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The entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan along with the atomic bombings by the United States led to Japan's surrender, marking the end of World War II. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest number of casualties in the war, losing more than 20 million citizens, about a third of all World War II casualties.
After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union kept most of the territories it occupied in 1939, while territories with an area of 21,275 square kilometers with 1.5 million inhabitants were returned to communist-controlled Poland, notably the areas near Białystok and Przemyśl. [12]
A common view is that the Soviet Union won the Kuril Islands during World War II and is entitled to keep them regardless of the prior history of the disputed territories. Many believe that taking these islands away from Japan was a just reward for the Soviet Union's sacrifices during World War II and for its agreement to enter the war against ...
Russia maintains that all the Kuril Islands, including those that Japan calls the Northern Territories, are legally a part of Russia as a result of World War II, and the acquisition was as proper as any other change of international boundaries following the war. [31] [32]
The formal end to Tatar rule over Russia was the defeat of the Tatars at the Great Stand on the Ugra River in 1480. Ivan III (r. 1462–1505) and Vasili III (r. 1505–1533) had consolidated the centralized Russian state following the annexations of the Novgorod Republic in 1478, Tver in 1485, the Pskov Republic in 1510, Volokolamsk in 1513, Ryazan in 1521, and Novgorod-Seversk in 1522.
In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of Finland, [79] subsequent to which the parties entered into an interim peace treaty granting the Soviet Union the eastern region of Karelia (10% of Finnish territory), [79] and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established by merging the ceded territories with the ...
The offensive marked a major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement, which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition. The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history.
The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. [1] [2] The three independent Baltic countries were annexed as constituent Republics of the Soviet Union in August 1940.