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Shelling of Mainila
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Shelling of Mainila was a military incident on November 26, 1939, during which the Soviet Union's Red Army initiated shooting at the Russian village of Mainila while pretending that the shelling originated from Finland on the other side of the nearby border and claiming losses in personnel, thus getting a great propaganda bonus that launched the Winter War four days later.
According to the archives of Soviet party leader Andrei Zhdanov, the entire incident was orchestrated in order to paint Finland as an aggressor and launch an offensive. The Finnish side disclaimed responsibility for the attacks and identified Soviet artillery as their source — indeed, the war diaries of the nearby Finnish artillery batteries show that Mainila was out of range of all of them, as they had been withdrawn previously to prevent such incidents.
However, in the days following the Shelling of Mainila, the Soviet propaganda machine generated publicity about other fictitious Finnish aggressions, renounced the non-aggression treaty with Finland, and on November 30, 1939 launched the first offensives of the Winter War.
Recently after declassifying the related military documentation it was confirmed that the daily reports from troops dislocated in the area did not report any losses in personnel during the time period in question, thus proving the forgery.
In 1998, President of Russia Boris Yeltsin denounced Soviet's aggression towards Finland, agreeing that the Winter War was a war of aggression.