In Finnish

Telegram from the Moscow Legation to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, November 12, 1940

I was to see Vyshinski on November 12, about the nickel affair. I brought forward that we had asked the British Government whether it was prepared to give us its written consent, on its own behalf and on behalf of the company, to the transfer of the concession without a time limit, and that we had received the answer that the question had not yet been settled and that the British would inform us later. I asked that the USSR would arrange matters both with the British and the Germans, after which we were ready to negotiate at once regarding a mixed company. M. Vyshinski replied that the USSR would no longer open negotiations either with the British or the Germans. It is in the power of the Finnish Government to arrange the matter, if we only wish, and conversations with Great Britain are a matter for Finland and not for the USSR, as the question concerns the territory of an independent Finland. In his opinion, we could simply inform the British Government that we are annulling the concession with a view to other arrangements. If we fail to do so, the USSR will regard it as a refusal. A long conversation ensued. I pointed out that under our laws we could not take away the concession from the British. M. Vyshinski paid no attention to my explanations about conceptions of law in the northern countries, but answered that if the requisite law did not now exist, we could go ahead and pass one. For this, he held, only good will was needed. He asked for an answer in the near future, the matter having been so long delayed. He referred privately, as he put it, to the fact that the USSR could have retained Petsamo in the peace of 1920, and in the peace of 1940.

Paasikivi.

Source: Finland reveals her secret documents on Soviet policy, March 1940—June 1941. Doc. nr. 44. Wilfred Funk, New York 1941.
The book is a verbatim translation of the "Blue-White Book" published by the Foreign Ministry of Finland, 1941.

The contemporary Peoples' Commissariat for Foreign Affairs report on the Paasikivi-Vyshinski discussion (in Russian).

Finland in the Soviet foreign policy 1939-1940