Swedish parliament holds first war game in 20 years

The Swedish parliament has held its first war game in 20 years in response to worries over global politics, its speaker said Tuesday, as tensions with Russia rise. A delegation of 50 lawmakers - which would have the power to replace parliament in the event of the threat of war or an outright conflict - held the drill on Monday at an unknown location, said speaker Urban Ahlin, declining to give details on what the manoeuvre involved.
"These are secret scenarios...you were exposed to pressure," Ahlin told AFP on Tuesday. "It went really well."
The delegation is made up of politicians from the left-wing, centre-right and far-right parties. A non-Nato member, Sweden has not seen armed conflict on its territory in two centuries.
The drill has been planned since 2014, but Ahlin said an increasingly hostile situation in the world and in the region also prompted the exercise. "The worsened (global) environment also has a significance," he said, adding that the drill would have been postponed if Sweden deemed the world and region safe. The last time lawmakers held such an exercise was in 1997.