[Regnum] On the 80th anniversary of the start of the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation, the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense, together with the Russian Military Historical Society, for the first time published archival documents dedicated to the offensive of Soviet troops in Karelia and on the Karelian Isthmus, the portal “History.RF” reported.
New documents reflect the course of events on the Soviet-Finnish front of the Great Patriotic War. The operation there began on June 10, 1944. Its goal was the defeat of Finland and the country's withdrawal from World War II, which occurred on September 19 of the same year.
“Published through the efforts of specialists from TsAMO RF and RVIO, the layer of documents contains operational directives from the headquarters of the Leningrad Front, orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the front commanders, combat orders, reports to the General Staff of the Red Army, operational reports, combat orders, etc.,” noted the RVIO.
A total of 35 documents were posted on the portal. They also contain data on the rewards of the participants in the operation. For example, about awarding the 18th Infantry Mginskaya Red Banner Division the Order of Suvorov II degree, and 17 other formations, including the 7th Zaporozhye Artillery Division and the Onega Military Flotilla, the Order of the Red Banner.
According to the scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society Mikhail Myagkov, Soviet soldiers showed courage and heroism in breaking through enemy fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus in the Vyborg region, during the liberation of Petrozavodsk, Medvezhyegorsk and other settlements. He emphasized that the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command clearly and unequivocally prohibited the command of the Karelian and Leningrad fronts from crossing the 1941 borders, since the USSR did not intend to occupy Finland, but only wanted to take it out of the war.
As Regnum reported, in May the Russian FSB published archival documents confirming that US and French military personnel committed crimes against residents of occupied Berlin in 1945. In them, the head of the Berlin operational sector, Major General Alexei Sidnev, reported that cases of hooliganism, robbery and violence against Germans by American troops do not stop, and these facts are increasing daily. He pointed out that on October 21, two American soldiers stopped two Germans on Potsdamer Street who were returning home from work and asked for a light. Then, for no reason, they fired at the Germans, seriously wounding them both.
On the evening of September 27, the materials say, three French soldiers raped a resident of a Berlin suburb named Agnes and the girl Riess, who was in the house. After that, they beat the woman and left, taking 200 marks and a gold watch from her.
In April, the Office of the Federal Security Service in the Smolensk Region declassified archival documents about crimes committed by the Nazis in the region during the Great Patriotic War, including materials about the executions of Poles and the falsification of the “Katyn Affair” by the secret services of the Third Reich.