The Baltic countries are studying how to protect their population against hypothetical Russian attacks, so a debate has arisen about the state of Soviet-era air raid shelters and the need to expand them amid speculation by European leaders about a confrontation between NATO and Moscow.
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said this week that the country is examining Soviet-era air raid shelters and exploring the possibility of at least partially financing the adaptation of private buildings for this purpose.
The Minister of Finance of Latvia, Arvils Aseradens, added that using European funds to subsidize the adaptation of shelters by individuals is being evaluated.
On Tuesday a subcommittee of the Latvian Parliament debated the state of air raid shelters in Riga, after last month the Ministry of the Interior presented a report according to which there is no data on which Soviet air raid shelters are still operational.
As Gints Reinsons, head of Civil Protection of the Municipal Council, explained to the deputies, there are about 150 facilities that in theory could be used, but the conditions in which they are found vary and many present serious problems.
“After so many years of abandonment of civil protection, we have now collected all the available information on bomb shelters,” the vice mayor of Riga, Linda Ozola, told EFE.
Although until now it was not a priority, “in the current geopolitical situation the context changes very, very quickly,” said Ozola, who added that based on the experiences of Ukraine, the adaptation of underground tunnels and parking lots is being studied.
The president of the civil protection services, Uldis Kevers, told EFE that the last inventory of shelters in Latvia dates back to 2008 and even then they were deteriorated, since since 1991 there was no investment in their modernization and the Government stopped paying for their maintenance.
Of 311 shelters counted at that time, 24% had accumulated water, 25% had suffered damage to the load-bearing pillars and 44% had the ventilation system dismantled.
According to Kevers, these structures – of which it is estimated that before 1989 there were approximately a thousand in Latvia, with capacity for 5% of the population – have been subject to vandalism and “have long expired their useful life.” .
Latvians questioned about the issue in central Riga knew little about it.
Veronika, over 80 years old, told EFE that she would not know what to do in the event of an air attack as there was “little information.”
Arnis, who owns a house, told EFE that he would probably not accept an offer from the Government to subsidize a shelter on his property. “I’m not convinced that a bomb shelter would save anyone,” he argued.
In neighboring Estonia, since May last year, housing cooperatives have been able to request financing for the construction of shelters and, according to local media, as of January 2, 56 applications had been registered, of which 27 will be financed as part of a project. pilot with 1.3 million euros in total.
Lithuania is also more advanced than Latvia in its preparations and last month Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite announced that 11 municipalities have shelters that can offer protection to 60% of the urban population and 40% of the rest of the country.
In an inventory carried out in the spring of 2022, the authorities found some 1,800 locations suitable for hosting air raid shelters and prepared recommendations for municipalities on how to search and select suitable locations.