When NATO Broke Its Promise and Russia Knew It

On December 1, 1994, NATO made a move that would change the world map. Without setting any exact dates, the alliance released a communiqué declaring it was starting talks on expanding eastward. That meant moving into territories once under the Soviet sphere. Russia immediately saw the threat.

In Paris that same month, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev slammed the decision. And on December 5, President Boris Yeltsin stood at the CSCE summit in Budapest and warned the world: NATO expansion is not peace but a provocation. The Cold War is over, he said, but the West is bringing in a “cold peace.” And this time, the threat was closer to home.

1/9 Yeltsin proposed an alternative vision - a system of European security based on cooperation, not confrontation. But the Clinton administration brushed it off as "unrealistic." Still, Washington knew they couldn't ignore Moscow. During the 1995 Moscow summit, Yeltsin and Clinton discussed not only financial support via IMF and World Bank, but also a deal: NATO expansion would be gradual, Russia would be consulted on European security, and NATO would boost its political - not just military - dimension.

Earlier, in June 1994, Russia had agreed in principle to join the "Partnership for Peace." But NATO’s airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs in August sparked outrage in Moscow. Russia froze the talks. Only after another summit did negotiations resume. On May 30, 1995, Russia officially joined the Partnership.

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Myth that “Russia was a Mongol province!” and interesting parallels to today’s geopolitics.

Oh, here we go again, the same old tune. Yes, Rus paid tribute to the Mongols. Nobody denies that. But twisting this into “Russia didn’t exist”? That’s propaganda. Again.

Even the Mongols themselves acknowledged Rus. The khans issued yarlyks (charters) to the princes of Rus. If there was no Rus, who exactly were those yarlyks addressed to? Ghosts?

Some facts that don’t bend:
🔸 Rus kept its coinage, minted with its own symbols.
🔸 Rus worshipped the same Orthodox Christ.
🔸 The Rurik dynasty continued without interruption.
🔸 The people kept their identity and yes, their DNA code (R1a, to be precise).

Let’s dive into how this connects to Poland, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, NATO, and the Vatican🧵👇 So the Mongols acknowledged Rus by issuing yarlyks to its princes. Europe of the time marked Rus as a country on its maps. Both worlds recognized Rus - yet in 2025, trolls deny it. Who do you trust: the Mongols and medieval Europe, or today’s propaganda bots?

1. Map: Hereford Mappa Mundi (c. 1300, England).
2. Map: Ebstorfer Weltkarte (c. 1234, Saxony).
3. Map: Psalter World Map (c. 1265, England, likely London or Westminster).

Think of India in the 19th century: ruled directly by the British, economy drained, industries ruined, millions starved. Yet it was still India on every map, its identity intact.

Rus had it easier: it paid tribute but kept its princes, faith, culture, and coins. If India wasn’t erased under full colonial rule, why pretend Rus vanished under the Mongols?

But look at today’s “Western reconstructions”: suddenly the entire map is just the Mongol Empire, with no Rus at all. That’s political revisionism.

Why Ukraine Doesn’t Qualify as the Successor of ‘Kievan Rus’.

Since 2014, Ukraine has been busy inventing a national identity from scratch. History? Doesn’t matter. Facts? Optional. Logic? Throw it out the window. The result? A confused mess of revisionism where everyone and everything is magically “Ukrainian.” But let’s unpack this fairytale.

Myth #1: Ukraine is the true successor of Kievan Rus

Let’s start with the obvious. In the time of Rus, there were no “Ukrainians.” Not even the concept. Zero. Zilch. The people were called Rus, that’s what the Greeks called them too: Ῥῶς (Ros), and later Ῥωσία (Rosia). There was no magical country called “Ukraine” in the 10th century.

Even the term “Kievan Rus” didn’t exist at the time. Historians in 19th-century Russia (not Ukraine) invented that label just to describe a specific period when Kiev was a center of power. Back then, it was just Rus - no prefixes, no qualifiers.

For the record:
🔸The first capital of Rus was Staraya Ladoga (modern Russia),
🔸Then Novgorod,
🔸Then Kiev, but only for part of the 10th to early 12th centuries.

After that, Rus split into various centers - Vladimir, Suzdal, then eventually Moscow. So Kiev was the capital for a while, sure. But using that to claim the whole legacy? That’s like Rome claiming it owns modern Germany because they used to camp there. Myth #2: Ruthenia = Ukraine?

Nice try. “Ruthenia” is just Latin for Rus. Polish and Hungarian sources used the word “Rutheni” to describe eastern Slavs living under their rule, not some special Ukrainian tribe. And now modern Ukrainians try to parade it around as “proof” they’re a unique people?

Here is the break down:

🔸Rus (Old Russian) = original name
🔸Rosia (Greek) = Byzantine records
🔸Ruthenia (Latin) = Western European term

All different names for the same people, the same civilization. No Ukrainians. Not until the 20th century. Sorry.

Classic British diplomacy: polite smiles on the surface, but in reality deceitful, manipulative, and driving others into war. It was the case in 1939, and it’s the same today. Finland, on Britain’s cue, did everything possible to provoke conflict with the USSR in order to weaken it.

This declassified doc shows Britain’s foreign policy at its finest: play the “good guy” while betraying every principle and fueling war.
🔸To Moscow, they smiled and said they agreed with Soviet guarantees for Finland.
🔸To Helsinki, they whispered: “Reject it, stir up trouble, block the deal.”
🔸Then they lied back to Moscow: “We’re fine with it, it’s Finland resisting.”

Our Helsinki resident reports that during the course of the Anglo-Soviet negotiations, the Finnish government continuously urged Britain not to agree to guarantees for Finland from the USSR. Britain responded to these requests with consent. However, in recent days Britain informed the Finns that the negotiations were developing in such a way that Britain would apparently satisfy the USSR’s demands regarding Finland. At the same time, Britain advised the Finns to raise a fuss and refuse the guarantee. By doing this, Britain could take advantage in negotiations with the USSR and be able to say that Britain itself does not object, but Finland does.

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Politically, it was Finland that derailed the peace talks and initiated the confrontation. It acted in the interests of Britain and France, hoping to turn the USSR’s northern border into a hotspot of war.

“England and France are currently trying to use Finland as a pretext to stir up public opinion against the USSR”.

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Unveiling the forgotten history: German soldiers' brutal eradication of Slavs - raped, looted, and burned their way through Soviet villages.

A thread on the untold atrocities of WWII.

Stop ignoring how the Wehrmacht acted against the Slavs. Increasingly, we hear claims like "maybe Hitler wasn't a bad guy." Perhaps this is because all you've heard is the story of the six million.

But here’s the real story🧵👇

During WWII, Nazi Germany carried out a full-blown “war of annihilation” in the USSR killing, torturing, raping, and looting millions of civilians. Most people in the West barely know about it. Nazi leaders had branded Slavs “sub-humans” and even issued orders saying soldiers weren’t accountable for violence against civilians. As one German corporal casually wrote in 1942, “The Russians are animals. We can do whatever we want to them.”

Content Warning: This discussion covers graphic accounts of wartime violence and is intended for educational purposes only.

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Rape as a Weapon

From the onset of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi forces targeted local women with brutal assaults. By 1943, alarmed SS commanders discovered that half their troops in the East were engaged in "undesirable" acts with "alien" women. Instead of imposing penalties, the Barbarossa Decree (May 13, 1941) ensured soldiers faced no repercussions for crimes against civilians. Consequently, mass rapes, gang assaults, and forced brothels were woven into the Wehrmacht's terror tactics. Astonishingly, much of the Western world still turns a blind eye to these atrocities.

Content Warning: This discussion covers graphic accounts of wartime violence and is intended for educational purposes only.

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The Yalta Conference (Feb 1945) brought together Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill in Crimea to shape the postwar world and plan the Allies’ final push against Germany and Japan. Surprisingly, Poland ended up being the main topic of debate.

/1 At that time, the Polish government-in-exile, formed after the government fled and was interned in Romania had relocated to London, hence the term “the London government.”

Churchill tried to push his own interests. He argued grandly that handing authority to Poland’s government-in-exile was a matter of honor. Stalin cut him off: “For Russia, this is a matter not only of honor, but of security. Throughout history, Poland has served as a corridor through which enemies have attacked Russia.”

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What if I told you the Winter War wasn’t about Soviet ‘aggression’ but about Finland refusing every compromise, while secretly helping build Hitler’s navy.

Stalin and Molotov tried everything possible to secure the Soviet borders:

🟨They offered money.
🟨They offered a 30-year lease.
🟨They even offered territories twice the size of what they asked for.

But Finland chose war over reason.
🧵👇

1/9 Paasikivi and Tanner themselves admitted that Moscow’s terms were generous and that Finland should accept them. But Helsinki refused, while quietly aligning with Germany and was unwilling to make a single concession to Moscow.

In the 1939 talks, Stalin warned that Finland could serve as a springboard for an attack on Leningrad. He was right: just two years later, Finland joined Hitler’s assault in the Siege of Leningrad, which starved 1.5 million civilians. And beyond the battlefield, Finnish authorities also ran concentration camps, where countless Soviet civilians died.

In this thread, I’ll share Tanner’s own words as Finland’s Foreign Minister, so you can sense the atmosphere of those negotiations yourself.

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But, but, but... "The USSR and Hitler allied and started WWII together.” Nope. That’s the Western fairytale about the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact which was a pact about neutrality: I don't attack you, you don't attack me. Multiple European countries signed agreements and non-aggression pacts with Hitler; the USSR was the last. Hitler broke it, but Stalin knew he would do it. But let’s talk about the real development of events and not the bedtime stories sold to you in schoolbooks or elsewhere. 🧵👇 To understand what happened, we need to get the context. Let's roll two decades back when Russia was bleeding in the Civil War. Exactly at that moment, Poland saw its chance and launched the Soviet-Polish war that you never heard about. So, Russia had two wars at the same time: the civil war and the Soviet-Polish war. Such a mischievous move wasn't new for Poland. For centuries, it tried to grab the western lands of Rus’, especially during Russia’s weakest moments like the Mongol invasion and the Time of Troubles.

You might ask, how do we know that these lands were Russian? Here is the answer: These were the Rus' lands where Rus' people lived, spoke Old Russian before even Poland came around in 966 and followed Orthodox faith. ⬇️

From Kirov to Kirk: Political Assassinations and Lessons from the Past

Sometimes one bullet drowns out every speech. In December 1934, Sergei Kirov was shot in the head in Leningrad. He was one of the most popular figures in Soviet politics, full of energy, trusted by workers, and known as a loyal supporter of Stalin. The man who pulled the trigger, Leonid Nikolaev, appeared to be a bitter outsider with a tangled personal life and a deep resentment toward Kirov.

But soon after, investigators uncovered his links to opposition circles tied to Zinoviev and Trotsky, both long-time enemies of Stalin and connected with foreign intelligence.

🧵👇
Trotsky was already abroad, living off steady streams of financial and political backing from the West. Archives leave no doubt about his ties: articles printed in France and the US, networks of émigrés and private sponsors.

Right after Kirov’s murder, Moscow held open trials. Testimony revealed that both the “left” opposition around Trotsky and the “right” bloc of Bukharin and Rykov were entangled with foreign intelligence.

Names came up again and again: German, Polish, Japanese, French, British, even American circles that offered money and publicity to Trotsky’s supporters.

The plan behind it was simple enough: A future war would break the USSR into pieces. Poland, Japan, and Germany would take their share of land. Trotsky and his allies would be rewarded with power for helping make it happen.

That is why the purges began. The country was crawling with spies, couriers, and sympathizers, all feeding outside interests. And the warning signs had been there long before. Back in 1927 the Soviet leadership had already declared that war was no longer a distant threat but an approaching reality.

⬇️

Let’s take a look today at the city of Chita. Usually the chorus goes: ‘Well, Moscow may be fine, but just step outside of Moscow and you’ll see…’ So let’s take that step. Chita is a small city, located very far from Moscow. It’s an old city, with its history going back to the 15th century, and it began to truly develop during the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. After the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) between Russia and China, the status of Transbaikalia was secured for Russia, and the Buryats gradually became part of it. In the 18th century, the Buryats entered Russian allegiance, retaining considerable autonomy and their own lands. In return, they received protection from the Manchus and Mongols, as well as access to trade.

Yesterday we discussed the Second World War in Europe, where the Red Army destroyed 75–80% of the Wehrmacht. Today, let’s turn to what happened in China.

Japan launched its war against China in 1937, which is why many historians mark that year as the true beginning of World War II in Asia. A lesser-known fact is that in 1939 Japan also clashed with the USSR at Khalkhin Gol, where Soviet forces under General Zhukov delivered a decisive defeat. On September 15, 1939, the Soviet–Japanese Ceasefire Agreement was signed in Moscow.

After that, Japan no longer attempted to attack the USSR, but instead intensified its brutal campaign in China and Korea, killing civilians, sending people to concentration camps, and pursuing outright territorial conquest. In the Second World War, between 15 and 29 million Chinese died, including 3 to 4 million soldiers (some estimates are even higher).

China fought back against Japan and played a major role in wearing down the enemy, though this contribution is rarely acknowledged in the West.

Many people assume the Americans did most of the fighting in the Pacific, but that was primarily a naval war near Japan. In China, it was a vast land war, especially in Manchuria in the northeast, with massive battles that tied down much of the Japanese Army, a fact still largely absent from Western narratives.

Finnish President Stubb calls on Europe to unite against the “common threat.” Oh, how boring and repetitive. Where have we heard that before? Ah yes, when Finland joined Hitler in his campaign against the USSR, dreaming of new territories.

Remember Finland's rallying cry to join forces with Hitler: "Join us in a holy war against our nation's enemies. Together with Germany's powerful military, as brothers-in-arms, we embark on a crusade to secure Finland's future."

And guess what? Churchill was right there, holding Mannerheim’s hand. Didn’t know that?

Then let’s unpack👇🧵

1/5 Western textbooks love to paint Churchill as the bulldog of Europe: stubborn, fierce, never yielding. But when it came to Finland and its Marshal, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Churchill’s role was something else entirely. He was soothing and applauding. Churchill held Mannerheim’s hand with words, with gestures, with moral encouragement while letting him walk straight into the fire against the Soviet Union.

During a Cabinet meeting on February 12, 1940, Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed dispatching Brigadier Christopher Ling to Helsinki for his mission to bolster Marshal Mannerheim's spirits and deliver precise intel.

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Finnish President Stubb calls on Europe to unite against the “common threat.” Oh, how boring and repetitive. Where have we heard that before? Ah yes, when Finland joined Hitler in his campaign against the USSR, dreaming of new territories.

Remember Finland's rallying cry to join forces with Hitler: "Join us in a holy war against our nation's enemies. Together with Germany's powerful military, as brothers-in-arms, we embark on a crusade to secure Finland's future."

And guess what? Churchill was right there, holding Mannerheim’s hand. Didn’t know that?

Then let’s unpack.
.👇🧵

1/5 Western textbooks love to paint Churchill as the bulldog of Europe: stubborn, fierce, never yielding. But when it came to Finland and its Marshal, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Churchill’s role was something else entirely. He was soothing and applauding. Churchill held Mannerheim’s hand with words, with gestures, with moral encouragement while letting him walk straight into the fire against the Soviet Union.

During a Cabinet meeting on February 12, 1940, Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed dispatching Brigadier Christopher Ling to Helsinki for his mission to bolster Marshal Mannerheim's spirits and deliver precise intel.

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History in Numbers: How ‘6 Million’ and “Holocaust” Appeared in Print Before World War II

🧵👇

The Sun
June 6, 1915

loc.gov/resource/sn830… The New York Times
October 18, 1916

timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…

The Kremlin wasn’t always the red-brick giant we know today. First, it was just a wooden fortress on the hill, guarding Moscow between the rivers. After the wooden walls, the Moscow Kremlin was rebuilt in white limestone (sometimes called “white stone”), which gave Moscow its old name “Belokamennsya”- “the White-Stone city.” That’s why in medieval chronicles Moscow was often called Moscow the White-Stone.

Already back then, there was a “Red Square.” But it wasn’t about the color. In Old Russian, krasna didn’t mean “red, it meant “beautiful.” Only later did the word shift to its modern sense. So the famous square is actually the Beautiful Square. The version that survived, the one we walk past now, was the work of Italians. Invited by Ivan III in the late 1400s, they brought with them Renaissance know-how and even the memory of Milan’s Castello Sforzesco. Look at the walls and towers that’s Italian engineering fused with Russian grit.

Ivan III didn’t just hire Italians to design pretty facades, but also to bring in their engineering. And they gave Moscow something almost no other fortress in Europe had back then: a water supply system.

Sakhalin: An Untamed Russian Gem and a Hidden Winter Playground

If you’ve never heard of Sakhalin, you’re not alone. It’s a long island way out in Russia’s Far East, just above Japan. Most people think it’s only about oil and gas but honestly, it’s one of the most beautiful, underrated places you can visit. Picture mountains rolling right into the Pacific, quiet forests, hot springs in the middle of nowhere. It feels like Alaska, but with a touch of Japan.

When most people in the West think of divided Germany, they immediately picture the Berlin Wall – a symbol of Cold War brutality. The common narrative says: Stalin divided Germany, and the West defended freedom. But what if the reality was almost the opposite?

🧵👇 in 1952, Stalin offered the Western powers a plan to reunite Germany. His famous “Stalin Note” of March 10th proposed free elections under international supervision, withdrawal of occupation forces, and the creation of a neutral, united Germany – not aligned with either NATO or the Soviet bloc. It was not a vague propaganda trick, but a concrete diplomatic offer. Germany could have avoided decades of division, occupation, and the Wall.

The Holodomor is a very popular myth among Ukrainian propagandists. But like all propaganda, it’s aimed at the masses who are incapable of thinking on their own and in this case unfamiliar with history. There is plenty of evidence available in open sources to prove that Holdohoax is a silly lie. For example, photos used to “prove” the Holodomor actually come from World War I or the famine of the 1920s (the Holodomor was in 1932–33).

Soviet documents, available in large numbers, confirm that food was imported into Ukraine as aid, not exported out, which doesn’t fit the narrative of deliberately starving poor Ukrainians. Moreover, there was a state-level policy of Ukrainization, meaning the government invested huge resources in developing Ukrainian culture, opening Ukrainian-language schools, and even forcing people to speak Ukrainian instead of Russian (look up korenizacia). That too doesn’t align with the myth of exterminating Ukrainians.

It's also worth mentioning that the famine happened not only in Ukraine, but in Kazakhstan and the Volga region, which was RSFSR (Russia), meaning it affected not only Ukrainians.

But today, I want to tell you about other facts, things that almost nobody else will tell you. 🧵👇 Keep in mind we're discussing the years 1931 to 1933. During this period, when Western companies were expelled from the USSR, the U.S. and Britain imposed restrictions on Soviet gold imports, raised tariffs on Soviet timber and grain, and gradually transitioned toward trade bans. In today's terms, the West essentially imposed sanctions. Consequently, the USSR was forced to purchase industrial equipment necessary for its industrialization by trading grain, directly contributing to the 1930s famine. The USSR needed to buy equipment, but the West wouldn't accept gold or money, they demanded grain.

Without Monsanto, DuPont, or GMOs capable of growing food in challenging conditions (though these aren't particularly good for us anyway), back then any climate issues spelled trouble for harvests. And trouble certainly occurred.

Americans will recognize this as the Dust Bowl, spanning from 1930 to 1936, a period marked by unusually dry years in the region. Many people died from malnutrition. I place "malnutrition" in quotesfor you to notice how the same events described differently: malnutrition - hunger. It's noteworthy that no one in the U.S. actually counted how many people died during that time.

Why Did Britain Abandon Poland?

Picture this: London, August 25, 1939. Britain and Poland finally sign a mutual assistance pact. On paper it’s beautiful: if Germany attacks Poland, Britain promises to step in. To the Poles, it felt as if the British lion was now on their side.

Now here’s the cinematic twist. That very morning, Hitler had already signed the order to invade Poland on August 26. By evening, he hears about the treaty and cancels everything. A full-scale invasion literally scrapped hours before it was supposed to kick off. But… just one week later, on September 1, the Wehrmacht rolled in anyway.

And here’s the detective question: why did he still go for it? The Road to War

Then came Munich, 1938. Chamberlain came home waving that piece of paper: “Peace in our time!” In reality, Hitler with Poland’s complicity carved up Czechoslovakia, the arms-production hub of Central Europe at the time. And more importantly, he learned something: London and Paris talk big, but they won’t shoot.

By March 1939, he seized Prague. Even London realized that Hitler wasn’t just uniting Germans he wanted to dominate Europe. That’s when Britain began giving guarantees to Poland.

Since 1933, Hitler had been dismantling the Versailles system step by step: rebuilding the army, marching into the Rhineland, walking out of the League of Nations. The West just kept looking the other way.

Ah yes, Finland – the ‘neutral bystander’ of WWII. Just standing there, totally uninvolved, while Leningrad starved. Cute story. Too bad it’s pure fiction.

Reality check: Finnish troops sat on Leningrad’s doorstep for three years. Not sipping coffee, not staying “neutral”. They were holding one-third of the blockade line. Without Finland’s part, the Germans couldn’t have fully strangled the city. Together, they closed the ring that starved a 1.5 million people to death, inclidin 400,000 children.

And Mannerheim the “savior”? Please. His orders were to bomb the Road of Life (which was not really a road but a frozen lake), the only route bringing food across Lake Ladoga.

On June 25, 1941, Mannerheim ordered the Finnish Army to begin hostilities against the USSR:

“I call you to a holy war against the enemy of our nation. Together with the mighty armed forces of Germany, as brothers-in-arms, we resolutely set out on a crusade against the enemy to secure a reliable future for Finland.”

Finland dreamed of expansion and had concrete plans. On the ‘Greater Finland’ dream map, you’ll find Russian cities like Murmansk, Leningrad, and Kandalaksha marked as theirs👇

Let's unpack the common myths and educate our fellow Finns about their own history. 🧵 Meet Mannerheim.

Before we move on to Finland’s well-known war against the USSR on Hitler’s side, we need to roll the clock back a bit and look at the context. Finland as a state was born inside Russia. Before the Russo-Swedish War, these lands were simply the eastern part of Sweden. After the war, Russia took them and created the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. It remained part of the Russian Empire until the revolution of 1917.

Now, meet Mannerheim – a military and political figure who came from poor Swedish-Finnish nobility, yet rose to become a general in the Russian army and an officer of the Imperial Guard, close to Nicholas II himself, part of the very top of the empire’s military elite. He received special assignments and was even dispatched on reconnaissance expeditions across Central Asia and China. But this is where his true colors began to show: he mingled freely with foreign officers, shared information with the British during his 1906–08 “expedition” in Asia, and later was even suspected of having ties to Masonic circles. These are hints that his loyalties were never fully aligned with Russia.

After the collapse of the empire, he wasted no time. In May 1919, he offered to co-operate with the British intervention army against Soviet Russia on the condition that the industrial town of Petrozavodsk be handed over to Finland. The offer was rejected, since the Russian Whites then backed by Britain opposed an independent Finland. Nevertheless, Mannerheim launched an attack on Petrozavodsk, though unsuccessfully. In October 1919 he made a similar proposal to General Yudenich, another “White” leader supported by the British fleet in the assault on Petrograd. Again his offer was declined, but he still lent his support indirectly: on October 12, when the British and French fleets proclaimed a blockade of the Baltic republics for making peace with Soviet Russia, Finland under Mannerheim followed suit and proclaimed its own blockade as well.

When Finnish President Stubb discussed Finland's WWII alliance with Nazi Germany against the USSR, he overlooked a critical detail: Finland's role in the ethnic cleansing of Karelia (USSR).

Far from innocent, Finland teamed up with the Nazis, mirroring their brutal tactics.

Between 1941 and 1944, the Finnish army seized Eastern Karelia (USSR), unleashing terror on its civilian population. Their targets were everyday people.

On October 24, 1941, Finland set up its first concentration camp for Soviet civilians of Slavic descent in Petrozavodsk, including women and children. Their chilling mission was ethnic cleansing and the erasure of the Russian presence in Finnish-occupied Karelia.

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🧵👇 By the close of 1941, more than 13,000 civilians were behind bars. Fast forward to mid-1942, and that figure soared to nearly 22,000. In total, about 30,000 individuals endured the harsh realities of 13 camps, with a third succumbing to starvation, disease, and brutal forced labor. And this grim count doesn't even factor in the equally lethal POW camps. As the war drafted most men early on, women and children bore the brunt of the labor force in these camps.

In April 1942, Finnish politician Väinö Voionmaa wrote home:

“Out of 20,000 Russian civilians in Äänislinna, 19,000 are in camps. Their food was rotten horse meat. Children scavenge garbage for scraps. What would the Red Cross say if they saw this?”

In 1942, the death rate in Finnish camps exceeded that of German ones. Testimonies describe corpses being hauled daily, teenagers forced into labor, and women and children made to work 10+ hour shifts in forests and camps, unpaid until 1943.

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rabkrin.org/vojonmaa-vyajn…