Finland counted its bomb shelters and found 50,500 of them

FILE PHOTO: Security specialist Tapio Hietakangas walks with an employee in a tunnel of Santa Park near Rovaniemi, Finland, May 24, 2022. Picture taken May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/File Photo

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland has finished inventorying its existing bomb shelters in a government effort prompted by neighbouring Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, and found it has 50,500 of them, its interior ministry said.

Finland joined the NATO military alliance in April in a historic security policy U-turn but it had kept preparing for the possibility of a conflict with Russia for decades, after fighting back an invasion attempt by the Soviet Union during WW2.