2 November 2022 – There has been a mass theft of traffic speed cameras across Sweden, all connected to the war in Ukraine. According to SÄPO (the Swedish Security Service) more than 100 speed cameras (Canon DSLR) have been stolen in recent months, some of which have been sold to Russia proxies and used in improvised drones.
In a news report on Swedish television, a member of SÄPO noted the stolen goods sought after are the same as the cameras that have been used by Russia in homemade drones during the war in Ukraine. Säpo said it was aware of the scheme due to its intelligence network with Ukraine and U.S. intelligence services but it cannot comment on its exact intelligence work. However, in that report a film was shown from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence (screen shot above) of a Russian drone that had crashed in Ukraine and was disassembled. The Ministry of Defence then showed how they sourced the various parts. The computer chips, by the way, came from a U.S. technology firm.
In total, about a hundred cameras around the country have been stolen in recent months, according to the Swedish Transport Administration. It costs around Є22,000 ($25,000) to replace each speed camera.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, the home-made Russian drones have contributed to several attacks against civilian targets and the Ukrainian military. Despite their relatively simple and amateurish design, they have been successfully used to scout and acquire Ukrainian defensive positions. They have also reportedly been used to find targets for artillery.
This is yet another Swedish “Reds under the bed” moment that they have from time to time. The same is in Norway where last week at least 7 Russians were detained for performing illegal aerial drone surveillance of oil and gas facilities. There is actually an enormous Russian spy network across Europe, a subject I’ll address in a longer post.
But in the instant case, the Swedish speed cameras, the intelligence services say it is due to a network of non-Russian “refugees” who were accepted into Sweden from Chechnya, Syria, etc. who are in fact Russian agents.