Finnish military reaches out to reservists, denies Russia link
HELSINKI, May 4 (Reuters) -- The Finnish military began sending letters to some 900,000 reservists on Monday in the largest campaign of its kind, amid increased tensions between the Nordic states and Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
The military said the letter campaign, which aims to improve communication with former army conscripts, was prompted mainly by cuts in the defence budget and was not a response to a more assertive Russia, with which Finland shares an 833 mile (1,340 km) land border.
But the move also comes at a time when Russian air force sorties, spy accusations and military border exercises have prompted a debate within non-aligned Finland about how to boost its security arrangements and whether it should even join NATO.
Last month, Finland and similarly neutral Sweden joined with NATO members Norway, Denmark and Iceland in an unprecedentedly hawkish joint statement that directly cited the Russian "challenge" as grounds to boost defence cooperation.
Finland, one of few countries in Europe still to have compulsory military service for men, said the plan to improve coordination with reservists pre-dated the Ukraine crisis, which erupted last year when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region.
"The aim is to update reservists about their wartime roles and assignments and to open up interaction on how their know-how has developed," said military spokesman Mika Kalliomaa.
He attributed the timing of the campaign mainly to recent defence budget cuts that had changed assignments and locations for many reservists.
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The Russian-occupied Donbass enclave in eastern Ukraine is on the verge of economic and social collapse. That grave fact casts the Russo-Ukrainian war in a different light. Normally, wars are fought over prize territory: winners gain it, losers lose it.
In this case, the implosion of the Donbass means that whoever controls the enclave is, in fact, the loser.
In this case, the implosion of the Donbass means that whoever controls the enclave is, in fact, the loser. As the man who owns the enclave and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future, Vladimir Putin is thus the loser. And both Russia and Ukraine know it.
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He knows most of these men will be on the front lines in a matter of days or weeks. As the soldiers run through their drills, Kondratenko paces back and forth with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder, shouting commands in a booming voice one would more likely expect from a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor than a civilian doctor.
Every so often he smacks a soldier’s head with his canteen. But in between his shouted commands, he frequently leans down close to his low-crawling pupils, almost whispering advice and instruction in their ears.
“I could be home relaxing, but I have to be here,” he says. “I know the things I’m teaching them will save their lives.”
Kondratenko comes across as being hard on the soldiers. But it’s a role he must play for the sake of the men’s training. Before teaching soldiers how to apply a tourniquet, he puts them through a series of physical exercises, pushing them to exhaustion. Physical exercise simulates the physiological responses to combat, and Kondratenko knows that if the soldiers ever need to use the skills he is teaching them today, they will have to do so under extreme stress.
“I make the training very hard,” Kondratenko says. “I’m tough, but the price of a mistake in combat is death. We have lost a lot of really good people, and we’re tired of burying our boys.”