Europe | Land of cold wars

Finland has Turkey’s approval and can at last join NATO

Returning to the days of a hostile Russian border

LKS 20201115 LKS 20190322 Suomalaisia varusmiehiä, joilla on osuman rekisteröivä prisma otsapannassa, Northern Wind 2019 -sotaharjoituksessa Mjöträskissä Ruotsissa 22. maaliskuuta 2019. Ruotsin maavoimat järjestää Northern Wind 2019 -harjoituksen Norrbottenissa Pohjois-Ruotsissa. Northern Wind on Ruotsin maavoimien pääharjoitus, johon osallistuu yhteensä noin 10 000 henkilöä. Ruotsin ja Suomen lisäksi harjoitukseen osallistuvat Norja, Iso-Britannia ja Yhdysvallat. ... Finnish servicemen during the Northern Wind 2019 military exercise in northern Sweden on March 22, 2019. In addition to Swedish personnel units from Finland, Norway, Great Britain and the United States participate in Northern Wind, a Swedish Army exercise, in the north of the country in a winter climate at the end of March., LEHTIKUVA / MARTTI KAINULAINEN
Image: Lehtikuva
|HELSINKI AND SUOMUSSALMI

IN WINTER THE snow outside Suomussalmi, a town 600km (370 miles) north of Helsinki, lies a metre deep. Step off the road and you sink to your thighs, as the Soviet army’s 44th Rifle Division found when it invaded Finland during the Winter War of 1939-40. Once its 14,000 men, 530 trucks and 44 tanks had passed the border village of Raate, the Finns blew up its lead and rear vehicles. For weeks, while the trapped column froze and starved, Finnish ski troops in white camouflage glided through the woods slicing it to bits. The division’s commander struggled back to Soviet lines, where commissars had him shot.

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Land of cold wars”

Europe March 25th 2023

From the March 25th 2023 edition

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