### Shelling of Mainila **Date**: November 26, 1939 • **Location**: Leninskoye, Russian Federation This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1939–1940. The Soviet Red Army shelled the village of Mainila and then claimed that the fire originated from Finland, giving them a casus belli to launch the Winter War a few days later. The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.

Tags