The camo-clad attackers swarm through the dense Finnish forest, rifles cocked. A frontline order is quickly given to call in an artillery strike, and then pandemonium breaks out in this wooded area close to the Russian border.
Volleys of gunshots ring out from the left and right, causing a fog that makes the endless view of vertical tree trunks appear even more impenetrable. Curses and shouts intensify as the casualties mount.
The scene is a war game, like dozens of others playing out every month, taking place this spring between conscripts for Finland’s Border Guards.
It ends in whoops and hearty claps on the back for the side that outflanked the defenders, performing better than on the first exercise when they forgot to call in the artillery and were spotted by enemy drones.
“In Finland, defending your country is a really important value,” says Milja Sandhu, a rare female conscript. “Everyone has requested to be here and motivation is really high. It might be more realistic in times like these.”
Her platoon companion, Kasperi Luoto, describes it as “a calling”. “Finland has a really strong willingness to protect itself,” he says. “The war in Europe has changed the way people want to serve.”
Asked how the exercise has gone, he looks sheepish: “You get a little excited and run into enemy fire.”
‘Not if, but when’
The subtext of this war game is deadly serious. Finland’s entry into Nato in 2023 more than doubled the defence alliance’s border with Russia to almost 2,600km, stretching from the Arctic down to Belarus.
While Moscow is currently tied up with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many along this frontier expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to one day turn his attention to Nato’s eastern flank. The Russian economy is already geared towards conflict and Putin’s imperialist ambitions may mean it goes on to look for conquest elsewhere.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte warned last month that Moscow could be ready to use force against the alliance “within five years”. “Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the eastern flank now,” Rutte said in a speech. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russia was planning “new military operations on Nato territory” in an address to the alliance’s summit last week.
While US President Donald Trump reassured allies he was “with them all the way” on arrival at the summit, he had spooked European capitals hours before with a suggestion that the military alliance’s mutual defence pact, known as Article 5, was open to interpretation.
His presidency has raised questions about how strong and long-lasting the American security guarantee will be, placing Europe’s defence capabilities under the microscope in a way not seen in decades.
Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary-general from 2009 until 2014, suggests that Putin will gain confidence and an “appetite for even more territory” if he is allowed success in Ukraine. “He will put pressure on the Baltic states . . . And when an American president publicly raises doubt about his commitment to Article 5 it might tempt Putin to test the resolve of Nato.”
Moscow is already taking steps to increase its regional presence. Satellite imagery shows increased activity at Russian bases close to Nato’s eastern flank — including the airfields of Levashovo, Kamenka and Olenya, the target of Ukrainian drone attacks.
New storage buildings have appeared at Petrozavodsk, about 175km from Finland’s border, while areas have been cleared and new tarmac laid for aircraft at the once retired airbase of Severomorsk-1, about 120km east of Norway.
New construction can be seen at Russia’s Severomorsk-1 and Petrozavodsk bases
While Rutte says Nato does not expect any Russian offensive in the near term, Lieutenant General Kari Nisula, deputy chief of staff of Finland’s defence forces, is not going to worry about the timing of such an act of aggression: “In hundreds of years of history, it’s not if but when. I have to be ready every day.”
Many of the eastern European Nato countries are rushing to increase their defence spending to fill gaps in military capabilities under the pressure of both Russia and Trump.
Nato allies reaffirmed their “ironclad commitment to collective defence” at the alliance’s summit as well as agreeing to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP over the next decade, although there is some flexibility regarding how much will be committed to frontline defence. Spain secured a controversial opt-out by promising to meet the Nato capabilities goal at a lower cost.
But some question whether the extra investment will come quickly enough.
“We all want to deter Russia, by showing strength, by boosting our capabilities. But on the other side, there will be a calculation from Putin at some point as to whether he thinks he can win. We have to make sure he doesn’t miscalculate,” says one regional intelligence official.
Military experts say Moscow’s interest in border states is different to how it views Ukraine. Rather than a full-scale invasion, Putin will likely test whether Nato would or could respond.
“For Russia, the strategic goal would be to break Nato; it’s not about acquiring a bit of land in the Baltics or elsewhere,” says Kristi Raik, director of the International Centre for Defence and Security in Estonia.
Nordic determination
At the northernmost point of the eastern flank sits Norway. Sharing a 200km border with Russia, it is typical of the European countries bulking up their military.
The government plans to expand from one army brigade to three by 2032, with two stationed in the north.
Its land forces in the border region of Finnmark — where many road signs are in Norwegian and Russian — will be supplemented by air defence weapons, an artillery and light infantry battalion, an intelligence company, and a dedicated rapid reaction force. Elsewhere in northern Norway, a new heavy infantry brigade will be set up.
Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s prime minister, says that although there is no immediate threat all frontline countries are aware that Russia plans to re-establish its separate Moscow and Leningrad military districts, which had been merged in 2010. It’s a move western intelligence officials have said is likely to double the number of Russian troops facing the region from pre-Ukraine invasion levels.
“Norway is a threat to nobody, but it’s our responsibility to see to it that nobody will come up with the idea of threatening us,” Støre says.
Few think a Russian attack on Nato would begin with the frigid north of mainland Norway. But there are concerns about a small test on the demilitarised Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, which is Norwegian territory but also home to a Russian settlement.
“Svalbard has to be near the top of a list on where Russia might try something,” says one European intelligence official. But Støre is unequivocal: “Svalbard is as much Norway as Oslo or Stavanger or Hardangervidda.”
Finland, Norway’s neighbour in the far north, knows the pain of giving up territory to Moscow.
Despite holding its own against the Soviet Union in the 1939-40 Winter War, Finland lost about 10 per cent of its landmass during the second world war — including the birthplace of the father of Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb. “It’s part of our identity,” Stubb says of that war and the resulting decades under Moscow’s influence.
Finland then spent the next 80 years steadily preparing once more for a potential invasion from the east.
“We’re very calm about things,” he adds. “It starts with having your own house in order. And I feel we have it. But we need to continue improving it all the time.”
Finns are braced for an increase in Russian troops and equipment along the border, but think it will take years after the end of the Ukraine war for them to get back to full strength.
The government has been strengthening barriers and other physical defences in a number of places, including enhanced patrols and surveillance.
Satellite and government imagery shows new fencing at two of Finland’s border crossings
Led by neighbouring Sweden, Nato land forces are to be based in the sparsely populated northern region of Lapland and will include troops from Denmark, France, Iceland, Norway and the UK.
Finland has also kept conscription in place, and less than 10 per cent of its wartime strength of 280,000 troops would be professional. In all, it has almost 900,000 reservists it could call on, out of a population of just 5.6mn. Surveys show more than 80 per cent of Finns are ready to fight, one of the highest levels in the world.
“We have never stopped preparing for having sufficient defence capabilities against invasion and full-scale attack. It’s a mindset,” says Finland’s General Nisula.
He adds that the war in Ukraine has shown that “mass” — the sheer number of troops — is still highly important to have in the first world war-style trench warfare that has characterised the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, alongside the widespread use of drones.
Finland’s border with Russia may be long, at 1,340km, but it is also sparsely populated and often in difficult terrain.
Matti Pitkäniitty, commander for the Border Guards of the North Karelia district, patrols it by Lake Korpijärvi in the eastern region of Joensuu alongside his officers and a dog. Unlike most European border guards, those in Finland are a military organisation and can engage the enemy immediately with rifles and anti-tank weapons.
“We are the eyes and the ears at the border,” says Pitkäniitty. “That is why we are here as a first line of defence.”
Nato’s new motto is to defend its territory from the first centimetre. But it is clear that in Finland temporarily ceding ground would be part of any defence plan.
“You entice the enemy to move into territory you have prepared. Let nature do some of the work,” says Charly Salonius-Pasternak, chief executive at think-tank Nordic West Office. “In central Finland, there is lots of forest; in the north, there are bogs and marshland and in the far north it is very cold. We will rely on nature more than the Ukrainian or German steppes.”
Another difference to Ukraine is that Finland would evacuate civilians — particularly in its more populated south east — away from the border to avoid them being targeted. Finnish forces would also destroy roads and bridges close to its border.
The country is also helped by its formidable commitment to societal preparedness.
Jarmo Lindberg, the former chief of defence and now an MP, says the Nordic country has reserves of all types of fuel and lubrication to last six months, enough grain for almost nine months, and contracts with a range of local companies to convert their production lines to wartime provision if required.
“All our operational centres have 30 metres of granite on top of them,” he says. “Russia can drop a nuclear bomb, and you would notice it but survive. We have bomb shelters for 4.4mn people. All our fighter jets are under 30m of granite too.”
Finland is also one of the few European countries to have long-range missiles in all three domains of air, sea, and land. Striking Moscow’s assets in Russia during any invasion — as Ukraine has shown great improvisation to do — is a key part of the Finnish defence strategy.
Ultimately, this all leads Finland to feel relatively relaxed. Few Finns think that Russia would choose its frontier as the location for its first test of Nato resolve — but they are prepared if it does.
“I must say that given that I'm probably the only person in Finland who has every piece of the puzzle, I sleep very well at night. I'm not worried,” says Stubb.
Finns also strongly believe that their strategic position — spanning ground from the Arctic right up to the Baltic Sea — means that the US cannot afford to abandon them. Trump has made it clear he sees the Arctic as crucial to US security.
“It’s existential,” Lindberg says. “Half of Nato’s border with Russia is Finland. There would be a bigger problem if the US did not respond.”
Baltic vulnerability
It is a different matter in the three Baltic states. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are seen as the most vulnerable region to a potential Russian attack.
Partly, that is a question of history and their illegal annexation by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. But it is mostly because of their small size and isolated setting.
It is only about 200km from the Russian border to the Baltic Sea, making a Finnish-style tactical retreat and bringing in reinforcements tricky. Then there is the 100km-long Suwalki Gap, which links Lithuania to Poland but is sandwiched between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the west and Belarus to the east.
“Unfortunately, we are not so strategically deep as Ukraine, and this is a problem,” says Gitanas Nausėda, Lithuania’s president, explaining the differing geographies. “So we are talking about defending our territory for a certain period and then expect that reinforcement will come.”
Being in Nato for the past 20 years means that the Baltics feel safer than they have for a long time. “We are more secure than we have been for centuries because we have allies, because we have Article 5,” says one senior Baltic official.
Nato’s increasing presence in the Baltics can be seen at Nato’s large Pabradė training ground, close to the Russian border in Lithuania, with satellite imagery showing new structures built between 2022-25 and higher levels of activity.
The Baltics and Poland have also seen the direction the wind is blowing on military spending more clearly than others and are set to hit Trump’s target of 5 per cent next year. Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence, recently called all four countries “model allies”.
At the same time the mood in the Baltics is palpably tenser than it has been previously, less due to Russia’s behaviour and more to Trump’s — in particular his humiliation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in February.
This confrontation “really shook people”, says ICDS’s Raik. “We can’t necessarily rely on the US any more. The anxiety is high.”
Lithuania’s Nausėda says that the Baltics need to have a plan a, b, and c as questions swirl about the US commitment to Europe. A senior Baltic official is blunter: “The Americans are leaving. We all have to wake up to that and deal with it.”
Another difference to Finland is that the Baltics have big cities close to Russia. Narva in Estonia sits right on the border, with rival fortresses facing each other across a river. Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, is just 30km from the border of Belarus, widely viewed as a vassal state for Moscow.
Nato’s former defence plan for the Baltics was to let Russia invade and then repel them later with the help of reinforcements from Germany and Poland. The destruction and mass killings in Ukrainian towns such as Bucha and Mariupol has made that impossible to countenance.
The Baltics and Poland to their south are all busy reinforcing their borders with Russia and Belarus. The Baltic Defence Line, now under construction, consists of border fences, bunkers and dragon’s teeth — concrete blocks designed to stop tanks.
These obstacles are clearly visible in satellite images of several bridges in Sovetsk, Lithuania, connecting the country to Kaliningrad. Imagery also reveals neighbouring country Latvia has been clearing sections of its border with Belarus.
Satellite imagery reveals new border defences in Lithuania and Latvia
As well as physical defences, Latvia has suggested a drone wall could protect Nato’s entire border with Russia.
“We are showing that we are able to do a lot ourselves,” says Evika Siliņa, Latvia’s prime minister.
Kristen Michal, her Estonian counterpart, says that his country will have about 600 bunkers and storage points: “We shouldn’t be afraid; we should be prepared.”
Estonian border defences
But cross-border cooperation is also taking effect. Multinational battalions have been placed in each of the Baltic states and Poland, with Germany upgrading its presence in Lithuania in the coming years to a full brigade of about 5,000 soldiers — about seven times its current number in the country. The idea is that foreign troops from the likes of the US, UK, France and Canada would also be involved from the start of any conflict.
Each Baltic country is boosting its own military capabilities too: Lithuania wants to have a national division of 17,500 troops by 2030; Estonia has a wartime strength of about 43,000 troops; Latvia has reintroduced conscription. All three countries are also working together to develop joint mass evacuation plans.
Like Norway, terrain will also play an important part in the wider Baltic region. Estonia’s border with Russia includes a river, Europe’s fourth-largest lake, and swamps in its south-east. There are swamps in Latvia and Lithuania too, even if the border is more open.
“We know our strengths . . . We need to have more self-belief,” says Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defence minister.
Eastern shield
Poland’s proximity to the war in Ukraine and its long border with Belarus make it a key bulwark against any future Russian aggression.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been one of the loudest advocates of increased military funding by EU member states and his country is currently proportionally the largest defence spender among Nato allies.
Tusk, who last month survived a vote of confidence in his leadership, has proposed more than doubling the country’s army to 500,000 troops and establishing a system of military training for all adult men by the end of the year.
Along with the Baltic nations, Warsaw has also been buying long-range missiles capable of striking targets inside Russia.
“It’s much easier to destroy the nest than kill the birds in the air,” says Estonia’s defence minister Pevkur.
The effects of living over the border from a live conflict can be seen at the Belarusian Luninets air base, close to the Ukrainian border but also about 200km from both Poland and Lithuania. Satellite imagery shows new structures, protective bays for aircraft and additional military equipment appearing within the last few years.
Poland is also fortifying its borders. It has already built a 5.5-metre high steel fence along 186 kilometres of its boundary with Belarus — originally in response to the “hybrid war” that it accused Belarus and Russia of launching in 2021 by encouraging illegal migrants to cross into Poland.
More recently, Warsaw has been reinforcing these defences by installing night vision and thermal cameras and building a new road to help patrol the frontier.
But Poland’s most ambitious border protection project is the so-called East Shield, which involves a mix of air defence systems and ground infrastructure, ranging from anti-tank ditches to hedgehog obstacles and mined soil.
Kusti Salm, a former Estonian high-ranking defence official who now runs an anti-drone start-up, says research suggests that it takes 10 artillery shells to kill one soldier in the open, but 300 in a bunker.
Poland’s East Shield
Last year, Tusk’s government earmarked 10bn zlotys (€2.3bn) for the East Shield, but the prime minister later convinced Brussels to include the project among European defence priorities, granting it access to EU funding. He has described the shield as an “investment in peace”.
Along with the Baltics, Poland has also renounced an international treaty banning landmines, giving all four countries the freedom to place them at their border if required.
While the Suwalki Gap, which connects Poland to Lithuania, may be a vulnerability, Baltic officials believe Nato could put pressure on Kaliningrad in case of any attack, such as a potential blockade of the Baltic Sea.
But the big unknown for the whole of Europe is how Putin rates his chances.
The Russian president last month dismissed suggestions that Moscow was a growing threat as “nonsense” and said that Europe’s increased military spending was “irrational and pointless”.
But any failure to respond robustly to future aggression from Moscow would signal the end of the alliance, says the ICDS’s Raik. Much may therefore depend on whether Putin feels emboldened by the outcome of his war in Ukraine.
“If the US imposes a bad peace on Ukraine, Russia would feel vindicated and the risk to our security would increase,” she says, adding that it boils down to one fundamental question.
“How does Russia assess the readiness of Nato to respond collectively?”
Sources: Key European bases and defences as reported by each country’s ministry of defence. Nato bases according to the alliance’s deterrence and defence map. Russian and Belarusian bases mapped by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.
Comment guidelines