Suwałki Corridor Importance

The Suwałki Corridor is a stretch of land, spanning 60 to 100 kilometers, located along the border between Poland and Lithuania. It acts as a vital connection between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. This region has been dubbed NATO's "vulnerable spot" and is considered one of the most dangerous areas in the world.

According to Western military strategists, if the Russian president were to escalate the conflict in Ukraine into a direct confrontation with NATO, the Suwałki Corridor would likely be a top priority target.

After the Soviet Union's dissolution, the Russian Federation retained Kaliningrad, which ended up surrounded by Lithuania and Poland after both countries became part of NATO. This situation resulted in what is now known as the Suwałki Gap. Moscow attempted to secure a passage through the Polish side of the corridor to gain easier access to its newly separated territory of Kaliningrad. However, these efforts were unsuccessful. As an alternative, Russia negotiated agreements with the EU to ensure the transit of Russian citizens and goods through Lithuania.

Since Lithuania and Poland's accession to the EU in 2004, any travel between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia overland has required crossing the territory of at least one EU state.

The Suwałki Corridor holds immense strategic importance for NATO, the EU, and Russia. From the perspective of Western nations, it represents the sole land link to the three former Soviet Baltic republics – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – making them potential targets of Putin's actions if tensions escalate further.

For Russia, controlling the corridor would establish a land link between the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, the main base of Putin's Baltic Fleet, and its close ally, Belarus.
Suwałki Corridor Importance

The siege of Leningrad

During World War II, German forces begin their siege of Leningrad, a major industrial center and the USSR’s second-largest city. The German armies were later joined by Finnish forces (as well as the soldiers of the Division Azul, Spanish volunteers) that advanced against Leningrad down the Karelian Isthmus.

The siege of Leningrad is a key episode in the Second World War on Soviet territory. Lasting 900 days between September 1941 and January 1944, the siege of Leningrad claimed the lives of 800,000 of the city’s inhabitants, mainly through cold and hunger.

Leningrad, formerly St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire, was one of the initial targets of the German invasion of June 1941. By the end of July, German forces had cut the Moscow-Leningrad railway and were penetrating the outer belt of the fortifications around Leningrad.

The siege began officially on September 8, 1941. German armies approached Leningrad from the west and south while their Finnish allies approached to the north down the Karelian Isthmus.

The people of Leningrad began building antitank fortifications and succeeded in creating a stable defense of the city, but as a result were cut off from all access to vital resources in the Soviet interior, Moscow specifically. B y early November it had been almost completely encircled, with all its vital rail and other supply lines to the Soviet interior cut off.

According to official data, some 2.8 million people, including 400,000 children, were trapped in the city at the outset of the Siege. On January 27, 1944, Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line, ending the almost 900-day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.
The siege of Leningrad

Battle of the Seelow Heights 1945

The Seelow Heights is situated around the town of Seelow, about 90 kilometres (56 mi) east of Berlin. During April 1945, the Battle of the Seelow Heights saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Second World War between the German defenders and the Soviet attackers.

The Battle of the Seelow Heights was part of the Seelow-Berlin Offensive Operation during 16th April and 2nd May 1945. It was an assault between Soviet soldiers of the 1st Belorussian Front and German 9th Army. The fighting took place on the horseshoe-shaped plateau of the Seelow Heights.

At 3:00 AM on April 16, Marshal Georgy Zhukov commenced a massive bombardment of the German positions using artillery and Katyusha rockets. The bulk of this struck the first German defensive line in front of the heights.

The German 9th Army under General Theodor Busse was positioned in the Oder Marsh, about 90 km east from Berlin. Russian armored columns pierced the German lines and raced west, leaving follow-on forces to execute mop-up operations. Soviet armor averaged 25 miles a day, and Soviet infantry nearly 18 miles a day. Pockets of Germans fought desperately as they began a general retreat toward the Oder River.

Because the German troops seemed to offer little resistance, Zhukov launched an attack which, however, met with little success. The 143 antiaircraft defense searchlights placed in the front lines in order to blind the enemy, caused disorientation among his own troops instead.

Things started to go wrong for the Soviets – the debris and smoke from the massive bombardment meant that the glare of the 140-plus searchlights, intended to blind the Germans, was reflected and blinded the attackers, as well as turning them into easy targets, silhouetted against the light. The intensity of German defensive fire took the Soviet troops by surprise.

The Soviets sustained over 30,000 killed as well as lost 743 tanks and self-propelled guns. German losses numbered around 12,000 killed. Though a heroic stand, the defeat effectively eliminated the last organized German defenses between the Soviets and Berlin.
Battle of the Seelow Heights 1945

History of Leningrad

Leningrad, formerly St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire, was one of the initial targets of the German invasion of June 1941. It was the original capital of Russia. Shortly after the communist revolution of 1917, the city was renamed Petrograd in an attempt to remove the czarist links implied by its name.

The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after apostle Saint Peter. Peter the Great moved the royal family and government from Moscow to this city, wanting to create a "window to the west".

For two centuries (1712–1918) it was the capital of the Russian Empire. The city is remembered for Revolutions of 1917 and its fierce defense while besieged during World War II.

When the world was at war with Germany in 1914, the Imperial Government in Russia changed St Petersburg's name to Petrograd. This was mainly due to the fact that Russia wanted to separate themselves from any German sounding name.

The chief architect of the revolution was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who changed his name to Vladimir Lenin.

Five days after Lenin’s death on January 26, 1924, Petrograd’s name was changed to “Leningrad” to honor the late Marxist leader.

After the communist regime in the USSR fell, the city once again took its original name, St. Petersburg, in 1991.

Dropping Lenin's name meant abandoning the legacy of the Russian revolutionary leader. Communists fiercely opposed the change, but the Orthodox Church supported the idea.
History of Leningrad

Leningrad during World War II

Slavs: European ethno-linguistic group of people

Most archaeologists associate the Roman-period Proto-Slavs with the Kiev culture in the middle and upper Dnieper basin. Early remarks about Slavic populations can be found in the written sources of East Roman and Byzantine authors.

The Slavs are one of the great families of Europe; the Germans, Roams and Celts being the other three.

Anthropologically, the Slavs are characterized by a most rounded head, good cranial capacity, medium stature and good physical development. On complexion they range from brunette to blonde, the former predominating among the southern Slavs, while blondes are more numerous among the northern parts of the stock.

According to the 6th century AD Procopius of Caesarea, he describes tribes of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains, the lower Danube and the Black Sea, invading the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire.

In the early Slavs, it was much influenced by the events on the early stage of the Great Migration, when the Huns attacked the Goths in 375 CE. In the Dnieper area, from the mid-5th century CE on, the lands of the Goths were gradually taken by the populations of early Slavic cultures, who moved there from the upper Dnieper region.

In the seventh century, they arrived in the north of the Balkan peninsula, thus entered the zone of Byzantium's cultural, political and economic influence. At the same time, groups of western Slavs settled along the margins of the Merovingian and Lombard kingdoms.

In 863 AD, the Kingdom of Great Moravia became the first Slav state to accept the Christianity of Byzantium as its official religion. As early as 1833, languages were recognized as Indo-European.
Slavs: European ethno-linguistic group of people

Predecessor State Of Modern Finland: Grand Duchy Of Finland

Grand Duchy of Finland existed between 1809 and 1917 as an autonomous part of the Russian Empire.

Since the thirteenth century, Finland had been under Swedish rule, administered by Swedish speaking nobles and bureaucrats. In the early 14th century Novgorod (Russia) and Sweden battled in Finland and consequently by 1323, western and southern parts of Finland were merged with Sweden and the eastern part of Finland, Karelia, became part of the Russo-Byzantine world.

Resulting from the successful military efforts of Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825) in 1809, Finland became a part of the Russian empire. As part of the Russian empire, Finns were promised autonomy under the Russian tsars and became Grand Duchy of Finland.

Emperor of Russia, Tsar Alexander I convinced of the strategic need to control Finland for the protection of his capital at St. Petersburg. He determined it was more expedient to woo his Finnish subjects to allegiance than to subjugate them by force. He granted it an autonomous status within the empire.

The Grand Duchy of Finland became part of Russia through personal union as an autonomous region of the Empire with its own government, parliament, currency and army.

The situation changed already during the rule of Alexander III. In 1890, Alexander III initiated a series of efforts aimed at bringing Finland under tighter Russian control. After Alexander’s death and the accession of Nicholas II (1868–1918) to the throne, period of Russification continued and expanded throughout the Russian empire including Finland. In 1899 when Finnish legislation came under the purview of the Russian government, it started the first “years of oppression”.

Finland take advantage of the October Revolution to break away from Russia and announced independence on 6 December 1917. These events were accompanied by a severe political crisis and on January 27/28, 1918, civil war finally erupted. The Red Guards took control capital of Finland, Helsinki and declared a revolutionary government, the People’s Commission (Kansanvaltuuskunta), headed by Kullervo Manner (1880–1939).
Predecessor State Of Modern Finland: Grand Duchy Of Finland

Defense of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)

The house built parallel to the embankment of the river Volga, Prior to the war, the four story building Pavlov’s House had served as a residential building for employees of the regional consumer union. It was considered one of the most prestigious apartment complexes of Stalingrad, as it overlooked 9 January Square.

The beginning of the war in Russia came as a surprise to the Soviet government, even though they had been repeatedly warned by other countries that Nazi Germany was planning an attack on Russia.

The German offensive to capture Stalingrad began on 23 August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. In this new form of urban warfare, frontlines were constantly shifting block by block, and every building was a fortress waiting to be stormed. One of the most notable of these urban strongholds was given the moniker "Pavlov's House."

In September 1942, the house was attacked by German soldiers, and a platoon of the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division was ordered to seize and defend it.

Captured by Red Army Sergeant Jacob Pavlov, a low-level noncommissioned officer in the last weekend of September, the house allowing the defenders to observe and fire into German occupied territory.

The building was not just important because it stuck into German defenses , but for the fact that a grain mill converted into a Soviet command post and staging ground was only 300 yards into Soviet lines behind the house.

This allowed for constant communication between the observation stronghold and Soviet HQ. All of these factors of course made the house a constant target for German offensives, which is where the fame of Sergeant Pavlov and his defense originates.

In keeping with Stalin's Order No. 227 - "not one step back", Sgt. Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. Taking this advice to heart, Pavlov ordered the building to be surrounded with four layers of barbed wire and minefields, and set up machine-gun posts in every available window facing the square.

From their vantage point, they could strike at the Panzers with impunity. They were not only a symbol of the resistance against the Germans, but they were also proven deadly. The Germans would routinely attempt to take the house almost daily, only to fail every time. Pavlov’s House stood for fifty-eight days, until the defenders and the civilians found hiding in the basement were finally relieved in November.

Defense of Pavlov’s House (26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942)