Neighbourly Relations: Finland in Russia's Belligerent Shadow

A sports centre in Helsinki can quickly be turned into a bomb shelter to accommodate more than 6,000 people. Photograph: Pjotr Sauer/The Guardian

"I sleep much better at night knowing we have these bomb shelters. Especially now with what is happening in Ukraine." 

"These shelters can protect against practically any bombing or chemical attacks. We have water, clean air and beds that can people going for weeks."

"It was built like this on purpose, [maze-like, with different rooms, including a cafeteria and a children’s playroom]. Studies have shown that people react better to rooms that have walls, where there are boundaries that create a sense of privacy."

"It’s sad to see what is happening in Ukraine. I see the poor people hiding in the metro or in theatres. It shows again how important it is what we do."

Tomi Rask, safety instructor, Civil Defence Centre, Helsinki, Finland 

"Russia is never specifically mentioned, but it has always been understood that the country should be prepared to make the threshold for a Russian attack as high as possible."

"We had no idea at the beginning of the pandemic how bad it was going to get, what it will do to our economy. But then our prime minister came out and said that the deal [to replace its ageing combat jets with 64 F-35 planes and weapons systems in a deal worth £6.97bn.] will go ahead signalling that the country’s security is paramount."

Charly Salonius-Pasternak, security expert, Finnish Institute of International Affairs

A bomb shelter in Helsinki. Photograph: Pjotr Sauer/The Guardian

There are countless countries in the world that share long borders, some undefended, as hugely unlikely that one would ever launch any kind of violent aggression against the other, and some moderately defended against the other. For Finland, with its total 5.5 million population, the undercurrent of concern is always there that its neighbour with its population of 144 million, its huge, well-armed military that has just invaded another neighbour, all the signs are there of a potential repeat of the November 1939 Soviet invasion across its border.

On that occasion, as with this current situation with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the expectation was that the much smaller population and its military would quickly fold. In both instances, Moscow erred, hugely. The Finns made a good accounting of themselves back in 1939; well-trained soldiers, familiar with their own terrain and the additional climatic hardiness, repelled the invasion but still suffered a forced negotiation with a wartime penalty of over 300,000 casualties.

As long ago as that occasion was, the lesson has never faded from memory, with the expectation that what occurred then could recur at any time. Leading Finland to prepare itself for such needed  contingencies by implementing a full policy of "total defence", where every bridge, tunnel and overpass in the country was built complete with charge pits. In them explosives could be placed as required to slow an invader. And in addition, the innovation of turning small roads into runways.

Its bunker system is only one part of a wide-ranging policy of “total defence”, in which the whole country could be mobilised in the event of an attack. Photo via Telegraph

It is the defence of the entire population that exemplifies the full measures that Finland undertook, however. The situation somewhat akin to the tiny Jewish state of Israel committing to installing bomb bunkers for its population in an overall defence that is of more immediate need, when conflict could break out at any time between Israel and the Palestinians; a pincer movement from Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias streaming over the border from Syria.

 

Some of those huge underground bunkers built by Finland have been given a double purpose, serving as entertainment venues for the population in a practical use of bunker architecture and facilities not in immediate use as bomb bunkers. Near the centre of Helskini is a play area called the Hakaniemi Arena, with colourful slides, trampolines and tunnels, lying 25 metres below ground, hollowed out of bedrock under the city.

The cavernous space designed to withstand nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. Families with children visit the play area and make full use of its recreational facilities, regarding it as a civic infrastructure offering quality play time for children as a sport centre. A small orange and blue triangle above ground level identifies the complex as a defence shelter. A shelter that has the capacity to house up to 6,000 people.

Until it is put into use for its original purpose, rooms off to the side are closed to the public. There is where beds are stored, where air filtration systems await, along with temporary toilet facilities and similar living essentials. There are two layers of blast doors between the indoor space and the outside world; each 35 cm in thickness. One designed to stop a blast, the other to seal the atmosphere.

In the capital city alone, 5,500 bunkers exist, offering a protective place for 900,000 people. In the entire country shelter spaces offer room for 4.4 million in over 54,000 locations.Any building by law over 1,200 square metres must have provision for a shelter. The government itself  has built and maintains over 44 large public shelters in Helsinki. There are storage rooms, sports halls, swimming pools in the shelters' civilian functions which must be amenable to being stripped within 72 hours.

Civil defence instructor Tomi Rask explains that the public would be informed through television, radio, a website and a special app along with outdoor sirens, should an urgent need for the bunkers arise. Preparation for the possibility of chemical accidents and natural disasters are a risk, but while never explicitly stated in official statements, invasion by Russia with which a 1,340 km. border is shared, is the major concern.

 

Helsinki's network of tunnels can fit the city's entire population.   CNN/Karim Peltone 

 

 

Armed Dementia

"There's a lady with [a] gun. She's coming out of her house right now. Two people shot outside! Two people shot outside!"
"She's going inside, she's going inside the house now. Hopefully she's not getting more bullets, because it looks like she's going in for more bullets. She's coming back again -- apparently she has bullets now."
"Oh, she shot her again. She shot her again."
Neighbour's call to 911, Houston, Texas

"Two of the calls are from Taylor and Madison and are difficult to listen to."
"Sheriff [Troy] Nehls is meeting with Mr. Sheats to ensure he is aware we had no choice."
"We will not be posting the calls on our social media".
Fort Bend County Sheriff Office website

"Happy Daughter's Day to my two amazing, sweet, kind, beautiful, intelligent girls. I love and treasure  you both more than you could ever possibly know."
"Today I am thankful for my two perfect gifts! They are very best friends -- they make me so very proud to be their mother."
Christy Sheats, 42, Houston

Christy Sheats, a 42-year-old Texas mother, fatally shot her two daughters before she was gunned down by a responding police officer on Friday outside of the family's home in Katy, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office says. Photo: Facebook

"Please! Forgive me! Please, don't shoot!"
"Please, I'm sorry. Please
" Don't point that gun at her!"
911 call

From left: Madison and Taylor Sheats  Facebook

Madison, 17 and her sister Taylor Sheats, 22, were indeed the best friends that made their mother Christy Sheats so proud. Both young women worked in child care. Taylor was a student at Lone Star College, a talented artist. While her younger sister Madison would have been a senior at Seven Lakes High School this coming fall. Both young women were exceedingly beautiful, the typical picture of blond, blue-eyed, slender privilege emerging into adulthood from an intact family, with a comfortable future awaiting them.

That future will never arrive. Both sisters, whose physical resemblance to their equally beautiful mother, have predeceased their mother and their father. And the mother who loved her two beautiful daughters to proud distraction was the direct cause of their death. Their mother Christy, was a devoted gun owner, and knew how to find a target. The target on that day last week was her daughters.

This is a woman whose use of social media outlined her Second Amendment support amidst fears government was set to restrict her gun-owning rights.

Every time there is yet another iteration of mass killing by a shooter, be it an angry man feeling excluded from his own society, a schoolboy enraged at his lot in life as a social reject, a deranged malcontent, or an Islamist declaring !Allahu Akbar! the debate in America is renewed with passion, non-gun-lovers against gun aficionados, each declaring emotional concern for the healing of a society wedded to vigilante preparation should government become too officiously intolerable. That conversation spills across the border as a topic elsewhere in the world as well.

There had been a family consultation in the suburban Houston home of the Sheats family. Mother Sheats had been extremely upset over some perceived concerns, so her husband Jason and their daughters Madison and Taylor were all present to hear her out. At some juncture Christy Sheats drew her weapon and began using it on her daughters. As the three other family members attempted to escape her immediate proximity they ran outside.

Their mother followed, shooting one daughter in the street, though both young women had already been wounded, while still in the house. One of the daughters found destination death as she lay in the street while the second, taken to hospital, died there. After desperate 911 calls and police arrival, the mother had refused orders to surrender her weapon, and was shot dead herself.

"He felt Christy wanted him to suffer," said Sheriff Troy Nehls. "Christy knew how much he loved Taylor and Madison and how much they loved him."
The shooting reportedly happened on Jason Sheats' birthday.
Jason Sheats told police that he and his wife had been struggling with marital problems and had discussed divorce. The day of the shooting, he said his wife also got into a dispute with her eldest daughter, Taylor, reports KHOU. He said his wife wanted to ground Taylor and prevent her from seeing her fiance, whom she planned to marry Monday.
Jason Sheats told police he disagreed with his wife. He said she called a family meeting and the four had gathered in the living room. Jason Sheats told police he thought his wife would tell their daughters that the couple had decided to divorce. Instead, he said, she pulled out a gun from the couch cushions and opened fire, KHOU reports.
CBS News 

One of the countries where the issue of firearms availability and gun control is discussed is Canada, just across the border to the United States. Where a recent letter-writer to the editor explaining her position on the issue wrote from her home in British Columbia:

"I was befuddled when I read John E. Eisan's letter stating the thesis we 'share a common culture and ideology with the United States is so wrong ... Canadians do not want to own automatic rifles or ... Any kind of weapons'."
"He is wrong. I want to own both and I am a 60-year-old highly educated grandmother. This country is so vast, that should any attack on my person occur, again, I know the RCMP will get around to collecting my dead body and related evidence. They can't ensure my safety."
"Further, if or when North America is attacked again, people who are armed can defend themselves. (I was laughed at before 9/11 when I insisted on the value of a strong defence." Eisan obviously does not appreciate the right to bear arms in America. However, should an invasion occur, or a government resort to tyranny, the American people can form militias and fight back. Canadians are sitting ducks."
Linda Keays, Nanaimo, B.C.