did the Soviet Union actually expect a easy victory against Finland?

Yes, and they got it. Their war aims were limited (they got everything they wanted and more) and despite an unfortunately high casualty rate they were obviously able to get away with it.

>World's largest country spanning 1 third of the world and controlling a near bottomless supply of men and supplies.
vs.
>Cold, barely populated backwater with next to no military experience.

You would expect an easy victory too if lived through WW2.

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They underestimated the THICC

>>2956125
The OP picture is wrong though. The USSR still won.

After the Red Army smashed through the Mannerheim line, they could have easily taken all of Finland. The road to Helsinki was open. Yet Stalin refused to annex/puppet the country for whatever reason.

>>2956191
He was afraid of France and Britain getting involved. The real mystery is why he spared Finland after the continuation war, everyone else was occupied and puppeted

>>2956191
>>2956211
Because he couldn't take the infamy hit 8^)))))

>>2956186
I still don't understand why the Finns pretend they won. It's like my fellow Burgers who go on and on about muh k/d in Vietnam.

>>2956245
Remind me of how many countries the Soviets attacked and didn't conquer again?

Finn here. The reason alot of finns like to believe we "won" (even though we really did not) is that we managed to hold off the russian war machine enough for it to fail conquering the whole country.

>>2956272
I honestly don't understand why people obsess over who won. The Finns NEVER stood a chance. What's admirable is that they fought well enough that, had they had been given a fair shake by either the Allies or by Hitler, the Soviet Union would have been BTFO. I don't think there's a comparable situation in history where such an outgunned opponent did so well.

>>2956245
Because when the war started the soviets made it very clear that they wanted to occupy the whole country and refused to even acknowledge the finnish government as legit. So when the finns fought hard enough to make the soviets abandon those plans and accept a peace deal finns felt that they managed to save their independence.

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>muh commies still won
It's treated as a victory because the Soviets invaded to install a communist government after the Finns told them to fuck off with their demands for Karelia et al.
The Finns managed to hold off the largest empire in the world and survive, when they could've easily ended up like the relativity shithele backwaters ex-communist countries are today. They had NO advantages or allies barring material from Germany and still survived a lot longer than anyone expected.