Aleksandr Vasilevsky
Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky ( ru , Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Василе́вский) (30 September 1895 – 5 December 1977) was a Soviet career- officer in the Red Army who attained the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He served as the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces (1942-1945) and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, and as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953. As the Chief of the General Staff from 1942 to 1945, Vasilevsky became involved in planning and coordinating almost all the decisive Soviet offensives in World War II, from the Operation Uranus of November 1942 to the assaults on East Prussia (January–April 1945), Königsberg (January–April 1945) and Manchuria (August 1945). Vasilevsky began his military career during World War I, earning the rank of captain by 1917. After the October Revolution of 1917 and the start of the Civil War of 1917–1922 he was conscripted into the Red Army, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minister Of Defence (Soviet Union)
The Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union refers to the head of the Ministry of Defence who was responsible for defence of the socialist Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917 to 1922 and the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1992. People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs (1917–1934) People's Commissar for the Armed Forces (1946) Ministers of the Armed Forces (1946–1950) Ministers of Defence (1953–1992) See also * College of War * Ministry of War of the Russian Empire * List of heads of the military of Imperial Russia * Ministry of Defense (Soviet Union) * Ministry of Defense Industry (Soviet Union) * Ministry of Defence (Russia) The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, Минобороны России, informally abbreviated as МО, МО РФ or Minoboron) is the govern ... * General Staff of the Armed F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921) * russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (''Polsky front'', Polish Front) (late autumn 1918 / 14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was primarily fought between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, on territories which were formerly held by the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On 13 November 1918, after the collapse of the Central Powers and the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Vladimir Lenin's Russia annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (which it had signed with the Central Powers in March 1918) and started moving forces in the western direction to recover and secure the ''Ober Ost'' regions vacated by the German forces that the Russian state had lost under the treaty. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Königsberg
The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian offensive during World War II. In four days of urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg, present day Kaliningrad, Russia. The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially surrounded the city. Heavy fighting took place for control of overland connection between Königsberg and the port of Pillau, however by March 1945 Königsberg was hundreds of kilometres behind the main front line in the eastern front. The battle ended when the German garrison surrendered to the Soviets on 9 April after a three-day assault made their position untenable. Beginning The East Prussian offensive was planned by the Soviet Stavka to prevent flank attacks on the armies rushing towards Berlin. Indeed, East Prussia held numerous troops that could be used for this. During initial Stavka planni ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration (; russian: Операция Багратио́н, Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation (russian: Белорусская наступательная операция «Багратион», Belorusskaya nastupatelnaya Operatsiya ''Bagration''), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II, just over two weeks after the start of Operation Overlord in the west, causing the Germans to have to fight on two major fronts at the same time. The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of 34 divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line. It was the biggest defeat in German military history, with around 450,000 German casualties, while 300,000 other German soldiers were cut off in the Courland Pocket. On 22 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, with the objective of encircling ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of The Dnieper
The Battle of the Dnieper was a military campaign that took place in 1943 in Ukraine on the Eastern Front of World War II. One of the largest operations of the war, it involved almost 4,000,000 troops at a time stretched on a front. Over four months, the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from German forces by five of the Red Army's fronts, which conducted several assault river crossings to establish several lodgements on the western bank. Kiev was later liberated in the Battle of Kiev. 2,438 Red Army soldiers were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for their involvement. Strategic situation Following the Battle of Kursk, the Wehrmachts ''Heer'' and supporting '' Luftwaffe'' forces in the southern Soviet Union were on the defensive in the southern Ukraine. By mid-August, Adolf Hitler understood that the forthcoming Soviet offensive could not be contained on the open steppe and ordered construction of a series of fortifications along the line of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Voronezh–Kastornoye Offensive
The 1943 Battle of Voronezh or Voronezh–Kastornoye offensive operation (often credited in Russian as the liberation of Voronezh (освобождение Воронежа)) was a Soviet counter-offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II on recapturing the city of Voronezh during January 1943. It took place between 24 January and 17 February 1943, as 4th phase of the general Soviet winter offensive of 1942–1943, immediately following the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh offensive. The Axis had captured Voronezh in a 1942 battle, and the 2nd German Army occupied this important bridgehead over the Don, together with Hungarian troops that had escaped the destruction of the Hungarian 2nd Army during the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh offensive. The Red Army executed a new pincer movement in difficult winter conditions. From the south, the troops of the Voronezh Front under command of General Golikov attacked, in collaboration with the left flank of the Bryansk Front The Bryansk F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later renamed to Volgograd) in Southern Russia. The battle was marked by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, with the battle epitomizing urban warfare. The Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle to take place during the Second World War and is one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with an estimated 2 million total casualties. Today, the Battle of Stalingrad is universally regarded as the turning point in the European Theatre of war, as it forced the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (German High Command) to withdraw considerable military forces from other areas in occupied Europe to replace German losses on the Eastern Front, ending with the rout of the six field armies of Ar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second Battle Of Kharkov
The Second Battle of Kharkov or Operation Fredericus was an Axis counter-offensive in the region around Kharkov against the Red Army Izium bridgehead offensive conducted 12–28 May 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. Its objective was to eliminate the Izium bridgehead over Seversky Donets or the "Barvenkovo bulge" (russian: Барвенковский выступ) which was one of the Soviet offensive's staging areas. After a winter counter-offensive that drove German troops away from Moscow but depleted the Red Army's reserves, the Kharkov offensive was a new Soviet attempt to expand upon their strategic initiative, although it failed to secure a significant element of surprise. On 12 May 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive against the German 6th Army from a salient established during the winter counter-offensive. After a promising start, the offensive was stopped on 15 May by massive airstrikes. Critica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between September 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Adolf Hitler, Hitler's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union. Moscow was one of the primary Strategic goal (military), military and political objectives for Axis forces in their Operation Barbarossa, invasion of the Soviet Union. The German Strategic Offensive, named Operation Typhoon, called for two Pincer movement, pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd Panzer Army, 3rd and 4th Panzer Army, 4th Panzer Armies, simultaneously severing the Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway, Moscow–Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front (Soviet Union), Western Front south of Tula, Russia, Tul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |