The Igeldamms car park in Stockholm may look like an ordinary underground parking facility carved into rock, but it can also serve as a public shelter for up to 1,200 people in the event of a military conflict.
As tensions with Russia have risen since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Swedish government has pledged to increase civil defense spending sevenfold.
Since last year, the government has allocated around €7.7 million to improve 64,000 shelters built during World War II and the Cold War, to better protect civilians.
The focus so far has been on modernizing several dozen large shelters capable of accommodating more than 1,000 people.
Renovation work on the Igeldamms wartime shelter in central Stockholm was completed in September, while upgrades on 24 out of 80 other major shelters are still ongoing.
According to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), the process — which includes replacing diesel generators and updating air filtration systems — could take two to three years to complete.
The government hopes that increased funding over the coming years will help speed up the process.
However, Anders Johannesson, a shelter specialist at the MSB, said the annual budget is still insufficient to repair all 64,000 shelters, let alone build new ones.
At the end of last year, Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, warned that the threat of a military attack had grown and could no longer be ruled out.
He made the remarks while unveiling a new version of a Cold War-era emergency preparedness brochure, which provides practical advice on a wide range of crises — from cyber and terrorist attacks to pandemics, environmental disasters, and conventional warfare.
The guide also covers self-defense, psychological resilience, digital security, and protection from air attacks. The first edition of this brochure was originally pub
