With war on their doorstep, Europeans have been warned to prepare for the worst.
The woman in charge of crisis management for the European Commission, Hadja Lahbib, has advised the Europian Union's (EU) 450 million residents to pack a 72-hour survival bag, as the bloc braces for threats "more complex than ever".
"For three years in Ukraine, we have seen a battlefield of bombs and bullets, drones, fighter planes, trenches and submarines ... European security is directly threatened by this, it is also threatened by the battlefields in our pockets; our phones, our computers, our power plants, our banks, our supply chains," Ms Lahbib said last month.
"The EU has two ways of responding; we can stick our head in the sand and act like it isn't happening, or we can look these threats squarely in the eye and say, 'this is the reality we are facing and we will prepare'."
Last month, Ms Lahbib announced a new EU Preparedness Strategy with dozens of action points, including setting up a crisis coordination hub and instructing all residents to pack emergency kits with enough food and supplies to see them through the first three days of an emergency.
She revealed the contents of her own bag and told each EU country to come up with a list of items specific to the threats facing their slice of the world.
While countries that border Russia are considered the most vulnerable to a military invasion or aerial attack, the kits are relevant further afield too. Germany, Spain and Greece have been battered by deadly flooding and other extreme weather events in recent years.
"We live in a world of new realities; we face many dangers that might occur, whether it's a natural disaster, cyber attack, electricity outage, some kind of a health pandemic or a security conflict", European Commission spokesperson for preparedness Eva Hrncirova told the ABC.
The EU has drawn on lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic and the panic-buying of food, toilet paper and medical supplies that ensued.
And while the thought of hunkering down with tinned fish and beans might invoke apocalyptic fears, the European Commission insists their directive is intended to empower people, not scare them.
"The first three days of the crisis are usually a time of chaos, and if you want to avoid this chaos, this preparedness strategy is designed as a whole-of-society approach," Ms Hrncirova said.
"This is all about minimising the impact of a possible disaster, whatever the nature of the disaster is, and to avoid bad surprises."
In recent months, European leaders have increasingly switched to a war-footing and are being forced to firm up their own defences due to an unpredictable and isolationist new US administration.
The EU's preparedness strategy is part of a wider effort to ensure the bloc is ready to defend itself against any threat that comes its way.
Australians need to get prepared
For some Australians, the idea of preparing an emergency survival kit or "grab bag" isn't new.
In fact, Lucy Easthope, a professor risk and hazard at the University of Durham, says the EU's plan is borrowed directly from Australia, and the experiences of those living in regional communities prone to bushfires or flooding.
"The 72-hours idea, which we've seen in this EU announcement, has a long history of being used in Australia for things like bad weather preparedness strategies," she said.
"If we go to some of the worst-case scenarios, severe nuclear winters and things, this isn't going to get us through, but where the 72 hours comes from is the idea of essentially buying the emergency responders a bit of time."
Professor Easthope advised the British prime minister's office during the COVID pandemic and has worked on disasters including the September 11 attacks, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and London's Grenfell tower fire.
She says preparedness or "prepping" has a bad reputation because it tends to be associated with "apocalyptic religions" and "big Utah bunkers under people's houses".
In reality she says it's a way for ordinary families to take back control when the unexpected happens.
"The world has always been this tumultuous, this turbulent and for a few years some people were able to buy into a myth that the governments of all nations had their back ... that was always a myth, and those who worked in disaster management always knew that," Professor Easthope said.
While some Australian communities have been planning for emergencies for generations, the disaster expert says it's time for the rest of the country to take safeguarding steps too.
"I'm not a big fan of trying to game yourself out of risk and saying, 'that's not my area' or 'I'm too high, or I'm too low, or I'm too rich' ... if you're under the sky, you can flood and that's of course applicable to other weather issues," Professor Easthope, who's among Britain's leading disaster experts, said.
"And a negative malevolent threat is much more likely to target a city ... things like a possible attack, a possible discovery of an explosive device, those kinds of things can mean that you can't access your home for three to four days."
For those ready to heed her advice, Professor Easthope suggests packing a phone charger, battery pack, ID documents, underwear, medication, water, games, tinned food and a can opener in all emergency bags.
If you have those essentials to hand, she says you'll be in good stead to handle just about any emergency that crops up.
"Whether it's a zombie attack or alien invasion, we're good because it's the same plan ... the scenarios are for somebody else to worry about."
