"The 7th Army, comprising nine divisions, a tank corps and three tank brigades, was located on the Karelian Isthmus. Its objective was to quickly overrun the Finnish defenses on the Karelian Isthmus and conquer Viipuri. From there, the 7th Army was to continue towards Lappeenranta, then turn west towards Lahti, before the final push to the capital Helsinki. The force was later divided into the 7th and 13th Armies."

That 7th Army was the one that received extremely heavy casualties in their attempts of a breakthrough.

Also, the land concessions before starting this war demanded removal of defensive lines and a military base near Helsinki (the capital). This was just diplomacy as a means to make the war easier.

[–] huf@hexbear.net 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

yes, they did attack finland. but where did they state that they wanted to annex all of it?

[–] mellowheat@suppo.fi -1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not sure. The wikipedia article claims "Most sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and cite the establishment of the puppet Finnish Communist government and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols as evidence of this, while other sources argue against the idea of a full Soviet conquest." -- so I guess it's not entirely non-controversial.

USSR did annex all the other countries listed in Molotov-Ribbentrop though: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, eastern parts of Poland and Romania.

[–] huf@hexbear.net 13 points 11 months ago

yeah, so they definitely didnt do it to finland not because they didnt want to in the first place, but because plucky finns something something. cool.

[–] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 11 points 11 months ago

"They tried to take the capital" does not translate to "they wanted to annex the whole country." Taking the enemy's capital is a smart move in war because it severely diminishes their ability to fight and thus makes it easier to extract the concessions you want.

Read Clausewitz.