On Saturday, 116 people applied to resign from the Finnish Defence Forces military reserve, the Civilian Service Centre told Finnish News Agency STT.
On Friday, 293 people filed resignations from the reserves. The Civilian Service Centre said that the number is the highest in history for a single day.
The surge follows comments by Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (NCP) suggesting that he would seek legal means to prevent people from leaving the Defence Forces reserve.
Häkkänen referred to the resigning reservists as "unpatriotic" last week.
Mikko Reijonen, the Civilian Service Center's director, previously told STT that during the entire month of January, there were only 255 applications to transfer from the military reserve to civilian service.
People transfer to the reserve after completing their military service in Finland. The reserve numbers around 900,000 people in total, helping the defence forces reach a wartime strength of around 280,000.
EDIT 5.2.2024 The headline and body text were edited to emphasise the reserve resignations.
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