Swedish authorities detained a Russian couple on August 6, 2026, after they pitched a tent near a cottage outside Gävle used by a person under personal protection.
Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported on August 10, 2026, that the person is Saab President and CEO Micael Johansson.
Fishing request prompts police call
According to SVT, a woman speaking accented English walked onto the property and asked to fish from its private jetty. She was refused. Johansson’s guards confronted them a short time later and called the police. The cottage did not belong to Johansson but to a person close to him. Someone in the area had also reported a couple that spoke with a Russian accent and carried handheld radios.
Semjon Rusanov and Tatjana Milenina are being held at a Swedish Migration Agency detention facility. They say they are Russian anti-war emigrants living in Spain and were on a hiking holiday. They said they fear removal to Russia, which they have not visited since 2022 and where they have publicly opposed the war in Ukraine. Silas Aliki, the couple’s lawyer, said they have not been notified of any criminal suspicion.
Police confirmed an ongoing case handled by the Mitt police region but declined to comment. The Swedish Security Service, Säpo, is not involved, according to Swedish outlet Säkerhetsvärlden.
Johansson told the broadcaster that his role is “quite delicate,” and that this was why the guards checked the two. He said Saab’s work matters to the Swedish Armed Forces and other countries, and that the company takes security seriously.
The case comes amid heightened security alertness across the Nordic and Baltic region. In February 2026, Swedish forces neutralized a drone near the French carrier Charles de Gaulle in Malmö and traced it to a Russian signals intelligence ship.
Saab’s role in arming Sweden, NATO and Ukraine
Saab’s military production is the stated reason Johansson has a personal protection detail. The company builds the Gripen fighter, missiles, radar systems, and the GlobalEye airborne early warning and control aircraft, which NATO confirmed in July 2026 as the successor to its Boeing E-3A Sentry fleet.
Saab is also a direct supplier to Ukraine. The company signed a contract with Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration on June 30, 2026 for 16 Gripen E fighters destined for Kyiv, worth approximately SEK 24.6 billion ($2.5 billion). That order is the first tranche of a framework covering up to 150 aircraft agreed in October 2025, and Sweden has separately committed to donate 16 used Gripen C/D jets.
Johansson is not the only European defense executive under protection. NATO official James Appathurai told the European Parliament on January 28, 2025, that Russia’s sabotage campaign in Europe had included a plot to assassinate Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, whose company also arms Ukraine.