On the morning of 30 November 1939,Soviet forces launched their attack toward Ilomantsi parish village along two axes . In Möhkö sector in the south, the enemy was halted at Oinassalmi, fifteen kilometres before Ilomantsi, while in the north, the Russian troops’ advance was halted at Kallioniemi, ten kilometres from the parish village.

By mid-December, the Front at Kallioniemi had stabilised. The relatively short contact line straddled the road that led to the Koitajoki River ferry jetty. Finnish patrols observed that enemy troops were on the move in the area, probing the flanks of the defenders. This was not surprising, because the Soviet forces were expected to find a way to break the deadlock.

In late December Finnish forces established three outposts: to keep an eye on enemy movements, to protect the road to the ferry jetty, and to secure their flanks. The outposts were located south of Lake Koitere, fifteen to twenty kilometres from Kallioniemi. A fourth outpost was set up at Käenkoski, twenty kilometres north of Kallioniemi.

The outposts were built and operated primarily by Civil Guard members from the neighbouring municipality of Eno. They were young, under twenty years of age andhad received military and weapons training in the Civil Guard youth organisation before becoming full members once and they turned seventeen. The Civil Guard was a voluntary Finnssh national defence organisation founded in 1918 and disbanded at the request of the Allied Control Commission in the autumn of 1944. It provided young men with military training that made them eligible for outpost service even though they had not reached the conscription age. The strength of each outpost was less than twenty men, some of whom were adult reservists.

The men of Käenkoski outpost conducted ski patrols in the direction of the Russian forces’ billeting areas and supply lines northeast of Kallioniemi, and maintained contact with the southern sector of Lieksa front in the north. Patrols were occasionally involved in skirmishes, in which they inflicted casualties on the enemy and destroyed various types of vehicles. Casualties on the Finnish side were inevitable: one of the young guardsmen was killed in action and two ended up as prisoners of war.