• Sweden’s FM: Pressure on Putin will bear fruit

The foreign minister Carl Bildt of Sweden will travel to Ukraine for a two-visit on Wednesday, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. He will have the company of his Danish counterpart, Martin Lidegaard.

Bildt has advocated a tough stance against Moscow in the wake of Russia’s moves to seize control of Crimea and prepare for a potential further military incursion into its neighbor, Reuters said. Last Monday he strongly condemned what he called “Russian aggression against Ukraine and occupation of Crimea”.

Sweden’s military has moved two fighter jets to the Baltic island of Gotland, a move prompted in part by Russian military exercises in the region.