Russia Military History

Russia has been locked into a winter of authoritarian rule at home and military adventures abroad under Vladimir Putin. In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, one of our finest historians of Russia, plots the seasonal shifts in events since 2012 and those that may be expected in the immediate future. When Mikhail Gorbachëv introduced perestroika in the mid-1980s, the USSR went through a springtime of growth and release.

In the summer of 1941, Harry Hopkins, Franklin Roosevelt's trusted advisor, arrived in Moscow to assess whether the US should send aid to Russia as it had to Britain. Unofficially, he was there to determine whether Josef Stalin - the man who had killed over six million Ukrainians during the 1930s - was worth saving. In this riveting and sweeping narrative, author John Kelly chronicles the turbulent wartime relationship between the great leaders - Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin - and military commanders of America, Britain, and the Soviet Union.

World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the 20th century in profound ways. In The End of Tsarist Russia, acclaimed scholar Dominic Lieven connects for the first time the two events, providing both a history of the First World War's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened.

Part Blackhawk Down, part The Riddle of the Sands, former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson has written an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller. Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of intelligence services but also uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a "mission impossible" against the best defended naval target in Russia.

Stuart Goldman convincingly argues that a little-known, but intense, Soviet-Japanese conflict along the Manchurian- Mongolian frontier at Nomonhan influenced the outbreak of World War II and shaped the course of the war. The author draws on Japanese, Soviet, and western sources to put the seemingly obscure conflict - actually a small undeclared war - into its proper global geo-strategic perspective.The book describes how the Soviets, in response to a border conflict provoked by Japan, launched an offensive in August 1939 that wiped out the Japanese forces at Nomonhan.

This audiobook offers the first systematic analysis of Putin's two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin's wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide.

This timely book offers a world history of insurgencies and of counterinsurgency warfare. Jeremy Black moves beyond the conventional Western-centric narrative, reaching back to antiquity to trace the pre-modern origins of war within states. His sweeping study will be essential material for all students of military history.

The Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) serves as the United States Army’s global scouts. We leverage direct observations of the operational environment, emerging threat capabilities, and friendly gaps to advise the operational force. One of the threats we see on the horizon is that posed by Private Military Companies (PMCs). PMCs are proliferating worldwide and play an increasingly important role in conflict. Specifically, PMCs based in the Russian Federation have been active in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. They are of increasing concern to commanders worldwide.

For over three centuries the Romanovs ruled over the world’s largest country. Throughout this time Imperial Russia faced many challenges, but none greater than those that brought about its demise in 1917: World war, the rise of the urban proletariat, and the birth of an heir afflicted with haemophilia. Even a forceful and inspiring leader would have struggled to turn back the tide of revolution that plagued this closing act, and Tsar Nicholas II possessed neither of these qualities. But there was another side to Russia’s last tsar that the public never got to see.

No dia 31 de dezembro de 1999, um jovem Vladimir Putin apareceu desajeitado e constrangido nas telas da TV russa... como novo presidente. Duas décadas depois, Putin continua no poder, exalando confiança e muito à vontade no cenário mundial. Como um burocrata desconhecido da KGB conseguiu se tornar uma das figuras mais dominantes da política do século 21?

In a forgotten chapter of history, 1.5 million Polish civilians - arbitrarily arrested by Stalin as enemies of the people following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 - were deported to slave-labor camps throughout the most inhospitable forests and steppes of the Soviet Union. The Ice Road is the gripping story of young Stefan Waydenfeld and his family, deported by cattle car in 1940 to the frozen wastes of the Russian arctic north.

The Second World War was the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. With Stalin at the helm, it emerged victorious at a huge economic and human cost. But even before the fighting had ended, Stalin began to turn against the architects of success. In this original and comprehensive study, Alfred J. Rieber examines Stalin as a wartime leader, arguing that his policies were profoundly paradoxical.

In late November 1942, Soviet forces surrounded Paulus' Sixth Army in a pocket outside the Russian city of Stalingrad. In response the Germans planned a relief operation, Operation Winter Storm, intended to break through the Soviet forces and open the pocket, releasing the encircled units. The 6th Panzer Division was the spearhead of the German relief force. The attack started on December 12th, 1942 and was aborted on December 23rd after heavy Soviet counterattacks. This failure sealed the fate of the German 6th Army in Stalingrad.

Последняя патриотическая — это книга о ненастной военной осени 2014 года в Донецкой Народной Республике. Автор, непосредственный участник описываемых событий, рассказывает о судьбах людей, с которыми он жил и сражался плечом к плечу. О тех, кто в 2014 году оставил семью, работу и мирную жизнь, взял автомат и пошел защищать Родину. Это для таких, как они, за ЦУМом в центре Макеевки висел огромный, замытый дождями плакат — бородатый ополченец в тельняшке, с автоматом наперевес, и, точно огонь, слова: "Стань легендой! Армия Донецкой Республики".

Брестская крепость. История героической обороны крепости — это пример мужества и самопожертвования советских бойцов в самом начале войны. Из-за просчётов политического руководства гарнизон был почти полностью уничтожен в самый первый момент нападения. Но можно представить, если бы крепость была подготовлена к нападению, обеспечена оружием, продовольствием и водой, то урон, нанесенный ею немцам был бы стократ выше, что, возможно, могло повлиять на исход всей войны. И вот осень 1939 года. Указание Сталина: "Подготовиться к возможному нападению Германии на СССР". Колесо истории повернулось.

"Unser Geschäft ist der Tod – und das Geschäft läuft gut." PMC (Private Military Company) WAGNER ist ein privates russisches Sicherheits- und Militärunternehmen, dessen Einheiten verdeckt operieren und als besonders brutal gelten. WAGNER war während der russischen Machtübernahme auf der Krim sowie in Syrien, im Sudan, in Mali aktiv und ist es aktuell auch in der Ukraine.

Susan Butler's brilliantly listenable audiobook firmly places FDR where he belongs, as the American president engaged most directly in diplomacy and strategy, who not only had an ambitious plan for the postwar world but had the strength, ambition, and personal charm to overcome Churchill's reluctance and Stalin's suspicion to bring about what was, in effect, an American peace and to avoid the disastrous consequences that followed the botched peace of Versailles in 1919.

De bittra striderna i Stalingrads ruiner, fasorna på floden Volgas mörka vatten och det intensiva luftkriget över Stalingrad kostade hundratusentals soldater och civila livet. Slaget var så krävande och grymt att inte ens andra världskrigets mest hårdföra generaler kunde undgå att ­beröras av de massiva förlusterna som bara två män ryckte på axlarna åt: Adolf Hitler och Josef Stalin. Utan att blinka skickade de man efter man i döden under slaget om Stalingrad som blev det ultimata kraftprovet mellan historiens två grymmaste diktatorer som båda vägrade ge upp.

During the spring and summer of 1918, with World War I still undecided, British, French and American agents in Russia developed a breathtakingly audacious plan. Led by Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, a dashing, cynical, urbane thirty-year-old Scot, they conspired to overthrow Lenin’s newly established Bolshevik regime, and to install one that would continue the war against Germany on the Eastern Front. In the back streets of Petrograd and Moscow, in nightclubs, in cells beneath Lubianka prison, the conspirators engaged in a deadly game of wits for the highest possible stakes.

Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. This book tells the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. Using previously unpublished diaries, original Luftwaffe reports and specially commissioned artwork, this gripping battle is told in detail through the eyes of the Luftwaffe commanders and pilots.