FINLAND has staged Europe’s largest defence drills since World War Two as the nation readies for the horrors of future warfare.
Thousands of people, including students, were involved in the operation responding to the threat of biowarfare, nuclear fallout and missile strikes.
Finnish conscripts measure radiation levels at a shelter in Kuopio, Finland, during defence drills Credit: AP
People lay on portable beds during the civil defense exercise Credit: AP
The drill played out in a civil defence shelter hewn into rock, behind doors built to withstand nuclear or biological attack.
Eerie footage shows two Finnish conscripts dressed in hazmat suits and breathing masks measuring radiation levels.
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Their role is to turn a cave into a refuge for thousands of people.
Inside, in what is normally a sports hall, hundreds of people slept overnight on trestle beds.
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Thousands of people including students took part in the operation Credit: Reuters
People sit in a shelter, converted from what is usually a sports hall Credit: AP
In the scenario, critical infrastructure in the central Finnish city of Kuopio, including power and water, has been disrupted by cyber-attacks.
And there is the threat of missile strikes from Finland’s neighbour, Russia.
The goal is for local authorities and civilians to rehearse what they would do if they came under attack for real.
It comes as Russia ramps up its threats against the West, drawing Nato nations into a tense stand-off.
Officials have accused Moscow of setting fires, attacking water facilities and power stations, and launching drones into European airspace.
Finland’s border with Russia stretches more than 830miles from the Baltic Sea up to the Arctic Circle.
The Nato nation has been on high alert as Putin continues to wage his spiralling war in Ukraine.
In May, the country deployed fighter jets after a suspected drone entered the country’s airspace near Helsinki.
People stand at an entrance of the shelter designed to withstand chemical, nuclear and biological attacks Credit: AP
Crowds gather outside the shelte in Kuopio, Finland Credit: AP
Finland has also announced plans to ramp up its military spending.
Retired Army Colonel Asko Muhonen, who organized the exercise in Kuopio, said Finland needs to learn lessons from Ukraine.
While the biggest shelter in Kuopio can fit 7,000 people, Ukrainians sometimes only have a few minutes to flee to a subway station or underground parking lot.
That means people need a shelter they can reach easily that offers some form of protection, Muhonen added.
In 2024, along with Sweden, Finland joined Nato, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, the number of suspected cyber attacks against Finnish energy networks has significantly increased.
“Small things are happening all the time,” including Russian jamming of GPS signals, said Vuokko Lahtinen, 32, who was visiting Kuopio.
For that reason, “the best defense of Finland is to make it not worth attacking,” she said.
That relies on the country’s military and defense forces but also Finnish people who feel like “we have something we want to fight for,” she said.
It comes after Finland ripped up its long-standing atomic bombs ban in June, citing “Russian aggression”.
The bombshell order gave Helsinki a clear path to receiving and transporting atomic weapons as part of Nato operations, paving the way to deploy nukes on the Russian tyrant’s border.
Russia has previously warned it would hit back in the face of any nuclear weapons on Finnish territory.
Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov warned in March that by “placing nuclear weapons on its territory, Finland will begin to pose a threat to us”.
He added: “And if Finland threatens us, we will take appropriate measures.”
