Talvela at Vyborg — 17 February

Major-General Paavo Talvela, commanding the Vyborg sector

Vyborg (Viipuri in Finnish) is Finland's second city: 80,000 inhabitants in 1939, an industrial centre (paper mills, an oil refinery), a commercial port on the Gulf of Finland, and the chief citadel of Swedish-Finnish culture. Its fall would mean complete military collapse.

After the breakthrough at Lähde and the disintegration of the , Mannerheim entrusts the defence of the Vyborg sector to Major-General , aged 43 — a veteran of Tolvajärvi and already a national hero. Talvela has only 28,000 men at his disposal — the remnants of the , the and the reconstituted — together with 60 guns and 12 tanks wrested from the at Raate. Facing him stands the , refurbished by Timoshenko, which musters 180,000 men, 500 tanks and 2,000 guns.

From 17 to 28 February the gradually forces the intermediate line. On 1 March 1940 comes the first attack on Vyborg's northern suburbs. On 5 March the Soviets enter the medieval citadel of Vyborg (a symbolic site, founded in 1293 by the Swedes). On 8 March Vyborg Castle falls — the first major historic building lost.

Talvela must decide how the city is to be defended.