Baltic trap for the Russian fleet: how new Swedish missiles are changing the game.
New NATO members plan to close the Baltic Sea to Russian ships during wartime. Sweden has just deployed a new anti-ship missile, the range of which is sufficient to prevent Russian vessels from leaving St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad and thus exiting the Baltic Sea into the North Sea and the wider Atlantic Ocean.
At the end of December, the Swedish Defense Ministry commissioned the Swedish defense company Saab to supply the Swedish armed forces with a new version of the Mark 3 anti-ship missile RBS 15. "Sweden will receive a significant enhancement in anti-ship missile capabilities with a more advanced target seeker, increased range, and a more powerful warhead," said Gergen Johansson, head of Saab.
The new order for Mark 3 is valued at $72 million. The first deliveries are expected next year.
The RBS 15 missile, weighing 1,700 pounds, is a Swedish classic from the 1980s. This radar-guided missile, available in air, sea, and ground-launched variants, can strike ships at sea and targets on land with a 440-pound warhead.
It is a robust and reliable missile. "The RBS 15 was specifically designed for the challenging environment and harsh weather conditions of the Baltic Sea," Johansson stated.
The range of the older Mark 2 missile is only 40 miles, while the Mark 3 boasts an impressive range of 120 miles. The corvettes of the Swedish fleet fire both Mark 2 and Mark 3 missiles, while the coastal artillery of the fleet, which was disbanded in 2000 and reformed in 2016 due to Russia's first incursion into Ukraine two years prior, only had the Mark 2.
Until now. For the first time mounted on trucks and positioned near Stockholm or the island of Gotland, the Mark 3 missiles can target enemy — that is, Russian — military vessels just as they exit the Gulf of Finland into warmer and more open waters.
Combined with sensors in space and the air, on land, at sea, and underwater, these missiles effectively close off the Atlantic to Russian military ships coming from St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, and shut down Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg to Russian military vessels coming from the Atlantic.
The Swedes are not alone in their efforts to push back against the Russian fleet. In 2021, as Russia prepared to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Baltic NATO countries doubled their defense spending. Among other investments, Estonia purchased ground-launched Blue Spear 5G anti-ship missiles from Israel for $100 million; Latvia acquired Naval Strike Missiles from Norway for $100 million, which are also launched from the ground.
The radar-guided Blue Spear missiles began arriving in Estonia at the beginning of last year. "The selected weapon system will be a cornerstone of Estonia's naval defense for decades to come," said Jüri Saska, commander of the Estonian Navy.
The Blue Spear and NSM with infrared guidance are not the longest-range missiles in the world. The Blue Spear has a range of 200 miles, while the NSM reaches 115 miles. But this is more than sufficient given the geography of the Baltic Sea. The distance from southern Latvia to Kaliningrad is only 100 miles. The same distance applies from northern Estonia to St. Petersburg.
Estonia's growing arsenal of anti-ship missiles was less threatening to Russia before it escalated its war in Ukraine in February 2022, forcing Sweden, then neutral, to join the transatlantic alliance. Sweden joined NATO in March 2024. Its neighbor Finland, also a former neutral state, did so 11 months earlier.
NATO's expansion in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine has made the Baltic Sea an extremely hostile environment for the Russian fleet. And it becomes increasingly hostile with every missile deployed by Sweden and its NATO allies. At this point, it is fair to question whether the Russian fleet will even be able to contest the Baltic if tensions with NATO escalate into open war.
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