Soviet troops invaded Poland's eastern regions on September 17, 1939. In 1939-1940, with the help of Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian opposition, Stalin’s Soviet Union took control of these countries. A part of Karelia's territory and the areas bordering with the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) were annexed by the Soviet Union from Finland as a result of a Soviet-Finnish war conflict. In the picture: A Red Army soldier talking to inhabitants of the city of Wilno (Vilnius) in the days immediately after Lithuania was incorporated with the Soviet Union.