As several observers on Twitter already have noted, while Finland doesn’t directly shout “We’re raising the readiness!” there’s certainly been a flurry of the – as usual rather low-key – messaging to that effect from the Finnish Defence Forces. However, the messages are opaque enough that they do require a bit of attention to detail to figure out what’s really going on.

Like in this case with the Army Academy and Karelia Brigade going out on exercise. Now, note that the Army Academy (Fi. Maasotakoulu) isn’t exactly loaded with conscripts, so these aren’t the much hyped (and with good reason) Valmiusyksiköt (Readiness units, abbreviated VYKS) made up of long-serving conscripts, but rather the Valmiusosastot (Readiness detachments, VOS) staffed by professionals. You’d be forgiven for not realising that tiny detail, but it certainly is interesting that the Karelia Brigade has not sent out it’s VYKS in the field, but rather the VOS, as confirmed by a second tweet.

A benefit of using professionals is obviously that it is possible to train more, including with other authorities where ROEs and command chains can quickly get a bit complicated. The tweets published by the brigade on Twitter does make it sound like the Police decided to crack down on a criminal gang, realised the weapons stash was something too hot for them to handle, and decided to hand over tactical command to the FDF. I will say that I struggle to remember any similar scenario in real life. Sure the FDF has assisted with e.g. providing transports in the form of helicopters or APCs, or a combat engineer or two to defuse some explosives, but I don’t think the scenario description above quite fit that of taking down your local drug dealing network.

Another unit that seemingly out of the blue decided that it was a good idea to train cooperation with other authorities is the Guard’s Jaeger Regiment in Helsinki, the premier MOUT-unit (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) in the Finnish Defence Forces. They even sent out a presser, around 300 soldiers will be running around in different parts of the greater Helsinki-region practicing a number of different mission sets, supported by APCs and including air operations in some scenarios. The regiment states that the operation is part of the normal training plan, but to be honest it is quite difficult to pinpoint which unit would be running this kind of exercise at this time of the year. Charly Salonius-Pasternak speculate that it might be reservists called up, which certainly would fit with the stated training goals, as well as being a clear indication that the current international situation has not come as a surprise to the Finnish Defence Forces, as the normal call-up time for these kinds of units measure in months rather than days or weeks.

And then we have the flag officers.

Rear Admiral Harju already last week decided to tweet out a nice little image of one of the mineships at sea, noting that the current ice conditions – which have been on the more severe side during the early parts of this winter – doesn’t stop the Navy from doing their mission.

Which include the ability to drop a bunch of mines in some suitable sea-lane should that be called upon, I assume.

Brigadier General Keränen of the Finnish Air Force in turn spotted a quite sizeable detachment of the NH90 helicopters operated by the army aviation, sorting under the Finnish special forces unit in Utti. Apparently he didn’t know why they had decided to visit Tampere-Pirkkala air base, but still decided to take a picture of them and post it on social media.

To be honest, I’m not sure he’s telling us everything he knows.

Coupled with the decision by the Finnish Chief of Defence and Assistant Chief of Staff – Operations (J3) last week to give rather in-depth interviews to the public broadcaster YLE and the Finnish paper of record Helsingin Sanomat respectively, it seems evident that while the Finnish Defence Forces is sticking to the decision not to publish their state of readiness directly, they have opted to take a more open line compared to what has been the case in some other situations. Crucially, while the general public might not pick up on the details, there is little doubt that the potential adversary will be able to pick up on everything they need to know.

A key takeaway, however, is once again how differently the Swedish and Finnish Defence Forces communicate. At a time when both forces integrate deeper and deeper with each other with the aim of being able to perform joint operations in peace or war, this sticks out and is evidently an area that also will need to be the focus of exercises at the bilateral level. Luckily, as these kinds of strategic decisions are taken rather high up in the chain of command, they should be quite cheap to practice as the number of people and equipment involved is rather small.