The Russian V-Day Story (Or the History of World War II Not Often Heard in the West)

Every May 9th the Russian Federation celebrates its most important national holiday, Victory Day, den’ pobedy. During the early hours of that day in 1945 Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, which had stormed Berlin, received the German unconditional surrender. The Great Patriotic War had gone on for 1418 days of unimaginable violence, brutality and destruction. From Stalingrad and the northern Caucasus and from the northwestern outskirts of Moscow to the western frontiers of the Soviet Union to Sevastopol in the south and Leningrad and the borders with Finland, in the north, the country had been laid waste. An estimated 17 million civilians, men, women and children, had perished, although no one will ever know the exact figure. Villages and towns were destroyed; families were wiped out without anyone to remember them or mourn their deaths.

80 YEARS AGO: May 1945: Nazi Germany Surrenders, but… on May 7, 8, or 9

May 7, we commemorate the surrender of Nazi Germany.

An earlier version of this article was published by Global Research on May 6, 2015. Updated May 7, 2018 by Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels

In 1943, the Americans, British, and Soviets had agreed that there would be no separate negotiations with Nazi Germany with respect to its capitulation, and that the German surrender would have to be unconditional. In the early spring of 1945, Germany was as good as defeated and the Allies were getting ready to collectively receive its unconditional submission. But where would that capitulation ceremony take place – on the Eastern Front, or on the Western Front?

History of World War II: The Nazi-Soviet War Was Destined to Become a Long War, 80 Years Ago

During the fighting in the Soviet Winter Campaign, in mid-February 1942 the German Army had recovered its poise, as the situation stabilised for the invaders. Across the Eastern front, the Germans were able to hold on to most of the territory they had captured by early December 1941.

Astride the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, where the Germans had received some of the heaviest hits of the Soviet Army’s winter counteroffensive, the Wehrmacht had only fallen back between 50 to 150 miles (1). The Germans avoided the disaster that had struck Napoleon’s invasion force, during their 1812 attack on Russia.

The Grande Armée failed to get through its first winter on Russian terrain, suffering complete defeat in December 1812. The Germans would survive 3 winters of fighting on Russian soil, a remarkable feat of arms. By May 1944 at their closest point the Germans were 290 miles from Moscow, while the Soviets were 550 miles from Berlin at that time. For example the Russian city of Pskov, 160 miles south of Leningrad, was not liberated by the Red Army until 23 July 1944. (2)

The War of Two Worlds. Part 5

Previous

Don’t lose sight of the big game: The hegemon is fighting for supremacy against a multipolar but heterogeneous world. President Trump puts the West in a state of hope and indignation on a daily basis – this does not impress the Chinese or the Russians.

Introduction

After Ukraine sent a swarm of drones to Moscow on the night of March 11, 2025, which resulted in deaths and injuries and is considered a terrorist attack due to the targets chosen – only residential buildings – talks were held between the Americans and Ukrainians in Saudi Arabia.

The War of Two Worlds. Part 4

Previous

Don’t lose sight of the big game: The hegemon is fighting for supremacy against a multipolar but heterogeneous world. The US’s turnaround is just one piece of the mosaic in the big game.

Introduction

In Part 1, we discussed the strategy of the British and the Americans in the First and Second World Wars and showed that the narratives of these two major conflicts of the 20th century do not stand up to factual scrutiny. We also described the current difficult situation in which the Collective West currently finds itself. In Part 2, we described the strength of the Global South, which is seeking independence from the centuries-long corset of the Collective West and has created an organization called BRICS, which is already the largest economic community our world has ever seen. The fact that this organization was not perceived in the West until recently and therefore not taken seriously does not help the West.