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January Events
The January Events () were a series of violent confrontations between the civilian population of Lithuania, supporting independence, and the Soviet Armed Forces. The events took place between 11 and 13 January 1991, after the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, restoration of independence by Lithuania. As a result of the Soviet military actions, 14 civilians were killed and over 140 were injured as they peacefully protested for freedom in what is known as the Vilnius massacre. The 13th of January was the most violent day of the month in Lithuania and this was the bloodiest act of repression by Soviet forces since the April 9 tragedy. The events were primarily centered in the capital city Vilnius, but Soviet military activity and confrontations also occurred elsewhere in the country, including Alytus, Šiauliai, Varėna and Kaunas. January 13th is the Day of the Defenders of Freedom () in Lithuania and it is officially observed as a commemorative day. Backgrou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revolutions Of 1989
The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Communist state, Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. This revolutionary wave is sometimes referred to as the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. The revolutions of 1989 were a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union—one of the two global superpowers—and in the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. These events drastically altered the world's Balance of power (international relations), balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era. The earliest recorded protests which led to the revolutions began in Polish People's Republic, Poland on 14 August 1980, the massive gener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpha Group
Spetsgruppa "A", also known as Alpha Group, officially Directorate "A" of FSB Special Purpose Center (Russian: Спецназ ФСБ "Альфа"), is a sub-unit of Russian special forces within the Russian Special Forces Center of the Federal Security Service (FSB). It was created by the Soviet KGB in 1974. Although little is known about the exact nature of its primary directives, it is speculated that the unit is authorised to act under the direct control and sanction of Russia's top political leadership, similar to its sister unit, the Directorate "V" ( Vympel), which is officially tasked with protecting Russia's strategic installations, as well as conducting black operations inside and outside Russia. It is also available for extended police duties, for paramilitary operations, and for covert operations, both domestically and internationally. In the Soviet Union Creation and organization On 28 July 1974, Alpha Group was created on the orders of the KGB Chairman, Yuri And ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
April 9 Tragedy
April 9 Tragedy (also known as the massacre of Tbilisi or Tbilisi tragedy) refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, on April 9, 1989, when an anti-Soviet, pro-independence demonstration was crushed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 21 deaths and hundreds of injuries. April 9 is now remembered as the National Unity Day ( ka, ეროვნული ერთიანობის დღე, tr), an annual public holiday. Prelude In the Georgian SSR, the anti-Soviet movement grew more active in 1988. Political groups opposed to the Soviet Union organized a number of protests and gatherings in Tbilisi. The conflict between the Soviet government and Georgian nationalists deepened after the so-called Lykhny Assembly on March 18, 1989, when several thousand Abkhaz demanded secession from Georgia and restoration of the Union republic status of 1921–1931. In response, the anti-Soviet groups organized a series of unsanctioned meetings across the repub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service has over 5,500 journalists working across its output including in 50 foreign news bureaus where more than 250 foreign correspondents are stationed. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Act Of The Re-Establishment Of The State Of Lithuania
The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania or Act of 11 March () was an Declaration of independence, independence declaration by Lithuania adopted on 11 March 1990, signed by all members of the Supreme Council – Reconstituent Seimas, Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania led by Sąjūdis. The act emphasized restoration and State continuity of the Baltic states, legal continuity of the Interwar period, interwar-period Lithuania, which Soviet occupation of Lithuania (1940), was occupied by the Soviet Union and annexed in June 1940. In March 1990, it was the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, first of the 15 Republics of the Soviet Union, Soviet republics to declare independence, with the rest following to continue for 21 months, concluding with Kazakhstan's independence in 1991. These events (part of the broader process dubbed the "parade of sovereignties") led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Background Loss of independence After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Armed Forces
The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1922) and the Soviet Union (1922–1991) from their beginnings in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In May 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued decrees forming the Russian Armed Forces, which subsumed much of the Soviet Armed Forces. Multiple sections of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the other, smaller 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 Red Army, the Soviet Air Forces, Air Forces, the Soviet Navy, Navy, the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the Internal Troops, convoy guards. The OGPU was later mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friendly Fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy or hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while engaging an enemy, long range ranging errors or inaccuracy. Accidental fire not intended to attack enemy or hostile targets, and deliberate firing on one's own troops for disciplinary reasons is not called friendly fire,Regan, Geoffrey (2002) ''Backfire: a history of friendly fire from ancient warfare to the present day'', Robson Books and neither is unintentional harm to civilian or neutral targets, which is sometimes referred to as collateral damage. Training accidents and bloodless incidents also do not qualify as friendly fire in terms of casualty reporting. Use of the term ''friendly'' in a military context for allied personnel started during the First World War, often when shells fell short of the targeted enemy. The term ''friend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mykolas Burokevičius
Mykolas Burokevičius (7 October 1927 – 20 January 2016) was a communist political leader in Lithuania. After the Communist Party of Lithuania separated from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), he established alternative pro-CPSU Communist Party of Lithuania in early 1990, and led it as the First Secretary of Central Committee until its ban in 1991. He was the only Lithuanian to serve in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, and did so from 1990 until its ban in 1991. Biography He was born in Alytus, Lithuania in 1927. In 1942, a young Burokevičius was employed as a carpenter and a machinist at a plant in Udmurtia. In 1944 he became a member of the Lithuanian Communist Party where he worked as a chief of department and instructor. He graduated from the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute (now the Vytautas Magnus University Education Academy) in 1955 and the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1963. In 1963 he became a research fellow at the Institute of the Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladislav Achalov
Vladislav Alekseyevich Achalov (; 19 November 1945 – 23 June 2011) was a Soviet general, politician and public figure. Achalov served as the 12th commander of the Soviet Airborne Forces and the deputy minister of defence (1990–1991). Biography Early life and military career Achalov was born on November 13, 1945, in the village of Atamash, Atninsky District, in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Upon deciding to join the army, he attended the Kazan Tank School of the Red Army, from which he graduated in 1966. He started his career in the army as a commander of a platoon of tanks, and later he became the commander of a company of tanks. In 1973 he graduated from the Academy of Armoured Forces but transferred to the Airborne Forces in 1974, becoming commander of an artillery regiment. In 1975–77 he was a commander of an airborne regiment and later (1977–78) vice-commander of 98th Guards Airborne Division. From 1978 to 1982 he was commander of the 7th Gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and the president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Privolnoye, North Caucasus Krai, to a poor peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage. Growing up under the rule of Joseph Stalin, in his youth he operated combine harvesters on a Collective farming, collective farm before joining the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audrius Butkevičius
Audrius Butkevičius (born 24 September 1960 in Kaunas) is a Lithuanian politician, a signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, former minister of defense (1991-93), and member of the Seimas (parliament of Lithuania) (1996-2000). He does not belong to any party. In 1988 was one of the organizers of the Lithuanian reform Movement "Sąjūdis", a member of the Sąjūdis Seimas. He was an establisher and chairman of the " Tremtinio klubas" ("Club of Deportees") of Sąjūdis in Kaunas, the precursor of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees. In the period of 1990-1993 he was in the state of negotiations with the Russian Federation. One notable issue that was raised was the withdrawal of the Russian troops stationed in Lithuania, whereupon Lithuania and Russia signed an agreement that declared that all of the Russian troops stationed on the territory of Lithuania must withdraw by 31 August 1993. The agreement was concluded on schedule. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gediminas Vagnorius
Gediminas Vagnorius (born 10 June 1957) is a Lithuanian politician and signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. He served as the Prime Minister of Lithuania, heading the government between 1991 and 1992, and again from 1996 until 1999. After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, its temporary currency, the Lithuanian talonas, was popularly known as ''vagnorkė'' or ''vagnorėlis'' after Vagnorius' name. References *Elections 2000 - Gediminas Vagnorius. Seimas The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (), or simply the Seimas ( ; ), is the unicameralism, unicameral legislative body of the Lithuania, Republic of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of Government of Lithuania, govern ... (Parliament) of Lithuania. 1957 births Living people Prime ministers of Lithuania Vilnius Gediminas Technical University alumni Members of the Seimas 21st-century Lithuanian politicians {{Lithuania-politician- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
