've been asked to keep my voice down so I don't interrupt them or ask them questions while they're making tactical plans on the march over. The sun's just gone down here. It's a really beautiful evening. And the soldiers' camo gear, which was really obvious to see at first in the sharp sunlight...

It's now starting to blend in with the woods and the long grass. So it's starting to feel a lot more realistic. The sky still has some light patches in, but on the ground it's pretty hard to see anything unless it's moving. I imagine something they might bump into them now. So they chose to not just come straight down. They've moved around, big left-hand movement of where they think the enemy expected them to

So it's taken a bit longer, but it gains the element of surprise. And that's all been decided by the troops just as they were on this march? The company commander has the sort of overall controls of anything that's moving on the ground. They've also taken a bit of extra time to put up sort of UAS and drones to do a soak of just looking at the air there. They're hopefully going to start clearing through soon. It feels pretty realistic, I have to say. Do you think? It does to me. It does, no, it does.

but I don't have my night vision goggles on and I can't see much at this point Someone's found a fence there Yeah it's gonna start getting pretty difficult so I'm gonna try and catch up to my guy Catch you later, we can hear the first enemy This mission has begun Before we step off, just a reminder If we come under contact remember what we spoke about in orders We fucking treat them like conscripts and remember our job here is to roll them up and send them back They will withdraw, put pressure on them and take the fight to them No fucking about, simple as

When you're ready, move off. We're pressing ahead. We just... The commanding officer of... Listen to the action. We've been walking through the woods parallel to the tactical landing zone. The road that they're going to turn into a runway. Walking parallel to it for several hours. It's nearly 1am now. We're just walking onto it now. We're going to go take a bit of a break. You can hear some gunfire in the background. They're still securing it. Still some enemy...

presents around but we're gonna go get a break have a bit of food and recharge our batteries the plan is to stay and watch american military transport planes conduct touch and go landings essentially simulating dropping off rocket launch systems and more soldiers but i'm done all that stumbling around in the dark has exhausted me so i head back to my accommodation for a few hours of sleep at 5am feeling slightly perkier i drive to the tofter firing range to watch the very end of the exercise

This involves British and American troops simultaneously firing missiles from their respective multiple rocket launch systems, the ones the transport planes practiced dropping off earlier. Rockets fired, the British and American troops pack up their things and drive off, leaving the sound of birds to once again fill the early morning air. The exercise is over. It's a powerful show of how NATO allies would come together in the event of a Russian incursion.

But back in the real world, I wonder how much of this cuts through to ordinary people. The locals here on Gotland lie awake, worried that Russia might invade at any moment.

Are they happy that the island has been remilitarised? To find out, I've come to Gotland's centre, Visby. It's a lovely medieval city, right on the sea, where I find locals swimming during their lunch break. You've just come out of a dip in the water, was it cold?

No, eight degrees maybe. Quite refreshing, to be honest. But we are both winter swimmers, so we're quite used to it, but it was lovely. What's your name? My name is Tuve. And you live here in Gotland? Yes, I do, but I'm originally from the south of Sweden, a town called Malmö. But I lived here since ten years ago. And what do you think about the talk about a Russian threat of invading this island? What?

Well, I'm not actually quite bothered about it because there has been a threat lying in there for as long as the Gotlandians can remember. So, no, I'm not particularly worried. And my personal opinion is that if Putin wanted to invade this island, he would have done so, like...

50 years ago and I don't think he has the army enough to do it and well no I don't think so so you feel safe here you probably know that they re-established a Gotland regiment of the Swedish army here some years ago does it make you feel safer that that exists

I would say neither. I mean, we don't see them often. We can hear them, but... And I think for a lot of people it's causing kind of troubles because they are preventing people from building houses where they want to and building schools and stuff, so... Just getting in the way. Yeah, yeah, kind of. But I guess it's good because in some way we might need it.

What's your name? My name is Marie Erickson. And you're from? I'm from Gothenburg, the West Coast, and I'm here to visit the beautiful Gotland Wiesbier. I love it. It is very beautiful there, and it's a lovely sunny day. Yes, today it's really nice. It's a little bit cold, but it doesn't matter. And you were just taking in the view of the sea. Did you notice that you were sitting right next to an old World War II bunker? No, but now, yes. When you say it, yes, I see it, yeah.

I didn't think about it, but just relaxing and watching the sea and listening to the sea and yes, enjoying.

One of the things I'm here to report on is Sweden joined NATO last year and the rising Russian threat, Gotland Island, is obviously very important. Is that something that you think about much, that worries you much? Well, I've been thinking about it. I know we talked a little bit about it some days ago with the friends because it's a very special place to be here. So, yes, I've been thinking about it, of course.

because it's so close everything now and you never know what's going to happen. So yes. Does it worry you that the Russians might invade or does that feel quite a distant prospect? It's a very difficult question.

You think about it, but you don't think it can happen. But of course, yes, it's in my mind. It is. But I'm not that very, very worried. But if I should be, I don't know. So you're happy that Sweden is boosting its defences? It's boosting its defences here in Gotland and in Sweden? Yes. Yes, I think we have to, because what's happening now in the world. So I think it's important.

We've been so far away from it so many, many years, so it's a little bit new for me anyway. But yes, we've been talking a lot during the days here with the friends. What's going to happen with the world is crazy, you don't know. It can change from one day to the next day. Well, I hope for the best. That's all for this special episode of Battle Lines. We'd love to know what you thought. Let us know by emailing us on battlelines at telegraph.co.uk.

You can also see some pictures and videos from my reporting in my written dispatch on The Telegraph's website or by following the link in the show notes. We'll be back again on Friday. Until then, goodbye. Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battle Lines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it really helps others find the show.

To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin. The executive producer is Louisa Wells.

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