The 'Battle of the Raate Road' was fought between Soviet and Finnish forces during the 'Jatkosota' winter war as part of the 'Battle of Suomussalmi' in the eastern area of central Finland (1/7 January 1940).

On 7 December 1939, the Soviet 163^rd Division had captured Suomussalmi, but then found itself trapped deep inside Finnish territory, and the 44^th Division was sent to its aid. Over the next week, Eversti Hjalmar Siilasvuo’s outnumbered 9^th Divisioona stopped and decisively defeated the Soviet forces on the road linking Raate and Suomussalmi.

During the 'Battle of Suomussalmi', the Finns cut the Raate road on 11 December 1939 in an action which blocked the second and more southerly supply route to the 163^rd Division in Suomussalmi. The Finns also cut the first and more northerly supply route on 13 December, and the Soviets were forced to open a new supply route across the Kiantajärvi lake. The 163^rd Division was almost totally surrounded and suffered major losses in Suomussalmi. The division’s situation continued to worsen, and on 20 December the commander of the 163^rd Division, Kombrig Andrei I. Zelentsov, asked permission to retreat from Suomussalmi. In response, Komkor Mikhail P.Dukhanov’s (from 22 December Komkor Vasili I. Chuikov’s) 9^th Army sent of the 1/305^th Regiment and the 3/662^nd Regiment of the 44^th Division to reinforce the 163^rd Division in Suomussalmi area. Zelentsov’s concerns were not understood at the Soviet headquarters, as the entire 44^th Division was about to move along the Raate road. The well-trained 81^st Mountain Regiment played a major role in the Battle of Suomussalmi.

Most historians date the 'Battle of the Raate Road' from 1 January to 7 January 1940. The Raate road was a battlefield during the entire 'Jatkosota', and before the main battle against the 44^th Division, the Finns had fought defensive battles against a part of 163^rd Division on the Raate road. In addition, some battles were fought on the road’s eastern side, near Finland’s border with the USSR, on the road during the rest of the 'Jatkosota'.

At the start of the battle, Siilasvuo’s 9^th Division had already effectively destroyed the 163^rd Division and, following that, received orders to destroy the 44^th Division, which had been brought to a halt on the road near Haukila, 7.5 miles (12 km) from Suomussalmi. The 9^th Division was divided into four groups, each named after its commander. The decisive battle was ordered to begin at 08.30 on 5 January 1940.

The battle was centred on Haukila, where most of the Soviet troops were located and where the Group 'Mandelin' and Group 'Mäkiniemi' attacked. The Group 'Mäkiniemi' had started moving toward Haukila a few days before the beginning of the attack proper. At the same time, the fresh 3^rd NKVD Border Guard Regiment was just arriving to assist the 44^th Division. By the following morning, the Finnish troops had secured strong blocking positions, reinforced with mines, at several points in the middle of the long Soviet column. During 6 January, there was heavy fighting all along the Raate road as the Finns continued to break the Soviet forces into smaller detachments. The Soviets attempted to overrun Finnish roadblocks with armour, losing numerous tanks in frontal attacks, but were unsuccessful. Finally, at 21.30, Vinogradov belatedly ordered his division to retreat to the Soviet border.

The despairing Soviet troops began to escape to the north across the Kiantajärvi lake, and many of the soldiers froze to death without proper clothing or supplies. Remnants of Soviet units had already tried to escape to the east but were blocked by the Group 'Kari'. Farther in the east, the Group 'Fagernäs' could not keep a strategic bridge under Finnish control, but on 7 January 7 recaptured the bridge, and before 12.00 all Soviet resistance had been suppressed. The mopping-up process continued for two days, during which the Finns rounded up hundreds of Soviet soldiers, who were universally starving and freezing. Other remnants of the 44^th Division were forced to withdraw from the area, fleeing through the northern forests with the Finns in pursuit. finally reaching the border in several small groups.

In this battle, the Finns seized a large quantity of Soviet weapons and equipment including 4,822 rifles, 106 machine guns, 190 light machine guns, 71 pieces of artillery, 29 anti-tank guns, 14 anti-tank rifles, 43 tanks, 10 armoured cars, 260 trucks, 20 tractors, two cars and 1,170 horses.

For many years, Finnish historians estimated the Soviet losses as about 17,000 men on the basis of the interrogation of prisoners of war captured early in January. Officers of the 27^th Regiment had given their casualties at 70%, and the Finns assumed that the 44^th Division's strength was more than 20,000 men. Western historians generally based their own figures on Finnish estimates. The Soviets challenged the number of casualties published in the Western world, claiming to have lost no more than 900 men, mostly from frostbite, while inflicting an estimated 2,000 fatalities on the Finnish forces. Later Finnish historians conducted further efforts to ascertain the number of Soviet casualties in the battle. The Finns captured more than 5,000 rifles, and the North Finland Group replaced 1,200 old rifles with the newer Soviet models. Most recent Finnish studies indicate that the Soviets lost at least 7,000 to 9,000 men.

To reduce the possibilities of an epidemic of disease, the Finns quickly buried the Soviet dead as the weather warmed during the early spring. Mass graves were marked on maps, but these maps later disappeared. Around the time of Easter 1940, the Soviets asked for permission to gather their dead for transport back to the USSR. The Finns allowed no Soviet officials to cross the border but delivered 300 bodies from near the village of Raate to Soviet officials. After the 'Talvisota' continuation war, the Soviet leadership lost interest in the dead. The Soviet army soon occupied the Raate road area and gathered wartime debris, but did not touch the bodies. The fate of the 44^th Division remained unmentioned in Soviet historiography for decades.

According to one Russian historian, the Stavka established a research commission in January 1940 to investigate the number of Soviet casualties. The commission reported 4,674 total casualties in the form of 1,001 men dead, 1,430 wounded and 2,243 missing. At the turn of the year, the strength of the division was 13,962 men and by the end of the battle it was at 9,288 men. According to the commission’s report, the division was under strength as two battalions of the 305^th Regiment were deployed elsewhere. It is believed that some Soviet soldiers returned after the completion of the report, so the number of the missing is lower. The Stavka report was published in January 1940, in the middle of the 'Jatkosota'. The statistics of the report start from 1 January, and by this time the division had already suffered heavy losses over a period of two weeks. The Stavka report did not mention casualties suffered on the Raate road by other units.

After the 'Battle of the Raate Road', the area saw only a few minor skirmishes.

Vinogradov and two of his chief officers retreated in the middle of critical fighting. According to the Stavka report, this act exercised a fatal influence on morale. As they reached the Soviet lines four days later, the three officers were arrested, court-martialled, found guilty and sentenced to death; the executions were carried out immediately. The Stavka itself had made the crucial decisions to keep the 44^th Division on the Raate road after the 163^rd Division had lost Suomussalmi.

It has been reported that the Finns returned prisoners of war, but none of them actually returned home as the NKVD internal security service executed them all in the summer of 1940.