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Pavel Sudoplatov
Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (russian: Пáвел Aнатóльевич Cудоплáтов; ua, Павло Анатолійович Судоплатов, translit=Pavlo Anatoliiovych Sudoplatov; July 7, 1907 – September 24, 1996) was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union; over a career spanning 34 years, he would ultimately attain the rank of lieutenant general in the Soviet Armed Forces. Sudoplatov was involved in several major Soviet intelligence operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940, as well as Operation Scherhorn, a Soviet deception operation conducted during World War II. He also stated that he was in charge of the Soviet espionage program which obtained information about the atomic bomb from the Manhattan Project. His autobiography, ''Special Tasks'', published in 1994, made him well known outside the USSR, and provided a detailed account of Soviet intelligence and Soviet internal politics during his years at the top.Sudoplat ...
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Melitopol
Melitopol ( uk, Меліто́поль, translit=Melitópol’, ; russian: Мелитополь; based on el, Μελιτόπολις - "honey city") is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southeastern Ukraine. Melitopol has been Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, occupied by Russia since March 2022. It is situated on the Molochna River, which flows through the eastern edge of the city into the Molochnyi Lyman estuary. Melitopol is the second-largest city in the oblast after Zaporizhzhia and serves as the administrative center of Melitopol Raion. As of January 2022 Melitopol's population was approximately Its population has since declined substantially due to the city's capture in the opening weeks of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The city is located at the crossing of two major European highways: European route E58, E58 Vienna – Uzhhorod – Kyiv – Rostov-on-Don and European route E105, ...
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Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ...
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USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev ( Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Gove ...
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Special Tasks
''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster'' is the autobiography of Pavel Sudoplatov, who was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. When it was published in 1994, it caused a considerable uproar for a number of reasons. It also made him well known outside Russia by providing a detailed look at Soviet intelligence and Soviet internal politics during his years at the top. The book also described the Soviet state view on the term "special tasks" which Sudoplatov described as "sabotage, kidnapping and assassination" beyond the USSR's borders. Sudoplatov was known for managing the two plots that led to the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Problems and value It is a somewhat problematic work for several reasons. For one, it was based in large part on Sudoplatov's memory, 40 years or more after the events that form the bulk of the book. For another, it was written with the help of his son Anato ...
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Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ). Over 90 percent of th ...
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Atomic Bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deployed ...
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Disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the Latin prefix ''dis-'' to ''information'' making the meaning "reversal or removal of information". The rarely used word had appeared with this usage in print at least as far back as 1887. Some consider it a loan translation of the Russian ''dezinformatsiya'', derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department. Defector Ion Mihai Pacepa claimed Joseph Stalin coined the term, giving it a French-sounding name to claim it had a Western origin. Russian use began with a "special disinformation office" in 1923. Disinformation was defined in '' Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (1952) as "false information with the intention to deceive public opinion". Operation INFEKTION was a Soviet disinformation campaign to influence opinion that the U. ...
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Operation Scherhorn
Operation Scherhorn (in English sources) or Operation Berezino (original Soviet codename) or Operation Beresino (in East German sources) was a secret deception operation performed by the NKVD against the Nazi secret services from August 1944 – May 1945. It was proposed by Joseph Stalin, drafted by and executed by Pavel Sudoplatov and his NKVD subordinates, assisted by German antifascists and communists.The official site of the SVR names Pavel Sudoplatov ''the'' head of the operation; Nahum Eitingon, Mikhail Maklyarsky and Georgy Mordvinov his deputies in charge of Operation Scherhorn and Willie Fischer as the chief of wireless communications. The main objective of Operation Berezino was to create the illusion of a large German armed group operating behind the front line in Soviet held territory, and to deplete Nazi intelligence resources through capture and extermination of field operatives sent to assist these fictitious troops. The NKVD set up a fake German "resistance pocke ...
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Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and politician. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Trotskyism. Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Yanovka (now Bereslavka, Ukraine), Trotsky embraced Marxism after moving to Mykolaiv in 1896. In 1898, he was arrested for revolutionary activities and subsequently exiled to Siberia. He escaped from Siberia in 1902 and moved to London, where he befriended Vladimir Lenin. In 1903, he sided with Julius Martov's Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks during the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's initial organisational split. Trotsky helped organize the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, after which he was again arrested and exiled to Siberia. He once again escape ...
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Soviet Armed Forces
The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and the Bolshevik Party from their beginnings in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In May 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued decrees forming the Russian Armed Forces, which subsumed much of the Soviet Armed Forces. Much of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the other 14 Soviet republics gradually came under those republics' control. According to the all-union military service law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Ground Forces, the Air Forces, the Navy, the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the convoy guards. The OGPU was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934, and thus its Internal Troops were under the joint management of the Defence and In ...
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Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a captain general. In modern armies, lieutenant general normally ranks immediately below general and above major general; it is equivalent to the navy rank of vice admiral, and in air forces with a separate rank structure, it is equivalent to air marshal. A lieutenant general commands an army corps, made up of typically three army divisions, and consisting of around 60 000 to 70 000 soldiers (U.S.). The seeming incongruity that a lieutenant general outranks a major general (whereas a major outranks a lieutenant) is due to the derivation of major general from sergeant major general, which was a rank subordinate to lieutenant general (as a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major). In contrast, ...
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Intelligence Service
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. The assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment. Intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their national governments. * Give early warning of impending crisis; * Serve national and international crisis management by helping to discern the intentions of current or potential opponents; * Inform national defense planning and military operations (military intelligence); * Protect sensitive information secrets, both of their own sources and activities, and those of other state agencies; ...
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