Russia's neighbors are nervous

Instapundit links to a story in the Telegraph by Nick Squires:

Finland has sent letters to nearly a million military reservists, setting out their roles “in the event of war” amid rising tension with neighboring Russia.

The letters have been dispatched to 900,000 former conscripts in the armed forces, including to Finns living abroad.

...Finland is not a member of Nato and the country shares an 830-mile border with Russia – the longest of any European nation apart from Ukraine.

One Finnish reservist, who received the letter, said: “The timing was not random. It is clearly due to a more aggressive stance by the Russians. I’ve been in the reserves for 15 years and this is the first time I’ve received something like this. They send out letters like this very rarely.”

Finland’s army has 16,000 soldiers, but it could expand to 285,000 if reserves were to be called up.

In recent months, Russian warplanes have frequently probed Finnish air defences. In April, the Finnish navy resorted to depth-charging a suspected submarine that was detected near the capital, Helsinki.

Neighboring countries are also on a heightened state of alert. Last October, Sweden carried out its biggest military mobilization since the Cold War to hunt for a mysterious submarine sighted near Stockholm.

... On Thursday, David Cameron joined EU leaders for a summit with six former Soviet states in Riga, the Latvian capital.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said the EU’s Eastern Partnership was not “directed against anyone”. But the two-day summit will inevitably discuss the military threat posed by Russia, not just to Ukraine but, potentially, to the Baltic states, which are Nato members.

Read more here.