If We Want To See How The Russia/Ukraine War Ends, We need To Look At The Historical Parallel of Finland vs The Soviet Union 1939-1946

There was the announcement that President Trump is now opening negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the three-year war in Ukraine. Elena got upset about this. She asked an excellent question: "Why haven't the Europeans been brought into the process? After all, this is a European war." I suspect that ending this war will be a process just as painful as ending the Vietnam. When the dust settles, Ukraine will lose some territory. It will be a neutral state. Membership in NATO is "off the table." Membership in the European Union is very possible. There is always the argument that Russia will use this time to rebuild its economy and military machine. Then will come a second Ukraine invasion. In the time of peace Ukraine will be rebuilding its economy and military machine that will be very modern with the best weapons in the world. I pointed out to Elena a fascinating point of history. I am a World War II amateur scholar specializing in Russia and the Eastern Front. Josef Stalin launched an invasion of Finland in 1939. Here is a summary of what happened: The Soviet Union invaded Finland on November 30, 1939, beginning the Winter War. The war lasted until March 13, 1940. How it started • The Soviet Union demanded that Finland cede land to create a buffer zone against Nazi Germany. • Finland rejected the demands, which led to the invasion. • The Soviet Union's forces included 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. How it was fought • The war was fought in brutal conditions, with heroic actions on both sides. • The Finns used guerrilla fighters, reindeer to haul supplies, and single-handed attacks on tanks. • The Soviets suffered heavy losses. How it ended • Finland had to surrender a large area of southeastern Finland, including the city of Viipuri. • Finland also leased the peninsula of Hanko to the Soviet Union for 30 years. Aftermath • The League of Nations denounced the invasion and expelled the Soviet Union. • President Roosevelt gave Finland $10 million in credit. The brave people of Finland fought this invading force with primitive weapons including Molotov cocktails (bottles full of gasoline with a rag in the top of the bottle that was lit and thrown at Russian tanks.) Stalin's forces suffered horrific losses. When the Nazis invaded Russia, Finland came in on the Nazi side. They played a big part in the 900-day siege of Leningrad. Soviet forces drove out the finish military contingent. After World War II, Josef Stalin took over all of Eastern Europe. He did not make a move to Finland. Here is the official explanation: Stalin did not invade Finland at the end of World War II because, despite having the military power to do so, he deemed it strategically unnecessary to antagonize the country further, considering Finland had already ceded significant territory to the Soviet Union during the Winter War and had largely aligned itself with the Allied powers by the war's end, preventing them from becoming a potential threat to the Soviet Union; additionally, a full invasion would have been costly in terms of lives and resources, which were needed for post-war reconstruction. In my humble opinion, Finland caused the Soviet Union such awful losses that Stalin had not the stomach for a repeat of the first Finnish invasion. I think that Putin will adopt the same attitude toward Ukraine.