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“Interest in national defense is traditionally very high in Finland and especially these days with the Russian aggression on Ukraine, the interest has risen even more,” lawmaker Jukka Kopra, who chairs Finland’s defense committee, told AP earlier in December.
Inspired largely by concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance last year. Western neighbor Sweden followed suit in March. The two countries last month announced plans to boost their civil defense strategies, without mentioning Russia by name.
The surge in self-defense strategies doesn’t stop at shooting ranges.
The National Defense Training Association says it has hosted a collective total of 120,000 training days this year, more than double the number three years ago.
The national reservists’ association, which is about 90% composed of military reservists but also some hobbyists, has grown by more than two-thirds to over 50,000 members since the invasion of Ukraine.
And unlike some other European countries, Finland has kept around 50,000 Cold-War era civil defense shelters, which could accommodate roughly 85% of the population of about 5.5 million people.
“This is the new era of civil defense shelters, which is against the newest developments of war,” said Tomi Rask, of Helsinki Rescue Services, during a recent tour of one shelter in the capital. “We know that all of our neighbors have the capability of harming us, of harming our citizens, and we think that we need to prepare.”
Wearing camouflage at the range in Kerava, military reservists and firearm hobbyists bob and weave their way through an obstacle course, at times opening fire with deafening Glock handguns against human-shaped targets.
