Editing Winter War (section)

===Soviet Union===
[[File:Fin monument.jpg|thumb|upright|Monument devoted to the victims of the Winter War in St. Petersburg]]

The Soviet General Staff Supreme Command (''Stavka'') met in April 1940, reviewed the lessons of the Finnish campaign and recommended reforms. The role of frontline political commissars was reduced, and old-fashioned ranks and forms of discipline were reintroduced. Clothing, equipment and tactics for winter operations were improved. Not all of the reforms had been completed when Germans initiated Operation Barbarossa 14 months later.<ref>[[#Trotter2002|Trotter (2002)]] p. 264</ref>

Between the Winter War and ''[[perestroika]]'' in the late 1980s, Soviet historiography relied solely on Molotov's speeches on the Winter War. In his radio speech of 29 November 1939, Molotov argued that the Soviet Union had tried to negotiate guarantees of security for Leningrad for two months. The Finns had taken a hostile stance to "please foreign imperialists". Finland had undertaken military provocation, and the Soviet Union could no longer abide by the non-aggression pacts. According to Molotov, the Soviet Union did not want to occupy or annex Finland, but the goal was purely to secure Leningrad.<ref name="Viha1999_893-896">[[#Vihavainen|Vihavainen (1999)]], pp. 893–896</ref>

The official Soviet figure, with reference to the command of the Leningrad Military District, was published at a session of the Supreme Soviet on 26 March 1940, with 48,475 dead and 158,863 sick and wounded.<ref name="Sokolov00_340" /> More recent Russian estimates vary: in 1990, [[Mikhail Semiryaga]] claimed 53,522 dead, and [[N. I. Baryshnikov]], 53,500. In 1997, [[Grigoriy Krivosheyev]] claimed 126,875 dead and missing and total casualties of 391,783, with 188,671 wounded.<ref name="Krivo1997_77-78" /> In 1991, Yuri Kilin claimed 63,990 dead and total casualties of 271,528. In 2007, he revised the estimate of dead to 134,000<ref name="Kilin2007b_91" /> and in 2012, he updated the estimate to 138,533.{{sfnp|Kilin|2012|pp=21–24}} In 2013, [[Pavel Petrov (historian)|Pavel Petrov]] stated that the Russian State Military Archive has a database confirming 167,976 killed or missing along with the soldiers' names, dates of birth and ranks.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> [[Nikita Khrushchev]] stated in his memoirs that over one million Soviet soldiers were killed.<ref>[[#reiter|Reiter (2009)]], pp. 128</ref><ref>[[#Nenye2015|Nenye (2015)]], p. 284</ref>

There were 5,572 [[Soviet prisoners of war in Finland]].<ref name="Manninen1999b_815" /><ref>[[#VanDyke1997|Van Dyke (1997)]], p. 191</ref><ref>[[#Trotter2002|Trotter (2002)]], p. 263</ref> After the Winter War, the Soviet prisoners were returned to the USSR in accordance with the Moscow Peace Treaty. Of these, 450 were released, 4,354 were sentenced to imprisonment in labour camps ranging from 3 to 10 years and 414 were exposed to be "active in traitorous activities while in captivity", with 334 criminal cases being transferred to the [[Supreme Court of the Soviet Union]]; 232 of those cases ended in a death penalty.{{sfnp|Bichekhvost|2012}}

Between 1,200 and 3,543 Soviet tanks were destroyed. The official figure was 611 tank casualties, but Yuri Kilin found a note received by the head of the Soviet General Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov, reporting 3,543 tank casualties and 316 tanks destroyed. According to Finnish historian [[Ohto Manninen]], the 7th Soviet Army lost 1,244 tanks during the breakthrough battles of the Mannerheim Line in mid-winter. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Finnish estimate of the number of lost Soviet tanks was 1,000 to 1,200.<ref name="Kilin1999" /><ref name="Kanta1998_286" /><ref name="Manninen1999b_810-811" /> The Soviet Air Forces lost around 1,000 aircraft, but fewer than half of them were combat casualties.<ref name="Manninen1999b_810-811" /><ref name="Kilin1999_381" /> According to Carl Fredrik Geust, based on the studies of Soviet air force units, Finnish anti-aircraft units shot down 119 and Finnish fighter pilots 131 Soviet aircraft, though all Soviet aircraft losses had been more than 900.