Soviet-Finnish war: natural features and their influence on the progress of military actions in Northern Priladozh’e

Among important factors that had a significant impact on the outcome of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 are the natural and climate conditions of the combat operations, especially in the area of the Northern Ladoga area. These factors, which constitute a particular relevance to the study, are not satisfactory detailed in special literature. The purpose of this article is to prove that the geographical, climatic and weather conditions of the region under consideration, at the time of the event had a critical influence on the course of the military operations in the Northern Ladoga area. The Red Army incurred huge losses in manpower and military equipment due to challenging natural and weather conditions. We came to a conclusion, expressed in the thesis statement, that a whole set of external factors was not taken into consideration in the process of combat plans’ development, which eventually had a disastrous impact on the Red Army.