HATTULA, Finland: Just days after Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb 24, Finnish entrepreneur Sissi Moberg found herself scouring the Internet for courses that could teach her skills to help defend Finland in case of a military attack.
“I felt very sad for the Ukrainians. And then I started to worry about Finland and thinking what could I do about this,” the 46-year-old mother-of-four told Reuters.
Within weeks, Moberg was on a course intended for reservists and learning how to use a gun and move on a battlefield.
The war in Ukraine has caused great alarm in Finland, which shares a 1,300km border with Russia and during World War II fought two wars against the Soviet Union which cost it a tenth of its territory. About 100,000 Finns were killed.
Spurred on by the invasion, Finland broke with decades of domestic defence and security policy last month when it applied for membership in the NATO military alliance.
Finland’s Women’s National Emergency Preparedness Association said demand for their courses had shot up since February.
“Right after the war broke out, our phones started ringing and emails were flying in … and of course the demand for training went up,” said Suvi Aksela, the association’s head of communications.
The trend is in keeping with Finland’s long tradition of wartime volunteering among women who, in contrast to men, are not required to do military service.
Around 19 per cent of Finland’s 13,000 professional military personnel are women, according to data from the military, although only 1-2 per cent of conscripts are female.
SURVIVAL TRAINING
Last week, Moberg was back for more, this time on a survival training course organised by the Women’s Preparedness Association at a military base in Hattula, 100 km from Helsinki.
For three days, she and more than 300 other women learned how to set up camp, light a fire in the rain, navigate in the forest and do first aid.
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