The secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany of August 1939 defined Finland as part of the Soviet Union's sphere of interest. In the autumn of 1939, the Soviet Union called for negotiations to secure Leningrad and demanded Finland's territory from the Karelian Isthmus, a base in Hanko and the outer islands of the Gulf of Finland. According to official Soviet propaganda, these areal losses would have been replaced by exchanging them for regions of Eastern Karelia (Porajärvi and Repola).