On 19 September 1944, in Moscow, Colonel-General A. A. Zhdanov signed, for the Allied (Soviet) High Command, the Armistice between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, on the one hand, and Finland on the other. For Helsinki the signatories were Carl Enckell, Rudolf Walden, Erik Heinrichs and Oscar Enckell. One copy, authentic in Russian and English; Finnish is also on the instrument. It comes into force on signature. The original is kept by the USSR.

Article 1 ties the Finnish ceasefire of 4 September and the Soviet ceasefire of 5 September to the withdrawal of Finnish troops behind the 1940 frontier. Article 2 requires the disarming of German forces remaining in Finland since 15 September and their handover as prisoners of war, and the internment of German and Hungarian nationals. Article 4 places the army on a peace footing within two and a half months. Article 6 restores the Moscow Peace Treaty of 12 March 1940, subject to the changes that follow.

Article 7 returns the oblast of Petsamo (Pechenga), ceded to Finland on 14 October 1920 and confirmed in 1940. Article 8: the Soviet Union renounces Hangö and instead receives a naval base at Porkkala-Udd, for fifty years, at five million Finnish marks a year, to be handed over within ten days. Article 9 restores the Åland Islands agreement of 11 October 1940.

Article 11 sets indemnity at three hundred million dollars, over six years, in commodities (timber, paper, cellulose, ships, machinery); the dollar is that of thirty-five dollars to one ounce of gold. Article 13 requires collaboration in the apprehension and trial of persons accused of war crimes. Article 21 dissolves organisations of a Fascist type and those hostile to the United Nations. Article 22 sets up an Allied Control Commission until peace.

This is not the Moscow peace of 12 March 1940, not Tartu of 1920, not the Paris peace of 10 February 1947 and not the YYA of 6 April 1948. The 1956 return of Porkkala is not a clause. Risto Ryti is tried later; he is not named in the text.

The end of the Continuation War, 1944. Photograph: Finnish Army, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

For context: Moscow Armistice. The text: Armistice Agreement between the USSR and the United Kingdom, and Finland.