The Finnish military equipment was generally good for winter conditions, e.g. The skill of skiing was virtually universal among the Finns, while it was a rather rare skill on the Soviet side. While the Red Army was more trained to operate in the steppes of Russia, the Finnish Army had trained to fight in Finnish terrain and the Finnish weather, winter included. While the cold affected both sides, the Finns did have a significant edge, namely prewar training. The situation improved as proper boots were sent from the Home Front and the troops started to use captured Russian felt boots. They were either poor civilian boots or, most often, military boots that were too small. The most common reason for frostbite, on the Finnish side, was footwear. The Finns did also suffer a high number of frostbite cases. In one case during preparations for battle, the number of soldiers evacuated due to frostbite injuries was close to 10,000. The number of Red Army troops who froze to death is unknown. The weather during the War was the coldest Finnish winter ever registered. The Finns knew they were out-manned at about one hundred to one, and therefore opted for a defensive, guerrilla-style strategy. At the time, the entire population of Finland numbered around three million, while the Soviet Union was nearer to 171 million. The Soviets began massing approximately one million men along the Finnish border.

The Finnish refused and thus the Winter War started. The ultimate goal was to create a buffer zone around Leningrad. The Soviet Union demanded that the Finns move the border between USSR and Finland back 25 kilometers from Leningrad and grant them a 30-year lease on the Hanko Peninsula for the construction of a naval base.

Each party also buried the dead of the opposing side, left a stick on the ground marking the burial site and all the tags intact that would identify the dead. Although rare, a few cases have been documented.Д¬ommon Russian soldiers and Finnish troops had a great deal of respect for the dead and would allow both parties to retrieve and bury their dead in peace and would make impromptu ceasefires for such occasions. Body of frozen Soviet soldier propped up by Finnish fighters to intimidate Soviet troops, 1939.ДЇinnish defenders sometimes, though very rarely, took fallen frozen Russian soldiers and posed them upright as psychological warfare.

Finnish winter war uniform