Alexey Gordeevich Yeremenko, a political officer in the Red Army during World War II, leads Soviet troops against German forces while brandishing his Tokarev sidearm. He was killed moments after this photo was taken.
75 years ago: January 31 1943, the German 6th Army, after spending two months surrounded, starved and half-death, finally surrenders, bringing an end to the bloodiest battle of World War Two, the Battle of Stalingrad.
Out of an estimate of 91,000 survivors, only about 5,000 would return to Germany 10 years later, most dying mere weeks after their surrender due to their poor state following the battle, further compounded by the harsh conditions found in the first POW camps they were sent into.
This defeat eventually paved the way into the expulsion of the German Army from the Soviet Union, and the subsequent defeat of Germany at the very heart of the fatherland, Berlin.
Alexey Gordeevich Yeremenko, a political officer in the Red Army during World War II, leads Soviet troops against German forces while brandishing his Tokarev sidearm. He was killed moments after this photo was taken.
Alexey Gordeevich Yeremenko, a political officer in the Red Army during World War II, leads Soviet troops against German forces while brandishing his Tokarev sidearm. He was killed moments after this photo was taken.
The number of Russians who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union has reached its highest level since 2009, with almost an equal share saying the event could have been avoided.
A public opinion poll conducted by the independent Levada Center in late November this year found that 58 percent of Russians now regret the collapse of the USSR. Twenty-five percent said they felt no regret about this, while 16 percent could not describe their feelings in one word.
When researchers asked those who regret the end of the USSR what the primary reasons were behind their sentiments, 54 percent said that they missed a single economic system, 36 percent said they had lost the feeling of belonging to a real superpower, 34 percent complained about the decrease of mutual trust among ordinary people, and 26 percent said that the collapse had destroyed the ties between friends and relatives.
The same research showed that 52 percent of Russians think that the collapse of the USSR could have been avoided, 29 percent said that the event was absolutely inevitable, and 19 percent did not have a fixed opinion on the matter.
The share of those who regret the demise of the Soviet Union has risen continuously over the past decade, but in 2009 it was even higher than today – at 60 percent. The all-time high – 75 percent – was recorded in 2000.
