Raate — Vinogradov on the frozen road

Vinogradov chooses B: to dig in on the spot in a circular formation and wait for reinforcements. Siilasvuo then applies an improved motti doctrine — six solid blocking positions forming an "accordion" of isolation. The units of the 44th Division "bristle" into defensive rings, waiting for reinforcements that will never come — Stalin had ordered the division abandoned on 6 January. Without enough firewood, in summer uniforms and on short rations, the Soviet soldiers freeze by the thousand in their trenches. The Finns attack at night in light patrols, knife the outposts, and fire flare rockets to disorient the defenders. From 5 to 7 January 1940 the 44th Division is wiped out. Final official toll (Soviet figures released after 1991): 17,500 Soviet killed and wounded out of 25,000, 5,000 prisoners, 2,500 missing. Trophies captured by the Finns: 43 tanks, 70 guns, 278 motor vehicles, 300 grenade launchers, 6,000 rifles. Finnish losses: 900 dead, 1,770 wounded. Vinogradov slips through the encirclement with a small group on 6 January and reaches the Soviet frontier on the 7th. He is arrested at once by the NKVD, tried by a military tribunal in Leningrad, sentenced to death and shot on 11 January 1940 on the village square at Vuokkijärvi in front of the surviving Soviet troops. Posthumously rehabilitated in 1957 by Khrushchev.