{"id":320418,"date":"2025-12-24T08:04:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=320418"},"modified":"2025-12-25T08:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T08:41:16","slug":"finland-says-to-raise-reservist-age-to-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=320418","title":{"rendered":"Finland Says to Raise Reservist Age to 65"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Staff writer with AFP \u2013 The Defense Post Dec 23, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Finland said Monday it will raise the reservist age from 60 to 65 next year to strengthen the country\u2019s military preparedness towards <a href=\"https:\/\/thedefensepost.com\/2025\/05\/24\/finland-russian-aircraft-airspace\/\">any threat posed by neighboring Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Defence Minister <strong>Antti Hakkanen<\/strong> said the reform, which enters into force on January 1 after being signed into law by the president, will result in an increase of 125,000 conscripts over five years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe number of Finnish reservists will be around one million in 2031,\u201d Hakkanen said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Finland\u2019s reserve currently comprises around 900,000 citizens, and the eastern NATO country has a wartime strength of 280,000 soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis and our other measures to bolster our defense signal that Finland ensures its security now and in the future,\u201d Hakkanen said.<\/p>\n<p>Military service is mandatory for all Finnish men when they turn 18 and voluntary for women in the Nordic country of 5.6 million.<\/p>\n<p>Conscripts may serve between six, nine, or 12 months depending on their training.<\/p>\n<p>The new age limit will apply to those liable for military service when the law comes into force.<\/p>\n<p>Under the new rules, the availability of conscripts will be extended by 15 years for enlisted personnel and by 5 years for non-commissioned officers and officers.<\/p>\n<p>Finland shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia and ended decades of military non-alignment by <a href=\"https:\/\/thedefensepost.com\/2023\/04\/03\/finland-nato-membership-russia\/\">joining NATO in April 2023<\/a>, just over a year after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thedefensepost.com\/2022\/07\/07\/finland-bolster-russia-border-fence\/\">Helsinki closed its eastern border with Russia<\/a> in December 2023, suspecting Moscow of orchestrating the arrival of migrants to destabilize the country.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/finland-raises-reservist-age-to-65-to-boost-military-preparedness\/ar-AA1SSYmP\">Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finland shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia and ended decades of military non-alignment by joining NATO in April 2023, just over a year after Russian forces entered Ukraine <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320419,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320418\/revisions\/320419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}