Summary
Finland, recently joining NATO and sharing an 830-mile border with Russia, is bolstering its national defense amid concerns over Russia’s aggression, particularly after the invasion of Ukraine.
Weapons training and reservist activities have surged, with shooting range memberships doubling and over 120,000 defense training days held this year.
The government plans to build 300+ new shooting ranges and maintain Cold War-era shelters for 85% of its population.
Drawing on its history of resisting Russian forces, Finland is preparing civilians and military reservists for potential threats.
A joke:
Its the winter war and a Soviet transport convoy is slowly trudging through Finnish wilderness, and the Soviet commanding officer hears a voice from the woods.
“Hey… I bet one Finnish soldier can beat one Soviet soldier”
The commander confused at the direction the voice is coming from sends a guy into the forest to check it out (Insert the sounds of gunshots and fighting before silence returns).
The voice comes back
“Hey… I bet one Finnish soldier can beat ten Soviet soldiers”
The commander, now irritated, sends a large squad of soldiers to deal with the voice (Insert the sounds of gunshots and fighting before silence returns again).
The voice comes back a third time.
“Hey… I bet one Finnish soldier can beat one hundred Soviet soldiers!”
This time the Soviet commander is entirely done with this shit and tells every soldier in the convoy to get out of their transports and hunt down the voice. The sounds of pitch battle begin again, but after a while one of the Soviet soldiers runs back to the commander shouting “No! Its a trap! There is two of them!”.