Russia Military History

In the mid-1950's were tumultuous for the Soviet Bloc. Several countries saw Stalin’s death and the apparent change of direction, even the softening of policy under Khrushchev, as an opportunity to pursue a reformist path...the uprising with the greatest impact on the bulk of the Cold War took place in Hungary in 1956, when protestors took to the streets to demand freedom from tyranny and a greater say in their own destiny. When the Hungarians rose up against the status quo in October 1956, they were met with a brutal response from Moscow.

Luliia was a dedicated member of the Komsomol (the Soviet communist youth organization) and her parents worked for the NKVD. She started at the sniper school and eventually became a valued member of her battalion during operations against Prussia. She persevered through eight months of training before leaving for the Front on 24th November 1944 just days after qualifying. Joining the third Belorussian Front her battalion endured rounds of German mortar as well as loudspeaker announcements beckoning them to come over to the German side.

When Germany’s Sixth Army advanced to Stalingrad in 1942, its long-extended flanks were mainly held by its allied armies - the Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians. But as history tells us, these flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counter-offensive which commenced that November, dooming the Germans to their first catastrophe of the war. However, the historical record also makes clear that one allied unit held out to the very end, fighting to stem the tide - the Italian Alpine Corps.

In this rapid-paced book, a former CIA chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence breaks open the mysterious case of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko's 1964 defection to the United States. Still a highly controversial chapter in the history of Cold War espionage, the Nosenko affair has inspired debate for more than 40 years. Was Nosenko a bona fide defector with the real information about Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in Soviet Russia, or was he a KGB loyalist, engaged in a complex game of deception?

Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was first played in the city of its birth on August 9, 1942. There has never been a first performance to match it. Pray God, there never will be again. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Already many thousands had died of their wounds, the cold, and most of all, starvation.

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.

In 1978, CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko were new arrivals on the Washington, D.C., intelligence scene, with Jack working out of the CIA's counterintelligence office and Gennady out of the Soviet Embassy. Both men were assigned to seduce the other into betraying his country in the final days of the Cold War, but instead the men ended up becoming the best of friends. Theirs is a friendship that never should have happened, and their story is chock full of treachery, darkly comic misunderstandings, bureaucratic inanity, and landmark intelligence breakthroughs.

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.

Their wings were weak, their talons broken…yet they flew the Soviets into winning the war against the Nazis. They were ignored, laughed at, and forced to do chores beneath their ranks. Why? They were the "weaker" gender. Despite being capable, they were initially denied entry into combat. And when they did enlist, their treatment only worsened: They were assigned worn-out uniforms and left to the mercy of rusted equipment on the battlefield. These adversities didn’t stop the Soviet female fighters from going ahead and showing unprecedented excellence in warfare.

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?

La storia della campagna militare contro l'Unione Sovietica voluta da Benito Mussolini che si trasformò nella più tragica sconfitta dell'esercito italiano durante la Seconda guerra mondiale. The history of the military campaign against the Soviet Union built by Benito Mussolini, that was transformed into the most tragic defeat of the Italian Army during the Second World War.

Despite Russia's imposing image in the world, less apparent weaknesses within the tsarist government threatened the country's stability. Several events in the early 20th century led to an eroding loyalty among Russian military forces, and Potemkin was the first modern ship to reveal it, an act that would bring it fame and make it the subject of some of the most well-known works of film and literature in Russian history.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program: The History and Legacy of the USSR’s Efforts to Build the Atomic Bomb examines the Soviets’ race to reach the ultimate goal during and after World War II, and how they went about their objectives. You will learn about Nazi Germany’s nuclear weapons program like never before.

Long-time adversaries Germany and the Soviet Union put their hostilities to the test in World War II. Despite a temporary truce in the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-aggression Pact in 1939, the Germans and the Soviets knew that the time was coming when they would face one another on the battlefield. But Operation Barbarossa was the beginning of the downfall of the Third Reich, as the dogged Russian refusal to succumb and the menace of the Russian winter demonstrated that the Soviet Union would not surrender as other European nations had done.

Though Germany was technically Russia’s ally, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had no delusions that they were friends. Instead, he used this time to build up his forces for what he saw as an inevitable invasion.

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.

You’ve heard of the space race, but do you know the whole story? The most ambitious race humankind has ever undertaken was masterminded in the shadows by two engineers on opposite sides of the Cold War - Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi officer living in the US, and Sergei Korolev, a Russian rocket designer once jailed for crimes against his country - and your textbooks probably never told you. From Amy Cherrix comes the extraordinary hidden story of the space race and the bitter rivalry that launched humankind to the moon.

Quando nel giugno 1941 Hitler scatenò l'"operazione Barbarossa" contro l'Unione Sovietica, avrebbe fatto volentieri a meno dell'aiuto italiano; l'Italia, aveva scritto a Mussolini, avrebbe giovato di più concentrando il suo impegno in Nordafrica. Ma Mussolini voleva esserci a tutti i costi, e fece costituire il Corpo di spedizione italiano in Russia (Csir), che a metà luglio partì per il fronte orientale. Un anno dopo, unito a nuovi corpi d'armata nell'Armir (Armata italiana in Russia), fu schierato sul Don.