Soviet-Finnish War (1939–1940)
| Winter War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||||||
 A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Soviet Union |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Kyösti Kallio Risto Ryti Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
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 Joseph Stalin Kirill Meretskov Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 250,000–340,000 men 32 tanks 114 aircraft |
28–58 divisions 425,640 to 760,578 men 1500+ armoured cars. 998,100 men (overall) 2,514–6,541 tanks 3,880 aircraft |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 25,904 dead or missing 43,557 wounded 800–1,100 captured 957 civilians killed in air raids 20–30 tanks destroyed 62 aircraft lost 70,000 total casualties |
126,875–167,976 dead or missing 188,671 wounded, concussed or burned 5,572 captured 1,200-3,543 tanks 261–515 aircraft 321,000–363,000 total casualties |
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The Winter War (Finnish: talvisota, Swedish: vinterkriget, Russian: Зи́мняя война́, tr. Zimnyaya voyna) was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939 (three months after the outbreak of World War II), and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League on 14 December 1939.
The Soviet Union ostensibly sought to claim parts of Finnish territory, demanding—amongst other concessions—that Finland cede substantial border territories in exchange for land elsewhere, claiming security reasons, primarily the protection of Leningrad, which was only 32 km (20 mi) from the Finnish border, at the end of a narrow finger of coastline about 15 km (9.3 mi) long by 5 km (3.1 mi) wide; most of the Finnish border was more than 50 km (31 mi) from Leningrad. Finland refused and the USSR invaded the country. Many sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of the puppet Finnish Communist government and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols as proof of this, while other sources argue against the idea of a full Soviet conquest.
The Soviets possessed more than three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of 1937. With more than 30,000 of its officers executed or imprisoned, including most of those of the highest ranks, the Red Army in 1939 had many inexperienced senior and mid-level officers. Because of these factors, and high morale in the Finnish forces, Finland repelled Soviet attacks for several months, much longer than the Soviets expected.
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