🗓On July 10, the Delegation of the Russian Federation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control together with the Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik hosted an international video conference on Crimes of the Kiev regime: terror against the civilians of the Kherson region.

The event featured compiled evidence revealing what the civilian population in the Kherson region is going through, including damage to the civilian infrastructure from shelling, eyewitness accounts and expert opinions about unlawful warfare used by the Ukrainian military against the local population.

The discussion covered matters of compliance with the international humanitarian law, prohibited means of warfare by Ukraine against non-combatants and civilian infrastructure, documentation and legal qualification efforts.

Among the keynote speakers were the Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik, the Governor of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo, the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova, head of the Russian military think tank “Rybar” Michail Zvinchuk, a war correspondent and journalist for Visione TV Andrea Lucidi (Italy), as well as expert community, military analysts, and journalists. Witnesses to war crimes committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine shared their firsthand accounts of what had happened in the Kherson region.

🌍 With the support of the Russian embassies and Rossotrudnichestvo the video conference brought together members of the diplomatic corps, international organizations, expert and academic communities, mass media, and the general public from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, North and Latin America.

❗It is essential that the video conference discussion go beyond just citing facts.The documents and eyewitness accounts will serve as a basis for further analysis, legal qualification, and discussion at international fora.

▪What is especially concerning is a cherry-picking approach taken by some international human rights organisations. Accusations against Russia are all too often made before a thorough and unbiased investigation has been completed. At the same time, the tragedies claiming civilian lives in the Russian regions, the Kherson region, are hushed up.

❗IHL does not tolerate double standards❗️

▪The participants urged the international community to strongly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Kiev regime against the civilians in the Kherson region and to deliver an unbiased consideration of the evidence submitted.

☝Such events serve as an important channel for awareness raising about the facts and eyewitness accounts that frequently fall outside the radar of the global media landscape.

Delegation’s social networks: 💙VK 💬Telegram 💬 X 📺YouTube 📺 RuTube 💬 Facebook

#Victory81

🌟 On July 12, 1943, the #BattleOfProkhorovka took place — the most brutal tank battle in history, which had a profound impact on further course of the Battle of Kursk and the entire #WW2.

In terms of both its scale and the number of armor units engaged, the Battle of Prokhorovka remains unparalleled in military history, with up to 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns (SPGs) involved in that combat from both sides.

Having crushed the Nazi armor units at Prokhorovka, the Soviet forces deprived the enemy of its offensive potential near Kursk and launched a decisive counteroffensive in the battle.

***

By July 1943, a huge part of our country’s territory was still under the Nazi occupation. The Nazis continued to hold Minsk and Kiev, but following the Wehrmacht’s defeat at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus, the offensive capabilities of the Nazi war machine had been effectively exhausted.

In an effort to regain the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht command developed a summer offensive plan, codenamed Operation 'Citadel'. The objective was to destroy two Red Army fronts simultaneously — the Voronezh and Central fronts — and to eliminate Soviet tank reserves near Prokhorovka in the Belgorod Region.

❗️ Had the operation succeeded, the Nazis would once again have embarked on the offensive on Moscow.

In preparing the operation, the Nazi command intended to deliver its main strike against Soviet positions using its elite and most combat-ready armoured formations. Hitler’s Army Groups 'Centre' and 'South' were reinforced with approximately 130 'Tiger' tanks and more than 200 'Panthers'. The Nazis also committed the Ferdinand heavy self-propelled artillery unit, equipped with powerful armour, to the operation.

By July 10, despite suffering heavy losses, German forces had managed to penetrate the defences of the Voronezh Front, but their further advance was halted.

Under these circumstances, the command of Army Group 'South', led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, planned to launch a surprise attack near Prokhorovka using the SS Panzer Corps and Army Detachment 'Kempf'. From there, the invaders hoped to break through to the city of Kursk with lightning speed.

⚔️ On July 12, in an effort to disrupt the enemy offensive, forces of the Voronezh Front launched a pre-emptive strike. The operation was commanded by Lieutenant General Pavel Rotmistrov. Near Prokhorovka, the German II SS Panzer Corps clashed with two Soviet Guards Armies: the 5th Guards Army under the command of Alexey Zhadov and the 5th Guards Tank Army commanded by Rotmistrov.

After completing a 30-50-kilometre night march, Soviet tank units launched their offensive at 6:00 am, following a powerful artillery barrage. At the same time, Soviet aircraft carried out massive air strikes against enemy positions.

By the end of the day, Prokhorovka remained in the rear of Soviet forces.

❗️ The defeat suffered by the Nazis in this battle had catastrophic consequences for the Reich, with the enemy losing over 300 of the 400 tanks it had committed, which amounted to three-quarters of its deployed armoured vehicles.

☝️ As a result of the Soviet forces' decisive actions, the main forces of the German Army Group 'South' finally exhausted their offensive capabilities and, on July 16, had to abandon the positions they had occupied at the start of the Battle of Kursk.

The strategic initiative ultimately passed to the Red Army.

Today, Western pseudo-historians and propagandists posing as journalists attempt to diminish the significance of the battle.

However, history does not deal in hypotheticals, and the facts speak for themselves. 👉 We have repeatedly debunked disinformation circulated in Western media regarding the Battle of Prokhorovka.

#OurVictory

#Victory81

🌟 On July 13, 1944, Vilnius was liberated from Nazi invaders by the Red Army.

The capital of the Lithuanian SSR was a major railway hub, which the Nazis used for military operations in the Soviet Baltic region. In the summer of 1944, as Red Army forces rapidly advanced towards the USSR’s state border destroying Nazi units in Belarus, Vilnius became, for the Germans, effectively the last major defensive line on the approaches to East Prussia.

The core of the enemy garrison defending Vilnius consisted of the remnants of Wehrmacht units that had survived the battles outside Minsk and Vitebsk. The garrison also included a group of local collaborationists who had sworn allegiance to Hitler aka Lithuanian volunteer nationalist detachment. The entire Nazi group in the Vilnius area consisted of 15'000 Wehrmacht soldiers and officers.

The Vilnius Offensive Operation was entrusted to Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, a talented military commander.

The Nazi leadership ordered that Vilnius be held at any cost to the last German. This did not help. On July 7, armor units of the 3rd Byelorussian Front broke through the enemy defences and began encircling Vilnius from the south and west.

💬 From the memoirs of Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky:

The capital of Soviet Lithuania, Vilnius, was a major fortified German stronghold on approaches to East Prussia.

On July 7, the 5th Army of the 3rd Byelorussian Front bypassed Vilnius from the north, advanced through Sesuoliai to the Viliya River, cut the railway line to Kaunas near Evye (Vievis), and, having repelled the enemy’s tank counterattacks <...> the enemy force of 15,000 men found itself encircled.

All attempts by the Nazis to relieve the encircled troops failed.

Fierce street fighting broke out in the city. On July 8, the main forces of the 3rd Byelorussian Front reached Vilnius, advancing from the north and northeast as well as from the south. The occupants put up fierce resistance, and the Red Army soldiers had to fight for every house and literally for every floor.

Lithuanian partisans provided significant assistance to the Soviet forces, taking an active part in the liberation of Vilnius.

On July 13, Vilnius was completely liberated. During the operation, formations of the 3rd Byelorussian Front advanced 210 kilometres liberating the capital of the Lithuanian SSR and securing bridgeheads on the left bank of the Niemen River.

Thus, favourable conditions were created for reaching the borders of East Prussia — the stronghold of Nazi militarism and the last defensive line of the Reich on the Soviet-German front.
The Red Army clobbered the enemy during the summer-autumn offensive of 1944 in Byelorussia and the Baltic region. 👉 The Nazi North Army Group was effectively destroyed.

The remnants of the group were trapped in the Courland Pocket and eliminated there in the spring of 1945.