Liberation of Kiev from Nazi occupation by the Red Army 80 years ago showed that the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War was inevitable, claims a Russian historian.
That victory had inspired the country’s leadership to begin considering a push towards Berlin, said scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society Mikhail Myagkov.
On November 6, 1943, the Red Army liberated the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Kiev. About 900,000 people lived in the city before the war. At the end of the Nazi occupation, only 180,000 inhabitants remained. In Babiy Yar alone, the Nazis and their henchmen shot dead about 130,000 people.
“After the liberation of Kiev, it became clear to our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition that Germany would no longer be able to encroach further on the Soviet Union, while we acknowledged that the front would inexorably move to the West, and we would inevitably win the war, with the country’s leadership beginning to think about an attack on Berlin,” said Myagkov.
Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Liberation of Kiev from the Nazi invaders. "We are rebuilding you, our dear Kiev!" - workers wrote on the poster. November 1944.
© Sputnik / Zelma
Soon after, on November 28 - December 1, 1943, the Tehran Conference brought together Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It was at that meeting in Iran's capital that the USSR's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition decided to open the second front.
"It was precisely thanks to our strong military-political positions, bolstered not least thanks to the liberation of Kiev, that the allies could no longer evade our demands to open the second front, which was opened on June 6, 1944,” emphasized Myagkov.
The Russian historian recalled how London radio had referred to the liberation of Kiev on that noteworthy date as imbued with enormous “moral and military significance,” adding that Germany could already distinctly hear the “death knell.”