USS Paul Ignatius docks in Stockholm. An American destroyer in the Swedish capital for the third time in four years

The guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius arrived in Stockholm on 1 October for a planned port visit. The Swedish Armed Forces describe it as part of a long-standing defence and security partnership with the United States, and the crew of around 300 is to rest and take on supplies in port.

Kamil Kusier executive editor 01.10.2026, 13:27 Reading time: 2 min

Grey destroyer with hull number 117 sails through an island archipelago, crew standing on deck, wooded shores around — fot. Forsvarsmakten

In brief

The US guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius entered Stockholm on 1 October for a planned port visit. The crew of USS Paul Ignatius, numbering about 300, is to rest and resupply in Stockholm. USS Paul Ignatius, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer of the 6th Fleet, is based in Rota, Spain, and previously visited Stockholm in September 2023. The Swedish Armed Forces describe the visit as part of long-standing defence cooperation with the United States.

It is a routine announcement, but the list of previous visits the Swedes attached says more than the news itself: since 2022 American warships have called at the Swedish capital almost every year, and since the country joined NATO in 2024 that presence carries a different weight.

A ship from Rota

USS Paul Ignatius is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer of the United States Sixth Fleet. She carries the radar and sensors of the Aegis system and is armed with long-range missiles, an automatic gun and torpedoes; the missile systems serve both air defence and precision strike. The ship is permanently based at Rota in Spain, among the forward-deployed US Navy forces in Europe, which alongside patrols in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic regularly enter the Baltic.

She is named after Paul Ignatius, United States Secretary of the Navy from 1967 to 1969.

Third time in four years

USS Paul Ignatius was in Stockholm in September 2023, after operations in the Baltic region. In 2022, before Sweden's accession to NATO, the destroyer USS Forrest Sherman and the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge called at the capital. In 2025 the Sixth Fleet's command ship USS Mount Whitney, a frequent visitor to Sweden, was there.

The Swedish command stresses that cooperation with the US has deepened since joining the alliance: recurring exercises, operations and visits strengthen relations between Swedish and American units and develop the ability to fight together, which contributes to the defence of the whole alliance.

Why it matters for the Polish coast too

Since 2024 the Baltic is a sea on which every coastal state except Russia belongs to NATO. Visits by American destroyers to Stockholm, Gdynia, Klaipėda or Tallinn belong to the same cycle of presence, in which ships from Rota rotate between allied ports, replenish and exercise with local fleets.

For Poland it has two dimensions. The first is air and missile defence: Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis are a mobile complement to the land-based site at Redzikowo and to shipborne capabilities the Polish Navy does not yet have, since the Miecznik frigates are still being built. The second is shipping lanes: the same ships that rest in Stockholm watch the movement of shadow fleet tankers between the Gulf of Finland and the Danish straits, precisely the activity that has returned in recent weeks to Polish reports of polluted beaches and incidents at sea.

The Swedes do not say where USS Paul Ignatius will head after leaving Stockholm. Such visits usually precede or follow exercises with the host navy, and the autumn Baltic has for several years been a sea of intense alliance activity.

Source: Gazeta Morska · Compiled by: Kamil Kusier