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Comment by sorokod | Hacker News Reader

Looks like Ukrainans are not interested in getting split up in the way you are proposing.

How about Finland? Putin stated that he has no problem with Finland joining NATO, wouldn't missiles within seconds of St Petersburg be a reason to invade?

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Ukraine and Zelensky had agreed to allow eastern Ukraine to have separatist elections and then be self-ruling. Zelensky didn't follow through with that.

' would receive self-governing status once they hold elections ' https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agrees-to-election-in-occupi...

> Zelensky didn't follow through with that.

According to RFE/RL (US state media), Ukraine agreed to hold elections "once all armed formations leave the area." That's not something that happened between 2019 and the beginning of the war.

And Zelensky had to demand that. There can be no free election while a country is under occupation from a foreign nation.

I'm still for referenda in all disputed oblasts, including Crimea, but Russia has to end their occupation first.

> Looks like Ukrainans are not interested in getting split up in the way you are proposing.

It was the Eastern Ukrainians that declared independence and broke away from Ukraine, after the coup that deposed a democratically elected albeit corrupt government.

Ukraine to Moscow is ~ 475 KM and lacks significant choke points.

Finland to Moscow is ~780 KM and involves a number of impediments, including a major city in St Petersburg

> Finland to Moscow is ~780 KM and involves a number of impediments, including a major city in St Petersburg

This isn't as relevant as it seems. Russia considers Murmansk critical because it hosts some of their largest military installations, including a very large portion of their nuclear deterrent. Russia has made clear that it would respond if heavy hardware were moved into Finland, although Putin claimed that they don't care as long as nothing changes physically.[1]

1. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/vladimir-putin-warns-ag...

If Finland was a threat outside Karelia, the USSR once mobilized could have marched in in 1945. Finland was not a threat then and it is not now.

Why would they be in a better position in 1945 (after losing millions) compared to 1940 when they were defeated by Finland [1]?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

The article you linked to says the result of the war was Finland ceded land to the USSR. It's a strange war that ends with the Victor ceding land to the defeated.

It's also a strange idea that a fully mobilized Soviet Union in 1945 could push the German army back to Berlin, but would be incapable of taking over Finland. Finland was there for the taking for the Soviet Union in 1945, but the USSR did not see any threat outside Karelia so did not pursue this. This would not have been much disputed at all back then.

They were trying to take all of Finland but got their asses handed to them, taking barely any land and then giving up. A winter war in thick forests against an army of snipers was apparently very different than a tank and infantry war on a flat plain.

You are confusing 2 events. It's true that the USSR almost completely failed their first invasion of Finland. Though for reasons that are much much more complex than simple terrain imo.

But after barbarossa, Finland then seized the opportunity to regain it's earlier losses and attacked the USSR, this time with german help.

That didn't turn out well for the Finnish, and their situation was extremely dire by the end of WW2. Which is why they sued for peace in secret. The USSR could have taken the entirety of Finland at that point, and in fact the finnish government basically evacuated the capital. Why didn't stalin go for it? I guess we can't really know but from the wiki article:

"Stalin's desire to crush Hitler quickly and decisively without distraction from the Finnish sideshow" concluded the war.

Not only that, but for decades after the war, the Finnish communists (puppets to the kremlin) became extremely powerful politically. Finland was forced to hold trials against its own army, and for a time was completely subservient to the soviets. So if they really wanted to take over the entirety of Finland in 1940, I don't see why they wouldn't have done it in 1945.

I'm not confusing anything but you're certainly muddying the water. The USSR lost the Winter War. Period. It's well known and not remotely controversial. They intended to conquer all of Finland and failed. The end. Soviet losses were 5 times greater than Finnish losses. The whole thing is what made Hitler believe he could succeed on what became the Eastern Front.

I totally agree on that. The USSR was completely halted and lost in a humiliating war. There's no debate here, and the insane Soviet losses speak for themselves. What I was saying is that it's still not really clear if Stalin actually wanted to take over Finland. Or just thought he could easily steamroll them and take the territory that was in dispute.

> Putin stated that he has no problem with Finland joining NATO, wouldn't missiles within seconds of St Petersburg be a reason to invade?

No, this isn't right. On the day that Finland announced they would apply, Putin said that it's not a problem as long as heavy NATO hardware wasn't moved into Finland or Sweden. If it were, he claimed, then they would respond. He was claiming that he doesn't care what people do on paper as long as the physical situation doesn't change. [1]

1. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/vladimir-putin-warns-ag...

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