The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union.
Hjalmar Fridolf Siilasvuo was a Finnish lieutenant general, a knight of the Mannerheim Cross and a member of the Jäger Movement. He participated in the Eastern Front of World War I, the Finnish Civil War, the Winter War, Continuation War and the Lapland War.
The Battle of Tolvajärvi was fought on 12 December 1939 between Finland and the Soviet Union. It was the first large offensive victory for the Finns in the Winter War.
Suomussalmi is a municipality in Finland and is located in the Kainuu region about 90 kilometres (56 mi) northeast of Kajaani, the capital of Kainuu and 120 kilometres (75 mi) south of Kuusamo. The municipality has a population of 7,171 (31 December 2023) and covers an area of 5,857.60 square kilometres (2,261.63 sq mi) of which 587.03 km2 (226.65 sq mi) is water. The population density is 1.36 inhabitants per square kilometre (3.5/sq mi). The municipality is unilingually Finnish. Ämmänsaari is the biggest built-up area in the municipality.
The Battle of Salla was fought between Finnish and Soviet troops near Salla in northern Finland during the Winter War. The Soviets had orders to advance through Salla to Kemijärvi and Sodankylä, and from there to Rovaniemi in just two weeks. From there they were to advance to Tornio and cut Finland in two. The Finnish troops managed to stop the Soviet advance just east of Kemijärvi. During the last days of February 1940 the Finnish troops were replaced with the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish volunteers of the Stridsgruppen SFK.
The Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive or Karelian offensive was a strategic operation by the Soviet Leningrad and Karelian Fronts against Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and East Karelia fronts of the Continuation War, on the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet forces captured East Karelia and Vyborg/Viipuri. After that, however, the fighting reached a stalemate.
The Battle of Ilomantsi was a part of the Svir–Petrozavodsk Offensive of the Continuation War (1941–1944). It was fought from 26 July to 13 August 1944, between Finland and the Soviet Union in an area roughly 40 kilometers wide and 30 kilometers deep, near the Finnish-Soviet border, close to the Finnish village of Ilomantsi, in North Karelia. The battle ended with a Finnish victory—the last major Soviet attack against Finland was stopped here.
The Battle of Raate Road was fought during the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in January 1940, as a part of the Battle of Suomussalmi.
The Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency is the combined signals (SIGINT), geospatial (GEOINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT) agency of the Finnish Defence Forces. Operational since 2014, its responsibility is to support the defence of Finland through information gathering and analysis as an intelligence agency, organic to the Intelligence Division of Defence Command.
The Finnish invasion of East Karelia was a military campaign in 1941. It was part of the Continuation War. Finnish troops occupied East Karelia and held it until 1944. For over a month after the outbreak of the Continuation War, the Karelian Army reinforced and prepared to resume its earlier offensive while waiting for the recapture of the Karelian Isthmus. The Soviets had prepared fortifications and brought troops to the front. When encirclements on the western shore of Lake Ladoga were resolved, the Finnish 7th Division was transferred to the junction of VI and VII Corps.
The Battle of Kelja, fought from December 25 to December 27, 1939 in and around the village of Kelja, was a part of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union.
The 8th Army was a field army of the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War.
During World War II, the Lapland War saw fighting between Finland and Nazi Germany – effectively from September to November 1944 – in Finland's northernmost region, Lapland. Though the Finns and the Germans had been fighting together against the Soviet Union since 1941 during the Continuation War (1941–1944), peace negotiations between the Finnish government and the Allies of World War II had been conducted intermittently during 1943–1944, but no agreement had been reached. The Moscow Armistice, signed on 19 September 1944, demanded that Finland break diplomatic ties with Germany and expel or disarm any German soldiers remaining in Finland.
The timeline of the Winter War is a chronology of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Winter War. The war began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 and it ended 13 March 1940.
The 44th Kievskaya of the Red Banner Rifle Division of Nikolay Shchors, or 44th Kievskaya for short, was an elite military formation of the Soviet Union. Created during the beginnings of the Russian Civil War. It was destroyed during the Winter War, after being ordered to help the 163rd Infantry Division break a Finnish siege on the Raate road as part of the Special Rifle Corps 9th Army, together with the 54th Rifle Division. Afterwards it was levied and dissolved multiple times throughout the 40s and 50s until its final dissolution in 1959.
Alexei Ivanovich Vinogradov was a Soviet kombrig and the commander of the 44th Rifle Division. His unit took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Winter War against the Finns. The unit perished in the Battle of Raate Road and Vinogradov was executed by the Soviet military for the failure.
The 54th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army and Soviet Army, formed twice. The division was formed in 1936 and fought in the Winter War. The division spent most of World War II in Karelia fighting with Finnish troops in the Continuation War. After Finland left the war the division was relocated southward and fought in the East Prussian Offensive and the Prague Offensive in 1945. The division was disbanded in the summer of that year. The 54th Rifle Division was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Kutuzov 2nd class. It was also awarded the honorific "Masuria" for its actions in the East Prussian Offensive. The division was reformed in 1955 from the 341st Rifle Division and became a motor rifle division in 1957.
The Battle of Porlampi, also known as the Battle of Porlammi, was a military engagement fought between the Finnish Army and Red Army from 30 August to 1 September 1941 on the Karelian Isthmus. The battle was fought near the town of Porlampi during the second month of the Continuation War. The battle was a Finnish victory and effectively ended the reconquest of Karelia.
The Battle of Varolampi Pond also known as the 'Sausage War' occurred during the Winter War and was a precursor to the Battle of Tolvajärvi.
The Battle of Kuhmo was a series of skirmishes, mainly between January 28 and March 13, 1940, near the town of Kuhmo during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War. The 54th Soviet Rifle Division was encircled, but was able to hold out until the end of the war.
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