Finland teaching Britain how to thwart Russia's hybrid warfare

Finland is teaching Britain how to defend itself against Russia’s hybrid warfare.

The Nordic country – which shares Nato’s longest border with Russia – is advising senior peers and MPs on how the UK can prepare for emergencies, and how to train and protect civilians in wartime.

Topics include how governments can better support businesses that provide critical national infrastructure to keep them operational during wartime, as well as how to help safeguard businesses from hackers.

Last month, 180 Finnish organisations involved in the food supply sector ran a joint wargaming exercise, to prepare strategies for delivering food to civil society during a protracted crisis, in the face of growing threats from Russia.

It was one of dozens of joint public-private training exercises co-ordinated by Finland’s National Emergency Supply Agency as part of the country’s comprehensive security model.

The country also stockpiles essential goods and requires critical private businesses, such as banks and transportation companies, to have back-up systems in case of attack.

Lord John Spellar, who sits on Britain’s national resilience committee, which is publishing a report on preparedness month, told The Telegraph: “Finland has been doing preparedness for a long time. Are there lessons to be learnt? Yes.”

Earlier this week hundreds of French supermarkets were hit by a cyber-attack that caused fridges and freezers to malfunction and soar to 50C temperatures, spoiling millions of euros of fresh and frozen food.

It has prompted fresh concern that businesses in Britain may be vulnerable to similar cyber-attacks from terror groups or hostile states.

On Wednesday, AI tools made by OpenAI discovered a critical cybersecurity flaw in the programming language PHP , which runs around 70 per cent of websites. The vulnerability exposed sites to a potential criminal hack.

Meanwhile, The Telegraph revealed that Russia was deploying fishing trawlers to spy on Britain’s critical undersea cables.

Alex Ballinger, a Labour MP and former Royal Marine, and the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the Armed Forces, told The Telegraph: “Finland has been facing challenges and attacks from Russia since independence in 1917.

“And on the foreign affairs committee, we want to learn how to face this hybrid war. Right now, Finland is facing almost exactly the same hybrid threat that we are in the UK.

“The same cyber-attacks, the same disinformation, undersea cables being threatened, threats to shipping, proxy attacks.

“But I think their society – because of that longer military threat they’ve faced and the national service they do – they have built up a stronger national spirit and national defence attitude.

“It is something that we could learn, especially how they conduct civilian exercises, the way they’re building their infrastructure, and how we can get our whole society prepared for this.”

During a reception with the Finnish ambassador on Thursday night, Mr Ballinger said Britain should bring back national service .

Finland already conscripts all of its male citizens and has built more than 50,500 civilian bomb shelters, enough to protect 4.8 million out of a population of 5.5 million.

Finland is also preparing for wartime by teaching young people media literacy and how to be critical of news sources, amid concern that states such as Russia and Iran can lower societal morale through disinformation.

Officials in Paris and Rome are investigating whether Russia helped spread disinformation on social media that fuelled the violent protests in France.

Guido Crosetto, Italy’s defence minister, said the unrest had been the result of a “hybrid war” being waged against the West.

Nick Gould, who trained in civil defence during the Cold War, told The Telegraph during the summer that Britain was “lagging seriously behind” Europe in terms of civil defence.

He added that, while Britain was ready for conventional incidents such as terrorism, it was not prepared for “a sustained series of incidents where the whole UK is at threat” or where food and fuel supplies or imports or internet connections are disrupted.

Earlier this week, the Government published guidance that advised Britons to stockpile food, blankets, water and prepare an emergency kit in case of a cyberattack.