Finland's defence posture has changed since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, but there are key differences between the Finns' defence plans and those of their Baltic neighbours to the south.
The city centre of Lappeenranta lies only 20 kilometres from Finland's southeastern border with Russia. By car, that journey only takes about 20 minutes, placing the city in a potentially vulnerable position if Finland were to face a military threat from the east.
While the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are building a chain of fortifications along their eastern borders to repel any possible Russian military incursion, Finland has no such plans to militarily reinforce its eastern border.
In Lappeenranta, people are relaxed about that plan.
"Yes, a frontline would form quite quickly if such a situation arose. The Finnish Defence Forces has also made agreements with landowners that fortifications could be built during peacetime," said Ari-Pekka Meuronen, the City of Lappeenranta's head of security and risk management.
Lappeenranta updated its contingency plans after Russia invaded Ukraine, but there are currently no indications of an immediate threat.
Evacuation plans have been discussed in recent times, and the Ministry of the Interior published new instructions in January. Updates to the plans are now being made in different parts of Finland.
"We have recently gone through the evacuation plans in detail. They have been refined and made more detailed," Meuronen said, adding that evacuation plans used to be broader in scope but they have now been updated at the level of villages and city districts.
Russia has hit power plants and electricity grids in Ukraine, a scenario for which Lappeenranta has made preliminary preparations.
"We have purchased large and small backup power plants and placed them in different parts of the city," Meuronen told Yle.
Baltics bolstering borders
Defence strategy and possible evacuations have been hot topics elsewhere on the EU's eastern border, as military defence is becoming an increasingly visible part of EU policy.
The EU has set up a European Defence Fund to support joint defence industrial projects between member states. Proposals for a new defence commissioner post at the EU have also gained traction.
The incoming European Parliament, to be elected in June, will have to make more decisions on EU defence policy.
In the Baltics, preparations aimed at thwarting any potential military attack are under way by building a chain of fortifications on the eastern border — the Baltic Defence Line. The idea is to stop the enemy immediately at the border and not to let them go deeper into the country.
"This will give time to evacuate the civilian population and get allied reinforcements on the ground," explained Lukas Milevski, an associate professor of military policy at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Poland also recently announced a major 2.5 billion euro programme for eastern border security, including the construction of fortifications on its eastern border with Belarus.
The importance of the EU's eastern border security was also underlined by the recent visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Imatra on Finland's southeastern border.
Finland's defence preparedness
Finland's defensive strategy does not seek to stop the enemy in a fixed line immediately on the border. Instead, it would allow invading forces deeper into the country with a view to Finnish forces responding with a strategy of manoeuvre warfare, which focuses on being able to counterattack with rapid movements.
"The Finnish thinking has been to allow the enemy to advance a little inwards and then beat them back," military policy expert Lieutenant Colonel Juhani Pihlajamaa summarised.
In practice, this means that the defence must have depth and terrain on Finland's eastern border where defensive battles would be fought.
Finland's geography of dense forests is also better suited for this strategy than the relatively flat plains of the Baltics.
Separately, an unidentified aircraft was spotted flying along the Finnish-Russian border on the Russian side by the online flight monitoring service Flightradar24 on Thursday afternoon. The flight service showed the route of the plane, taking off and landing at a St Petersburg airport, but was not able to determine whether the plane was private or state-owned.
