No page of Soviet military history has been more obscure than the real nature and course of the Soviet‐Finnish War of 1939–1940. For years the West had to rely on German‐based accounts of this conflict whose course and outcome proved so embarrassing to the Soviet state. Only recently have Russian archival releases provided the raw materials with which to reconstruct the true nature of this conflict. In this article Pavel Aptekar draws upon his keen research skills to reconstruct the role of the Soviet Air Force in this once obscure conflict.