The Finns, however, retained their sovereignty and enhanced their international reputation. Soviet gains exceeded their pre-war demands and while Soviet forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Finland, they did gain substantial territory along Lake Ladoga, providing a buffer for Leningrad, and territory in Northern Finland. Soviet losses were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. Finland ceded 11% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to the Soviet Union. Hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Because of these factors, and high morale in the Finnish forces, Finland was able to resist the Soviet invasion for far longer than the Soviets expected. With more than 30,000 of its army 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. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting. 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 Soviet Union demanded the territories for security reasons, primarily to protect Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), which was 40 km from the Finnish border. The Red Army aimed to recover the Grand Duchy of Finland territory lost during the Russian Civil War in 1917, during which Finland had declared independence from Russia. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League on 14 December 1939. The conflict began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939-two months after the outbreak of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland-ending on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty. , Russian: Зимняя война) was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. The Winter War (Finnish language: Talvisota A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter WarĬession of the Gulf of Finland islands, Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia, Salla, and Rybachy Peninsula, and rental of Hanko to the Soviet Unionġ88,671 wounded, concussed or burned

Finnish winter war uniform