A year and a half ago, Europeans confidently said: “NATO will protect us from Russia!“. Today, the mood is less optimistic because the invasion no longer seems so unrealistic, and the Alliance has shown that rapid action is not its trump card. While the NATO leadership revises the strategy, the people are preparing to defend themselves.
Under attack
For several decades, the most likely countries for Russian military intervention, apart from Ukraine, were and remain Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland.
The military leadership had a clear plan for any of these situations, and in principle, it had the following common features:
– not to provoke Russia with preventive measures, therefore start acting only after Russia intervenes and occupies certain territories;
– de-occupy the seized quickly.
NATO is changing its strategy
However, the events in Ukraine showed that Russia’s main strategy when seizing the lands of other countries is to terrorize the local civilian population. Torture, murder, abuse, rape, etc. became a terrible routine.
After the de-occupation of Bucha and Irpin, the heads of many countries saw this with their own eyes, so NATO’s strategy began to change rapidly. Instead of de-occupying what has already been captured, the primary goal now is to prevent occupation.
Help yourself
While the military leadership is thinking about how to protect the population, people are not waiting, but are already preparing for the worst options. Polish women showed an example of this. In Poland, over 6,500 women have taken a self-defense course through a large-scale project called “Women’s self-defense – trust the army.”
The approach was serious: training was conducted by military instructors who honed self-defense techniques for those interested. It was noted that women took a very responsible approach to training because they understand that in the worst case, these skills will really be needed, and they must be brought to automaticity in order to work in an extreme situation.
Poland’s experience is already being adopted by Finland, and Latvia and Lithuania are planning similar events for next year. The number of people willing to undergo such training is constantly increasing. It indicates the transition of society from tension to a new stage of active preparation for possible threats.
