Sweden redeploys troops to the island of Gotland near Russia

Sweden redeploys troops to the island of Gotland near Russia
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By Daniel Bellamy with AP
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Sweden reinforces its military presence on the island of Gotland, which is the closest part of the country to Russia.

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Sweden is reinforcing its military presence on the island of Gotland, which is the closest part of the country to Russia.

It comes after talks between NATO, the United States and Moscow failed last week.

Although Sweden is not a NATO member it is a close ally of the military alliance. Gotland is strategically located in the Baltic Sea and the EU Baltic states all share a border with Russia.

Tensions between Ukraine and Russia are rising after the talks failed. Moscow now has around 100,000 troops stationed near Ukraine's border.

And on Thursday and Friday Ukraine was hit by cyber attacks that knocked many government websites offline. It's widely thought that Russia was behind them.

In Russia's Far East forces continues to move westwards but Moscow says it has no plans to attack Ukraine.

It says it needs assurances from NATO that the former Soviet state won't ever join the alliance. And it also wants all of NATO's weapons and forces out of eastern Europe.

But NATO has said Ukraine is an independent state and it's not up to Moscow whether it joins the alliance or not.

Meanwhile, Russia refuses to move its troops away from the Ukrainian border, saying it has the right to deploy them there.

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