Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are reportedly getting closer to a deal that would end the Russian invasion. The deal, if and when it arrives, likely will resemble the Moscow Treaty of 1940, which crowned the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland. Ukraine will sign up to a version of Finland’s neutral status that resulted from that treaty, and some of its territorial losses will likely be sealed, if not recognized. Just as Finland did, however, Ukraine will keep its independence and its military, rather than become a Russian puppet state.
The discussion appears to be headed in this direction because the invasion also is developing similarly, in some important ways, to the Winter War. Though Ukraine and Finland have little in common and 21st-century warfighting is as different as can be from the 20th-century kind, the parallels are hard to miss.
My grandmother, a doctor, was in the Red Army’s medical service during the Winter War. She froze her nose off: The red spot at the tip of her nose stayed with her until she died, aged 92, in 1999. The injuries she treated mostly had to do with frostbite rather then bullet or shrapnel wounds. It was a miserable campaign she hated to remember and, to the end of her days, had no idea why it had been fought. Unlike many Russians who didn’t share her experience, she never had the slightest desire to travel to Karelia — the part of Finland the Soviet Union ended up annexing — to enjoy the nature and the sights.
