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Ukraine and the Winter War, 1939-1940
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky might do well by studying the career of Carl Mannerheim and how he saved Finland from the Russian meatgrinder
In early World War II, on November 30, 1939, a Soviet-Russian army invaded Finland in a surprise massive attack. The Finns were eventually outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. The population of the Soviet Union in 1940 was 50 times larger than that of Finland’s.
Finland’s former anti-Soviet ally, Nazi Germany, had sold it out under the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which made Germany and Russia de facto allies.
Finland’s other allies, particularly France and Britain, were slow in giving aid. Both were unsure whether Finland had any chance of survival. And they were further confused as to whether their archenemy Germany was friendly or hostile to Finland.
Yet for nearly the next four months, the Finns fought ferociously. They were led brilliantly by their iconic general and commander-in-chief, Carl Mannerheim.
By March 1940, however, the brave but exhausted Finns were being slowly ground down. Soon they were facing abject defeat—even after courageously inflicting nearly 500,000 Russian causalities, ten times the number of their own dead, wounded, and missing.
Finnish ferocity shocked Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Eventually, he was willing to abandon his original objective of controlling, if not annexing, Finland—in exchange for stealing 9 percent of Finland’s territory.
Mannerheim reluctantly took the deal, stopped the war, and saved an autonomous Finland.
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