# The Baltics and Russia



## Kirkhill (22 May 2015)

Sweden engaged in Multinational Exercises in Sweden..... This is new.  Link



> B-52 Bombers to Exercise Over Sweden
> 
> (Source: Radio Sweden; published May 20, 2015)
> 
> ...



Meanwhile Finland is Updating their Call-Out  procedures. Link

900,000 letters sent out to secure 253,000 reservists at notice to move....



> UUTISET
> NEWS
> News 9.4.2015 19:11 | updated 9.4.2015 20:01
> Defence Minister: Call up letters unrelated to Ukraine crisis
> ...





> The Finnish military has begun sending letters to some 900,000 reservists amid increased tensions between the Nordic states and Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
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> Russia and Finland share a 1,340-kilometer land border.
> 
> ...



Link

Things heating up - aerial near misses, submarine contacts and depth charging in Swedish and Finnish waters.....


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## The Bread Guy (22 May 2015)

Funny you should post this - I just spotted this this week, shared under the Fair Dealing provisions of the _Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)_ ....


> Thousands of ordinary civilians, including doctors, carpenters and teachers, are flocking to join volunteer paramilitary groups in several European countries, with some doubling in size since the start of the Ukraine crisis, Newsweek has discovered.
> 
> In Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden and Poland, volunteer defence leagues, many of whom train with real weapons and would be called upon to support the army in the event of a conflict, are seeing record numbers of ordinary civilians joining up.
> 
> ...



More on the Lithuanian Rifleman's Union (usual Wikipedia caveats) here, and the Estonian Defence League here.


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## pbi (27 May 2015)

While I'm  not a sabre-rattler, I think that unfortunately this display of determination is what Russians understand best. Along with these military measures, I would include the maintenance of full diplomatic engagement with Russia, and the establishment of international monitoring of the status of Russian ethnic minorities in the Baltics. We must make sure that Russia is denied any premise to invoke "fraternal rescue" as it did in the Ukraine, by having full visibility of how these minorities are treated (Quite well, I'm certain, but that isn't my point). Russia must not be able to use the "plight" of these groups as a Trojan Horse.


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## The Bread Guy (28 May 2015)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> Funny you should post this - I just spotted this this week, shared under the Fair Dealing provisions of the _Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)_ ....


And here's part of an Estonian defence think tank's take on the Newsweek article ....


> .... First, the basic hard fact is that the Finnish Defense Forces are right now in the process of sending a letter to each reservist between the ages of 20 and 60, a total of around 900,000 individuals. The strength of the Finnish field army today, if fully mobilized, is 230,000 soldiers, but there are about 900,000 Finnish citizens who have received military training through compulsory military conscription. Planning for sending the letters was started some years ago, and as such does not reflect the current tense political and military situation in Europe caused by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the on-going Russian military intervention in Ukraine. According to Finnish Defense Forces press spokesman, Colonel Mika Kalliomaa, planning for sending the letters was initiated as early as in 2010, while the final decision on their contents and timing was made in 2013.
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> Second, while it is true that this is the first time all reservists are getting this kind of a letter, this is by no means the first time that letters are being sent to reservists. For example, call-up letters are sent routinely to reservists when their designated war-time units are mobilized for peace-time refresher training exercises. For financial reasons, such exercises were relatively small in scale and few in number from 2011 to 2014, but this year they will be expanded, with some 18, 000 reservists to be called up for training and exercises.
> 
> ...


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