| Leningrad Military District Headquarters refutation | |
|
During the second three-week period of action in Finland the were no serious changing at the front. If in the first three-week period serious operations, resulting in creating place-the-arms for Soviet troops on Finnish territory took place, during the second three-week period only minor clashes of reconnaissance and small infantry detachments took place. Unexpected severe frosts let Finnish troops to lighten their position, but they were unable to use favorable conditions. But the foreign press, especially French news agency Gavas, had the time to open big libel operations against the Red Army. The Headquarters does not have time to refute every day slander fabrications of foreign news agencies. But it is the Headquarters opinion that it is quite useful from time to time to make resume of this slander campaign in open the real faces of these "newsmakers". … 2. Foreign news agencies, especially news agency Gavas, with the reference to the same "sources", state that at the battle near Suomussalmi Soviet 44th division "lost 14 000 men". This statement is no more than a supernatural fantasy of its authors. 44th division had less than 10 000 men at the front-line, so how could it lost more than 14 000? In reality the Soviet troops lost no more than 900 men, most of them due to unexpected severe frosts and not to the actions of Finnish troops. And foreign gossipers are keeping a thorough silence that Finnish army lost there more than 2000 killed or wounded and that Finnish Schutskorps brutally killed their wounded, not to let any "tongue" into the hands of the Red Army. … We understand that the owners of the foreign news agencies instructed them to hold the propaganda against the Red Army. So that is their "propaganda" – a great heap of lies, put together to justify their existence. But what is the real price of the propaganda, based on the lies and not on real facts? Is the meaning of "propaganda" of so called "defenders of civilization" in the constant deception of the public? We had never expected that the representatives of the foreign press could degenerate so fast. "Krasnaya Zvezda" newspaper |