In one of Switzerland's largest drills in more than three decades, soldiers rehearsed repelling a fictional enemy, tossed grenades and fired live munitions as they showcased self-defense capabilities known as armed neutrality.
The drills, involving 4,000 troops and spread across four cantons over nine days, took place as the country's role in European defense has come into focus amid calls for it to assist Ukraine in fighting the Russian invasion.
At the Les Pradieres shooting range last Thursday (May 4), a group of infantry soldiers, most of whom are in fact civilians taking part in their regular military service, slowly paced up a hill, using a smoke grenade to conceal their movements behind before crouching down to shoot at targets.
The LUX 23 drills, planned since 2021, were not organized in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February last year, but the Swiss military said the invasion made the exercise all the more relevant.
"The willingness of our partners and the understanding of the population regarding this kind of drill has greatly changed," Mathias Tuscher, commander of Switzerland's territorial division 1, said of the exercises, which end on Tuesday.
"This, of course, is directly linked [to the war in Ukraine]."
Public and international pressure has grown for Switzerland to end a ban on exports of weapons to war zones, but some political factions fear this would mark the end of its foreign policy tradition of neutrality.
"We understand that people mix up the need to support a country under attack and the need to keep a place for the aggressor, when designated as such, to come talk and find solutions," said Mauro Poggia, state councilor in charge of the Geneva canton's Security, Population and Health Department.
"There is nothing worse than closing doors... Switzerland needs to be this exit door that is always there. This door must be protected...and we need to protect our population."
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