Soviet over Finland. 25-30 VI 1941. New Article

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

What was known and obvious for Soviet High Command are the facts that German planes use the Finnish territory for attacking targets near Leningrad (it's obvious just from Ju 88 range calculation) and that German troops en masse were being transferred to Finnland via ports of Gulf of Bothnic (numerous intelligence and air recce reports) all the spring of 1941.

To be clear - for gen. A.A. Novikov's air staff was such a fear, that German could use Finnish territory as a base/ airstrips for air acttack from Finnish territory on/over Leningrad. Anyway there were not installed yet any German combat air units. A few Ju 88s had used Finnish terrory for returns flights from mission over Leningrad (on 22 VI 41).

The same was about Germans intelligence and their allies reccon's flights over Sovites (FAF and ARR flights). They had observed, since March 1941 in the near borders areas (up to about 200 km) gathering "red strom" - real danger of Stalin's agression plans (movements of land, air, navy units to the assoult possitions near the border line). This agression was planned first on June 1941 and moved on July 1941 + of course 2 official declared by Stalin BUZ of RKKA.
Army mobilization, according Soviet army strategy (code BUZ from 1939) in Stalin's era, means exactly the state of war, see marschal Shaposhnikov's text.

Regards,
mirekw