 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 Prodirs shooting range last Thursday, 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.