With Russian Help, Finns Seek War Dead : Europe: The end of the Cold War makes Helsinki’s search for soldiers’ bodies easier. Soviet victims also found.

Finland is taking advantage of improved relations with Russia to search for the bodies of soldiers who fell in wars with the former Soviet Union so they can be reburied on native soil.

Finland was twice at war with the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1944; 93,000 Finnish soldiers are believed to have died.

More than 6,000 were killed and not found, or were reported missing, in territory once held by Finland but ceded to the Soviet Union after the wars. The area is now part of Russia.

As of last month, search teams had found the remains of 119 soldiers on the Karelian Isthmus, where some of the most bitter fighting took place.

The Finns say the end of the Cold War has enabled the project to take place.

“ Perestroika made this possible,” said Nils-Erik Lindeman, research secretary at the Education Ministry, which is in charge of the project.

Ministerial secretary Antii Vuorinen said the question of the missing soldiers had been a sensitive one for the Soviet Union.

“It was sort of taboo. There was no wish to go through these things,” he said.

Lindeman said the search is of great importance for relatives and war veterans. “They cannot get peace until they find out more,” he said.

He said Finland could not, for moral reasons, leave the remains of its soldiers on foreign territory.

“People have waited for information about their lost relatives for 50 years,” said Timo Karvonen, secretary of Suomen ja Venajan Kansojen Ystavyysseura, a Finnish-Russian friendship association.

Lindeman admits there is little chance of finding many. “We will only be able to find a fraction,” he said, adding that officials would be satisfied with 5%.

The first of the two wars, in 1939-40, lasted for 105 days in unusually severe winter conditions; it is known as the Winter War. The conflict began because of Moscow’s demands to redraw the frontier between the two countries.

Despite a massive Soviet attack, the Finns managed to stabilize the front and avoid occupation.

Finland lost territory but remained independent. Its fighting spirit was hailed throughout the world.

The Finns later allied with Nazi Germany in Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union. In the second war between 1941 and 1944, Finnish troops retook lost land and advanced far into Soviet territory, with German assistance, before being driven back by the Red Army in one of the war’s most intensive artillery attacks.

Lindeman said about 5,500 soldiers vanished in the chaotic retreat in the summer of 1944.

After the wars, Helsinki was forced to cede about one-tenth of its territory. About 422,000 people, or 11% of the population, were evacuated to the remainder of the country.

Finnish officials stress cooperation with Russia in the search project. The Finns sometimes find the remains of Soviet soldiers and notify the Russians.

Three search teams made about 10 trips of three to four days into Karelia during the summer. They concentrated on the region northwest of St. Petersburg, which used to belong to Finland.

The search project may continue next year after a break during the harsh northern winter.

The teams base their work on reports from war veterans, official war histories, journals and help from the Russian civilian population and the military in the area.

The search teams look for bones as well as items that can help to establish whether they were Finnish or Soviet soldiers. Textiles, pieces of metal, buttons and parts of weapons aid the detective work.