In June 1918, he went as part of the Murmansk force involved in the Allied intervention to Russia. Its task was to obstruct the Viena expedition by German-officered White Finn forces threatening East Karelia and the Murmansk-Petrograd railway. Operating out of Kem on the White Sea, he established a "Karelian Regiment", supplied and officered by the British. The "Irish Karelians", as they were known, adopted a regimental badge, designed by Woods and consisting of a green shamrock on an orange field. With this force he was able to push the Germans and Finns established in Uhtua out of White Karelia (Vienan Karjala) in 1918. His success with the Karelians fostered unrealistic hopes of national self-determination which were ultimately unfulfilled, caught as they were between the Finns and Russians. The formation melted away as a transfer to White Russian command was attempted and Woods was evacuated in October 1919 with the rest of the British forces.