Vantage Point North

Latest news is that Russia will expand both of the remaining motorized rifle brigades of the 58th Combined Arms Army into full strength divisions. This would mean that the army would have three full divisions of mechanized forces with heavy artillery and missile support. At the same time when the brigades are being upgraded, “Other units of the 58th Army” will be moved from their traditional posts in the Northern Caucasus further into west.

There is no schedule for the transition, but as Chechnya is relatively calm under the iron grip of Kremlins pet attack dog Kadyrov, the already full strength 42nd Motorized Rifle Division, that was expanded in 2016, could begin its relocation at a moments notice.
Not that long ago the Russian armed forces transited largely to a brigade structure, very similar to that of the western armies. Next iteration of this concept were the Battalion Tactical Groups that are agile independent units, with integral indirect fire components and high operational …

The social stability in Finland had steadily deteriorated as the newly independent nation lacked both police and military forces and the Russian army still had a strong presence within the Finnish borders. Both socialists and conservatives had begun to build their own security forces during the previous summer.
To solve the situation, that had already escalated into sporadic violence and acts of terror, the Finnish Senate, with a mandate from the elected Parliament, declared in 25th of January1918 that the Civil Guards would become the Senates army under the command of the General Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a 30 year veteran of the Imperial Russian Army. The Reds immediately refused to obey the order to stand down their military forces. The Civil Guards began to disarm the Russian garrisons and used the captured weaponry to arm their forces.
During the 27th of January 1918 the Red Guards issued a full-scale mobilization within the areas they controlled and declared that they were st…

Written by quest author Henri Hautamäki For the past few days, there has been a lot of media attention in Finland towards two giant pandas, which were airlifted from China and brought to the Ähtäri zoo in the central part of the country, following a deal in which they were loaned there for fifteen years. During the discussion rising from this “news spectacle”, a friend of mine decided to write in her blog about these animals, both from the perspective of animal rights, and the panda-deal’s political ramifications. You see, pandas have been rather important for the People’s Republic of China, namely as tools of their foreign policy and public image. Considering that many of the recent Chinese activities globally are rather less cute than their precious pandas, I decided to write a little bit about what they have been up to, for those who are not aware of it. As many people have probably realized, during the last fifteen years or so, China is increasingly aiming to become the single most…

Sweden is preparing for a parliamentary election next fall. Security, both internal and external, will be a major issue that all parties must confront. Situation in the Baltic-Sea region is getting tenser by the day and there are serious security issues within the troubled immigrant neighborhoods of the Swedish cities.
As the nation’s political elite, diplomats and military leaders gathered to a ski resort in Sälen to their traditional foreign and defense policy seminar, the leading opposition party, the Moderates, stated that their goal is a Sweden that is a NATO member. The party leader Ulf Kristersson is confident that the now ruling social democrats will change their minds and that Sweden will be a NATO member within the next decade.
Kristersson’s comments sparked a furious response from the Swedish defense minister Peter Hultqvist. According to Hultqvist the Social Democrats will maintain the traditional neutrality and co-operation and remain outside of alliances. How this policy w…

The light weight tracked IFV:s of the BMD-series have been the mainstay of the Russian airborne forces, the VDV, for decades. Several new BMD-variants are currently under development. But the vehicle that is going to be introduced to service first is breaking the pattern.

The K-4386 Typhoon-VDV is a wheeled 4x4 armored car, that can be armed with a variety of weapon systems. The base model is a formidable IFV that will have a remote-controlled turret with a 30 mm 2A42 automatic cannon and a coaxial 7.62mm PKT machine gun. But what really sets the VDV variant apart from most of the other MRAP:s is its ability to be parachuted from Russian transport aircraft.
The Typhoon “family” of Russian mine resistant vehicles has been adopted by the various military branches and security services in Russia. The vehicles are manufactured by both KamAZ and Ural factories. Their external appearances vary from a truck-like KamAZ-63968 6x6 to a typical 6x6 MRAP looking KamAZ-63969.
Despite the visual di…

As a celebration of the #Finland100 I decided to write about a small but personal piece of Finnish history. A few years ago my mother asked me to find out what exactly happened to her uncle Sulo, who had disappeared during the Second World War. She knew that it had happened at the end of the Winter War in 1940, but nothing else. She gave me his full name, rough time of birth and a copy of his last letter. In that letter he wrote that he had just arrived as fresh reinforcement to a new unit.



Armed with this information I started to dig some archives and uncovered the date of Sulo's demise, only three days after the last letter was dated. The same source revealed the unit he had served in and the place of his disappearance.
Another archive hosted the war diaries of the different Finnish military units, so I dug out the diary of the 6th company of the 35th infantry regiment, that  Sulo had served in. On the very day my great uncles last letter was dated, there is actually a mention …