Soldiers and volunteer riflemen patrol the main street of Kaunas during May 7's exercises to prepare Lithuania's cities for an emergency. War in Ukraine has led the Baltic country, once ruled by the Russian Empire and the USSR, to rethink how it would respond if Vladimir Putin's Russia attacks them.
There were flashes of worried looks and more than a few questions as commuters in Lithuania’s second-largest city made their way to work on a brisk Tuesday morning this month and saw soldiers standing in front of a wall of sandbags at the main entrance of city hall. Across town, more soldiers checked cars entering the municipal power plant as gunshots rang out from behind the building. By nightfall, part of the city was under curfew.
Some onlookers wondered if Kaunas had been invaded or was facing some kind of military threat. They were quickly reassured by the soldiers that this was part of a countrywide emergency preparedness drill and that the gunshots were blanks.
The three-day exercise was the largest of its kind in modern Lithuanian history and involved the military, local governments, charitable organizations and the Catholic Church.
Sandbags on the square outside City Hall were a disconcerting sight for Kaunas residents, but soldiers reassured them that it was only a drill.
It was just the latest example of how countries across Europe are seeking new ways to respond to the threat posed by Russia and its expansionist rhetoric. While many governments have been reviewing their military spending, the war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of civil defence. In the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians often struggled to find shelters and were ill-prepared to evacuate on short notice.
That’s led some countries to consider doing more to prepare their citizens for all-out war. Britain has been debating whether to form a citizens’ army. Germany is considering reintroducing compulsory military service for teenagers, and, in Poland, the city of Warsaw has launched a €27-million program to build bomb shelters. “War is no longer a concept from the past,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned recently. “We have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the prewar era.”
Few countries are as serious about civil defence as Lithuania, which shares borders with Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the base of that country’s Baltic fleet. The Ministry of Interior has developed a six-year, €250-million program that includes designating thousands of air-raid shelters, drawing up detailed evacuation routes and encouraging citizens to keep an emergency backpack filled with enough supplies to last three days. “I feel we are on the edge of changing times,” said Darius Domarkas, who heads the ministry’s public security policy group. “We don’t know what’s coming.”
If Russian rockets ever strike Lithuania, yellow signs like this one at the Kaunas Picture Gallery will direct people to places they can take shelter.
Mr. Domarkas said Lithuania’s emergency preparedness procedures used to deal with floods, storms and other natural disasters. Now, the focus is on how to cope with air raids and bomb blasts. In the past year, the ministry has identified nearly 4,000 structures as suitable shelters, places such as underground parking lots and large basements where people can take cover during rocket attacks. Each shelter is marked with a bright yellow sign that’s visible from the street, and the goal is to have enough space for around 1.4 million people, roughly half the country’s population. All new apartment blocks must also have a shelter that’s large enough to accommodate everyone in the building.
The ministry also launched a publicity campaign to encourage Lithuanians to be self-sufficient for the first 72 hours of an attack. “If mass evacuation happens, we want people to come prepared,” Mr. Domarkas said. “It will be easier for us to help them if they have some basic things like water, clothes, boots, documents, maybe some valuables.”
The Red Cross and other non-government groups have been incorporated into the planning, along with the Catholic Church, which signed a co-operation agreement with the ministry last year. Several churches have been designated as shelters, and air-raid sirens will be installed in some bell towers. Priests have also invited fire and rescue officials to counsel congregants on how to prepare.
“The current times are not the calmest times in the history,” said Father Kestutis Smilgevicius, the general secretary of the Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference, in explaining why the church got involved. “It is also because the church, during all the centuries, has served as a refuge for people.”
The drills at Kaunas's City Hall are part of a larger effort to shore up Lithuania's civil defences. Volunteer groups like the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union are an increasingly important part of that.
A bust of the LRU's founder, Vladas Putvinskis, sits in a boardroom of their office.
Another key component of the strategy is the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, an all-volunteer paramilitary group.
The LRU was created in 1919 by Vladas Putvinskis, a nobleman who fought to preserve the Lithuanian language, which has historically been under threat from Russian and Polish political and cultural influence. Mr. Putvinskis is considered a national hero, and the union played a role in defending Lithuania against Russian, Polish and German forces. It was disbanded during Soviet times and reconstituted after Lithuania regained independence in 1990.
In recent years, the LRU remained largely outside the military structure and members were little more than weekend warriors. The war in Ukraine brought a renewed interest in the group.
The LRU’s membership has doubled in the past two years to 15,000, and the government boosted its annual funding for the militia by 50 per cent last year to €11-million.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was enough to convince Jurga Chomskyte to sign up. She’d been a pacifist all her life and wouldn’t even let her son have a toy gun. But the war rattled her and she joined the LRU last year. Now, she’s proficient at using an AR-15 machine gun and has applied for a licence to keep a handgun at home.
“You have to make a decision,” she said. “When the enemy knocks on your door, are you going to let him in and give everything, or you will you take action?”
Vytautas Kucinskas, Jurga Chomskytė and Arnas Skliutas joined the LRU to prepare for a possible Russian invasion. They are not the only ones: In the past two years, LRU membership has doubled to 15,000.
The LRU's leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Linas Idzelis, believes Moscow is 'preparing for war against the civilized world,' but the West has not acted accordingly.
She’s also a big fan of the LRU’s commander: Lieutenant-Colonel Linas Idzelis, a 31-year veteran of the Lithuanian army who was elected to the top post last year by the members. He has been leading the charge to revamp the LRU, and his boisterous personality and quick smile have made him a popular figure among the ranks.
He keeps a loaded gun in his office and rails against weak-kneed Europeans who won’t face up to the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s military goals are not only focused on Ukraine. “They’re preparing for war against the civilized world,” he said. Meanwhile, in the West, “we’re debating, discussing, but no tangible actions.”
Lt.-Col. Idzelis said LRU members come from every walk of life. Children as young as 11 can join the cadet corps and adults of almost any age can take part. Everyone has to buy their uniform and pay a €12 annual membership fee.
The increased government funding has allowed the LRU to open a training centre and buy some weapons, helmets and body armour. It also offers courses in drone construction, cyberwarfare and leadership training. As a result, the LRU now has several combat units, which could join the regular army during a time of war. “We are becoming quite a powerful organization,” Lt.-Col. Idzelis said.
The presence of hundreds of LRU members carrying machine guns on the streets of Kaunas last week unnerved some locals, but many seemed reassured by the practice. “I think it’s necessary,” said Arminas Suchovas, 21, who works at the Kaunas Picture Gallery, which has a yellow shelter sign on the main entrance.
Most Lithuanians are well aware “that if Ukraine falls, the next is all the Baltics,” he said. “We’ve been there before so we don’t want to go back there.”
Arminas Suchovas, an employee at the Picture Gallery, says drills like the one in Kaunas are a necessary step to prepare for war.