📅 #OTD in 1944, Soviet forces launched Operation Bagration, one of the largest and most successful military operations in history. In two months, they liberated the Belarusian SSR, part of the Lithuanian and Latvian SSRs and eastern Poland.

🔻 By the summer of 1944, the Red Army had succeeded in pushing German forces back from Leningrad, liberating Crimea and Ukraine and reaching the border with Romania. However, enemy forces continued to occupy the territory of Belarus. A salient controlled by the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Centre was established there. During the three-year occupation, Nazi troops had burned hundreds of local communities and killed over 2 million prisoners of war and civilians.

🔻 The Soviet forces simultaneously breached the defensive positions of the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Centre in six sectors, encircled and defeated the Vitebsk and Bobruisk formations, as well as the Orsha and Mogilyov formations. They launched several powerful strikes towards Minsk, entered Poland and approached the borders of East Prussia.

🔻 As a result of this operation, Soviet forces routed the Army Group Centre, one of the most powerful enemy formations. They crossed three large rivers, the Berezina, the Niemen and the Vistula, and seized vital bridgeheads on their western banks. They liberated Belarus, part of the Baltic republics, eastern Poland and opened the road to Berlin. The front was pushed back 550 to 600 km to the west.

🎖 Soviet soldiers displayed mass heroism and impressive fighting prowess, while liberating Belarus. Over 1,500 members of various Soviet ethnicities were made Heroes of the Soviet Union.

#Victory78 #WeRemember