Focus of Army spring exercise activities to shift to Southern Finland

The Guard Jaeger Regiment will lead Exercise Lively Sabre 25 in East Uusimaa and Kymeenlaakso from 21 - 31 May 2025.

Exercise Lively Sabre  25 will maintain and enhance military interoperability and capability with Allies. The operational phase of the exercise will take place from 25 -  29  May 2025.  The exercise will be participated by some 4300 soldiers including approximately 2200 conscripts,  c.1000 reservists and around 1100  service personnel.  Army units from the Guard Jaeger Regiment, Pori Brigade and Armoured Brigade will take part in the exercise.  The overall training audience will also include around 500 soldiers from Poland. 

In addition to the Defence Forces’ field exercise and shooting areas, training will also take place on public and private land at the following locations in East Uusimaa and Kymeenlaakso: Helsinki, Vantaa, Kotka, Porvoo, Lahti, Kerava, Järvenpää, Loviisa, Kouvola, Orimattila, Loimaa, Pyhtää, Askola, Mäntsälä, Lapinjärvi, Pornainen, Myrskylä, Oripää, Tuusula, Sipoo, Pukkila and Iitti.

During the exercise, a part of the road Kirkkotie will be closed for three days. The closed section of the road is located between the Körsnäsintie crossing and the crossing between seututie 170 and Kirkkotie. The road closure is in place during 27.-29.5.2025 between 7 am and 9 pm. Driving through the closed part of the road is forbidden during this time. Driving to a property on the closed area is possible during the road closure. The road user should be prepared to wait for a maximum of 30 minutes at the closure. The road closure can be avoided by using an alternative route: Seututie 170 – Purolantie – Kirkkotie. The alternative route is marked with signs.

This exercise will represent the final exercise for the conscript leaders who started their military service last July and for conscripts being  trained for rank-and-file tasks who entered service last January.  

Combat exercise Lively Sabre 25 will be commanded by the Commander of the Guard Jaeger Regiment, Colonel Matti Honko. According to him, this annually organised final exercise which, this time, will also be participated by troops from an Allied country, will be a demanding exercise for all the participating soldiers. 

–    In the exercise which stretches across a wide area in East Uusimaa and Kymenlaakso, the troops will get to improve and maintain their military interoperability and capability with Allies on the practical level, Honko says. 

The troops will be equipped with combat gear.  Dummy drill ammunition will be used daily in the training of the exercise audience, so the exercise may cause noise in the immediate vicinity of the training locations.

There will be around 540 vehicles involved, including heavy transport equipment and armoured personnel carriers.

Lively Sabre 25 is part of the Army’s spring training exercise series aimed to reinforce  concentration of the joint combat power built with allies for the defence of Finland and, consequently, of all NATO countries. Army training exercises this spring to focus on strengthening joint operating - Maavoimat - The Finnish Army

Lively Sabre 25 is part of the exercise entity Swift Response 25 led by U.S. Army Europe and Africa.  The exercise entity will reinforce concentrating multinational combat power and critical capabilities to the battlefield in the Alliance’s northern area.  The exercise entity to be conducted in Finland, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden will include five near-simultaneous airborne insertions, HIRAIN training and combat training exercises.  In Finland, a HIMARS live-fire exercise will be conducted at Pahkajärvi.

As part of Exercise Lively Sabre 25, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Europe and Africa will conduct a HIRAIN (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System Rapid Infiltration) task which involves conducting an artillery live-fire exercise using the HIMARS rocket launcher (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, M142 MLRS) at the Pahkajärvi range area in Kymenlaakso.  Allied countries’ HIRAIN tasks enable deploying a HIMARS rocket launcher system by air transport rapidly to areas requiring long-range fires capability.  Long-range rocket fires are used to paralyse an adversary’s critical capabilities, such as ground-based air defence systems or parts of them.

You can follow the exercise on social media with #LivelySabre25.