We highlighted on ERR that the situation has improved following the adoption of legislation setting requirements for shelters and public sheltering spaces in new buildings. At the same time, Estonia’s existing sheltering infrastructure remains insufficient. The issue concerns not only Tallinn, but also other Estonian cities and regions, where people’s actual access to shelter may depend heavily on the type of building, the period in which it was built, and the local spatial context.

For example, there are areas in Tallinn where the standard designs of high-rise buildings do not include basement floors. In such buildings, it is not possible to create shelters in the usual way or to adapt existing basement spaces for this purpose. This means that, due to the building type alone, part of the population may be left without a realistic nearby sheltering option in a crisis situation.

Tallinn’s initiative to establish modular shelters is an important and necessary step. However, individual pilot solutions cannot replace the systematic and broader development of sheltering infrastructure. More public sheltering spaces are needed, and their development should not remain only a question for the capital. Similar solutions are also needed in other Estonian cities and densely populated areas.

The Crisis Research Centre is launching the KRAKO project (Knowledge and Resilience Alliance of Key Organisers) in Tallinn to support people’s ability to cope better in emergencies and crises, and to help carry crisis preparedness knowledge forward at the local level. The project is part of the Crisis Research Centre’s wider 2026 programme, which focuses on empowering community crisis preparedness through practical discussions, learning activities and local-level cooperation.

KRAKO does not approach crisis preparedness only as a matter of supplies, guidelines or institutional responsibility. Instead, it treats preparedness as part of a broader question: how communities can better understand their strengths, vulnerabilities and opportunities for cooperation. The project’s central starting point is that official plans alone are not enough in crises — people also need knowledge, skills, contacts and trust to rely on in difficult situations.

“Crisis preparedness often starts with very simple things: whether people know what to do in the first hours, whether they know other active people in their community, and whether they are able to communicate information calmly. KRAKO helps strengthen exactly this local level, where official preparedness and people’s everyday capacity to act come together,” said Hannes Nagel, Head of the Crisis Research Centre.

The PIMA project brought together local government representatives from Estonia, Sweden and Ukraine to explore how community-based crisis centres providing essential services — such as water, food, heating, electricity, internet access and reliable information — can strengthen local resilience. The project was not simply about transferring Ukraine’s experience, but about understanding how elements of Ukraine’s Points of Invincibility model could be adapted to different socio-cultural contexts in order to build comparable capacity in the Baltic Sea Region. Particular attention was given to inclusiveness, accessibility and the effective use of existing local needs and resources.

This is not an ordinary administrative relocation, but a decision with direct implications for civil protection and the state’s crisis management capacity. If such a move is treated purely as a real estate matter, rather than assessed through security considerations, the priorities are fundamentally misplaced. The Estonian Ministry of the Interior oversees the police, rescue services and crisis response system. Civil protection is not only about instructions and public communication; it also means ensuring that leadership of the state’s most critical internal security functions can physically operate during an emergency. The location of the ministry, as a key internal security crisis manager, must guarantee uninterrupted access, evacuation options and operational response.

The selected area, the Kopli peninsula, is a location with restricted access. Traffic congestion in the area is not decreasing; with new developments, it is growing rapidly. There are only a few routes for entering and leaving the peninsula, and their capacity is already under pressure. By car, access is effectively limited to Sõle Street and Kalaranna Street. Even a minor traffic accident on one of the main connections can halt movement and prevent rescue and police units from arriving or leaving quickly. If an ordinary rush-hour accident can paralyse traffic, the impact in a crisis — for example during a large-scale evacuation or simultaneous incidents — would be far greater.

Civil protection leadership cannot rely on infrastructure whose functioning depends on a few easily blocked nodes, especially when new developments are planned and traffic pressure is set to increase further. Nor should it be forgotten that the Kopli peninsula is home to the Mine Harbour, which has strategic significance. The proximity of military infrastructure as a strategic target increases the area’s vulnerability in crisis scenarios. A basic principle of national defence is to disperse critical functions, not concentrate them in an area whose strategic importance makes it a higher-risk zone.

The government’s lack of crisis awareness, and its failure to set a credible example in civil protection, is also illustrated by the fact that the Ministry of the Interior closed the Kopli rescue unit only in 2024 — a unit that would have been able to respond first on site in a crisis. Outside the capital, however, the new norm has become the construction of joint internal security buildings, where the police, rescue services and possibly other functions are placed under one roof. This is a classic case of putting all eggs in one basket to save on real estate costs, but in a crisis the price may be severe.

In the programme, we pointed out that the Estonian Stockpiling Agency has essentially disregarded the task set by the Government of the Republic. Instead, a practice has emerged in which tasks are ignored, responsibility becomes blurred, and the result is a solution that provides reserves for 10% of the population for 30 days. According to the recent National Audit Office audit, this cannot be considered a substantively sufficient solution.

What is especially problematic is that the justification for this self-initiated choice has not been convincing. As has also been noted in public debate and in reference to the National Audit Office audit, there is no clear explanation as to why the objective of covering the entire population for 14 days was replaced with a solution that amounts to food reserves for the whole population for only three days. This raises a fundamental question: whose needs were taken as the starting point, and on what basis was it decided that precisely this volume would be sufficient?

We also emphasised that crisis preparedness cannot rest on the silent assumption that people will solve the shortfalls themselves. The average person in Estonia often lives in an apartment where storing extensive food reserves is neither practical nor possible. The main burden therefore cannot be shifted onto individuals in a situation where the state’s own task has remained unfulfilled.

We invite everyone to watch the programme, as the real gravity of the issue becomes clear in the longer discussion. This is not only a question of reserves, but of the state’s ability to meet the objectives it has set for itself when the situation becomes truly serious.

We have previously pointed out that the Estonian Stockpiling Agency does not fulfill the task given by the government: a nationwide 14-day state food reserve covering the entire population has not been established, and in reality the existing reserves amount to only approximately three days. We emphasise that although the state has begun supplying shops and fuel stations with generators and working to improve the resilience of food producers, an audit by the National Audit Office has revealed serious shortcomings and inexplicable ad-hoc practices in the activities of the Stockpiling Centre.

We stress that it is important for every person, according to their means, to have at home at least a one-week supply of food, and preferably a two-week supply. At the same time, it is unthinkable that the responsibility for building crisis reserves should rest solely on ordinary citizens. If we look at the average Estonian, they live in an apartment where space is inevitably limited. This places clear constraints on how much and what type of emergency supplies can realistically be stored at home. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect the average Estonian resident—especially in the context of rising living costs—to begin stockpiling months’ worth of food and drinking water in their apartment.

Unfortunately, the highly paid managers there have overlooked the client’s expectation—and, more broadly, society’s as well: not to starve to death in the event of a crisis.

Ukraine is not living through a hypothetical crisis. Russia has deliberately and systematically attacked thermal power plants, boiler houses, substations, and pumping stations — infrastructure objects that are critically necessary for providing essential services. The goal is not to cause isolated disruptions, but to make cities uninhabitable in a systematic way: cold, darkness, and stalled infrastructure.² In such conditions, the crisis is no longer about whether a building has electricity for a circulation pump, but whether heat can be produced at all and fed into the network.

This leads to an inevitable question: if the solution were truly this simple and cost only a few hundred euros, why has it not resolved the cold-season hardships of Ukraine’s civilian population? The answer is uncomfortable but honest. This solution works only under one very specific condition — the heating plant must still exist and be able to produce heat. Ukraine’s experience shows that in a crisis, this is not a condition you can reliably count on.

If the solution cost only 300 euros, Ukraine wouldn’t have a problem with the cold

Concerns are often met with the argument that production plants have black start capability and that air defence protects the infrastructure. But here too we must look at reality. Ukraine’s air defence is strong and effective, yet even there it cannot intercept all attacks, and the reliability of energy infrastructure remains a constant struggle. Moreover, the primary task of air defence is to protect military units and critical military assets. In our geopolitical reality, energy production inevitably remains vulnerable.

Getting heat into people’s homes is not rocket science for specialists in the field, but large Vital Service Providers (VSP) should recognise that in a military crisis they are key targets — the kind that will be blown up. This too is not rocket science, but a method designed to inflict maximum damage in the rear at minimal cost. For this reason, crisis preparedness cannot be limited to a scenario in which electricity is temporarily down but everything else continues to function

We must also ask the essential, more difficult questions that have so far been left unasked. What happens if the thermal power plant no longer exists? If the boiler house has been physically destroyed, not just taken offline?

If the network cannot be restored for days or even weeks? It must be understood that the greatest enemy of a district heating network is a flying object filled with explosives, not a mild power outage that merely stops water circulation. In such a situation, a plug in the basement or a small generator will not help. They may buy time, but they do not replace production. Indeed, generators, battery solutions, and temporary systems are widely used in Ukraine as well. But they are used knowingly as limited tools, not as a promise that the problem is solved in all possible scenarios.

Evacuation is one of the real scenarios

There is another nuance that is rarely discussed. Crisis preparedness does not only mean technical solutions but also the readiness to make the hardest decisions, including evacuation. Honest crisis planning must take into account the possibility that an essential service may be disrupted for an extended period. The message “don’t worry, a plug in the basement will fix everything” creates a false sense of security.

Saying that nothing can go wrong with heating in panel buildings if a 300–500€ solution is installed works at least partly against the efforts of the Rescue Board and municipal authorities, whose aim is to make people acknowledge disruptions, prepare for them, and think through very uncomfortable scenarios. Preparing for a crisis cannot be based on reassuring people at any cost — it must include an honest explanation of what could happen in scenarios A, B and C, and what must be done then. This applies even when Vital Service Providers (VSP) are targeted from the first days of a conflict and are therefore unable to provide services for a prolonged period.

Indeed, a few hundred euros can improve preparedness and buy extra time in the case of a simple power outage. A backup plug and generator are useful tools in more limited crises. Unfortunately, they are of no help when the heating plant simply no longer exists. This is precisely the question that should be asked and considered — what is the plan in such a case, rather than believing in convenient miracle solutions.

🟠 This op-ed (Hannes Nagel) was originally published on December 16, 2026 in the Delfi portal. Photo: large apartment building blocks in Lasnamäe (Kriisiuuringute Keskus, 2025).

Sources:

¹ Raig, T. & Reivart, A. 2025. INTERVJUU | Utilitase kaugküttejuht: Lasnamäe külmumise jutt on jama. Soojakriisi lahendamiseks piisab fööni jagu elektrist. Ärileht, 16.12.2025. 

² Harding, L. 2025. ‘They decided to kill us with cold’: Ukrainians struggle against Russian assault on power network. The Guardian, 22.11.2025.

The new programme offers tools for understanding, preventing, and strategically managing these interconnections — skills for which demand is growing across the entire Northern European security space.

How did you end up studying in Tampere University’s SAFER programme?

I was still in the final year of my bachelor’s studies when it was time to look a bit into the future and also inward, to consider what I would like to pursue after graduating from the University of Tartu. I searched for master’s programmes both in Estonia and abroad, and Tampere University’s SAFER programme — Security Management and Politics — caught my attention. There were two tracks to choose from: Security Governance within administrative sciences and International Security within social sciences. I chose the latter as my preference and was selected in a highly competitive admissions process. I moved to Finland already in mid-August this year and so far I have been very satisfied with my studies.

Which topics or courses have so far had the greatest impact on your understanding of crisis management and resilience?

Our curriculum includes a course specifically focused on crisis management and resilience, but more broadly these themes run through all courses. In lectures and seminars we acquire new “tools” for understanding different crises, but applying them in the era of polycrises — where, for example, ageing populations, high inflation, and military threats must be addressed simultaneously — is far from simple. Every crisis requires definition, management, and stakeholder engagement. Most importantly, it matters how a situation is framed as a crisis, and even more so, who does the framing. President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy National Guard forces primarily to Democrat-led cities to combat alleged high crime rates are, in my view, a clear example of failed framing. Defining crises in ways that are not grounded in facts only adds complexity to assessing crises and their management appropriately.

What has surprised you or made you rethink crisis management?

Crisis management is often thought to concern only how leaders respond during a crisis and how organizations implement decisions once a crisis is underway. In reality, a very large part of crisis management lies in prevention and in building resilience. An organization’s first priority should be to avoid the emergence of crises: to identify potential risks to its operations, develop plans to mitigate them, and practice based on those plans. However, crises cannot always be prevented, which is why crisis managers must also think about how to make institutional processes as resilient and at the same time flexible as possible in order to cope with different types of crises.

Looking to the future — in what role or field do you see yourself applying your crisis management education?

I believe that both professionally and personally it is beneficial to test oneself in a variety of roles and fields. Fortunately, as a student I have already been able to gain experience in all three sectors, and in each of them the nature of potential crises differs. I have been most drawn to experience in the public sector, where impact and responsibility are greatest. Seeing the existential threat posed by Estonia’s eastern neighbour, I also feel a strong personal motivation to help prevent the outbreak of a military crisis. For this reason, I hope to be working in foreign and defence policy–related roles in the future.

The questions were answered by Hendrik Priisaar, a student in Tampere University’s SAFER programme. 

Libraries do not require tickets, do not impose class boundaries, and are open to anyone who wants to learn, socialize, or simply be in a safe shared space. Where the compulsion to consume disappears, space for thinking and noticing emerges. This is the essence of democracy: access to information and a sense of community that comes from being together and realizing that other people are actually quite normal. In contrast to the algorithmic echo chambers of social media, libraries can break down silos and bring together people with different views and experiences who share the same physical space and forum for discussion.

Libraries are institutions of freedom—they protect freedom of thought, ensure equal access to information, and teach critical skills, including how to find reliable information. These are tools of democracy, the absence of which opens the door to manipulation and disinformation. Free nationwide access is not just a convenience, but a strategic resource. Even in times of crisis – as we saw in Estonia when Ukrainian war refugees used libraries to learn the language, familiarize themselves with the culture, and acquire new job skills – all in order to integrate into society and find their place in our economy and communities.

However, libraries only survive thanks to library staff. Recently, I have noticed an increasing use of self-service technology in libraries – at least in some libraries, items can be conveniently borrowed and returned using a machine. On the one hand, this is a great opportunity for libraries – it frees up the time of library professionals for advising people or community work, but at the same time, we must be vigilant.

The introduction of machines may discourage human contact in libraries, and the introduction of machines must not be used as an argument for laying off competent employees in order to save costs. A machine may be convenient for borrowing and returning items, but it does not notice people in need, nor does it recommend reading material that would broaden your worldview or help you understand a complex topic. If machines become an excuse to cut librarian jobs, we will lose something irreplaceable – the knowledge that someone is really listening and can guide you, as well as people who can help you in times of crisis.