Any day now, Finland and Sweden are expected to apply to join the alliance. NATO and U.S. officials have said they would be welcomed. This historic shift is an early sign of how the invasion is upending Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture.
This historic shift is an early sign of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is upending Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture and remaking world maps in ways that may be felt for decades.
In the eight decades since Finnish soldiers on skis helped beat back Soviet invaders, the country joined the E.U. in 1995 and became a close NATO partner, while still trying to engage and understand Russia. But it has never taken its eyes off the border. The focus on readiness extends to the military. Finland maintains a system of mandatory conscription for men and voluntary conscription for women. The country can muster a wartime force of 280,000 troops, as well as about 900,000 reservists.
On the island of Santahamina, within Helsinki, the army trains troops in urban warfare, running gangly conscripts through live-fire drills. Watching them on a sunny April afternoon was Ari Helenius, a battalion commander who served alongside NATO forces in Kosovo.Finnish soldiers have been working with NATO since the 1990s. Both Finland and Sweden contributed to missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Both forces are highly interoperable with NATO forces.
Helenius said the situation in Ukraine is on the minds of young conscripts. “As professional soldiers, it is our job to tell them not to be worried,” he said.
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