Military Russia War

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.

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging outdated weapons, the Austrian troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe.

From 1947 through 1991, the United States and its allies faced off against the Soviet Union and her proxy states in clandestine operations worldwide during the Cold War. It was not a conventional shooting war, but make no mistake, both sides lost thousands of brave men and women who fought for what they believed in. Eastern Europe was home to some of the most intense and harrowing missions, as NATO forces directly opposed the Soviets behind the Iron Curtain. Jinnik: The Asset is the true story of one man’s role in the conflict.

In 1941, Lenin's body was moved from his tomb on Red Square and taken to Siberia. By 1945, a victorious Stalin had turned a poor country into a victorious superpower. Over the course of those four years, Stalin, at Churchill's insistence, accepted an Anglo-American press corps in Moscow to cover the Eastern Front. Stalin imposed the most draconian controls-unbending censorship, no visits to the battlefront, and a ban on contact with ordinary citizens.

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.

Across Cultures and Empires is above all an immigrant's story. Mahir Ibrahimov's fluency in multiple languages offers the perspective of someone who found a way to successfully cross boundaries amid the fall of empire and the resulting cascade of conflicts, even as he provides the listener with insight into an era where mass migration has become a defining dynamic. In the course of telling his personal story and reflecting upon his experiences, Ibrahimov offers clear observations on the deep connections he has made about freedom and America's role in the world.

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.

The Cold War was a crucial conflict in American history. At stake was whether the world would be dominated by the forces of totalitarianism led by the Soviet Union, or inspired by the principles of economic and political freedom embodied in the United States. The Cold War established America as the leader of the free world and a global superpower. It shaped US military strategy, economic policy, and domestic politics for nearly 50 years.

World War II was fought on a scale unlike anything before or since in human history, and the unfathomable casualty counts are attributable in large measure to the carnage inflicted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during Hitler's invasion of Russia and Stalin's desperate defense. The invasion came in 1941 following a nonaggression pact signed between the two in 1939, which allowed Hitler to focus his attention on the west without having to worry about an attack from the eastern front.

The seeds of the Cold War were sown toward the end of World War II. During the war, the US and the Soviet Union were reluctant partners. But as is often the case in history, despite their differences, America and Soviet Russia had a common enemy that brought them together - Nazi Germany. But soon after Truman was elected president, American and Soviet relations began to go south. Before the war was over, disagreements arose over how the postwar world should be administered.

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.

To most observers, it seemed clear that Japan and Russia were destined to come into conflict in Korea and Manchuria. However, Russia’s vastly larger population, army, and navy seemed to make it inevitable that Japan would lose if the conflict escalated into war. Few could have foreseen that when war came, it would reveal that Russian power was largely an illusion. That would be underscored by one of the war’s most famous events, a bizarre battle that involved a makeshift Russian fleet under the command of an irascible and unstable admiral sailing around the world to meet its fate.

Nel sesto volume della serie "Breve Storia di Napoleone Bonaparte" si ripercorrono gli avvenimenti essenziali della campagna che rappresenta il punto di svolta nella carriera militare di Napoleone Bonaparte e delle guerre napoleoniche: l'invasione francese della Russia nel 1812 termina con una disastrosa sconfitta e con la distruzione delle truppe francesi e dei contingenti stranieri. Il completo annientamento della Grande Armata cambierà la storia dell'Europa.

In 1944, there was still no united Yugoslavia, the Axis controlled most of Europe, and D-Day was only in the planning stages. In the Balkans, Tito was a beacon of hope against the advancing Nazis. He led a force of resistance fighters that bedeviled the occupying German army throughout Slavic regions and empowered people's committees to act as local government in all liberated areas. For observers on the political left, Tito seemed uniquely poised to unite the East and West against fascism - once and for all.

Within a month of becoming president, the issue of Communist Cuba became central to John F. Kennedy. On February 3, 1961, President Kennedy called for a plan to support Cuban refugees. A month later, he created the Peace Corps, a program that trained young American volunteers to help with economic and community development in poor countries. Both programs were attempts to align disadvantaged groups against the Soviet Union and its communist satellites. Meanwhile, covert operations were laying the groundwork for overthrowing Fidel Castro.

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.

Partly out of dire circumstances and partly from a cultural worldview, it was the Soviet Union who first pressed female pilots into direct combat when Hitler invaded Russia. Ahead of Stalingrad, Stalin publicly declared that “women should be given the right to fly and fight for their country.” As a result, more than 800,000 women served in the Soviet military during the war years.

О Бородинском сражении написано немало. Это битва стала одной из решающих для русской армии.

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.

History describes the 872-day Siege of Leningrad as the most devastating siege in history. The German army had made its way to Leningrad before the city had the opportunity to prepare for an assault, and the consequences were lethal. Accompanied by one of the worst famines in history, as well as a brutally cold winter in 1941-1942, the civilians were doomed. It’s a harrowing saga of bravery and brutality, but one that must be told.