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121-720: The Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union (Russian: сухопутные войска , romanized : Sovetskiye sukhoputnye voyska ) was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. In English it was often referred to as the Soviet Army. Until 25 February 1946, it was known as the Red Army . In Russian, the term armiya (army) was often used to cover

242-442: A native Russian keyboard layout ( JCUKEN ). In the latter case, they would type using a system of transliteration fitted for their keyboard layout , such as for English QWERTY keyboards, and then use an automated tool to convert the text into Cyrillic. There are a number of distinct and competing standards for the romanization of Russian Cyrillic , with none of them having received much popularity, and, in reality, transliteration

363-586: A Latin alphabet for the Russian language was discussed in 1929–30 during the campaign of latinisation of the languages of the USSR , when a special commission was created to propose a latinisation system for Russian. The letters of the Latin script are named in Russian as following (and are borrowed from French and/or German ): Eastern Europe The region represents a significant part of European culture ;

484-880: A Soviet Navy Fleet. From the 1950s to the 1980s the branches ("rods") of the Ground Forces included the Motor Rifle Troops ; the Soviet Airborne Forces , from April 1956 to March 1964; Air Assault Troops ( Airborne Assault Formations of the Ground Forces of the USSR  [ ru ] , from 1968 to August 1990); the Tank Troops ; the Rocket Forces and Artillery  [ ru ] ( Ракетные войска и артиллерия СССР , from 1961); Army Aviation (see ru:Армейская авиация Российской Федерации ), until December 1990; Signals Troops ;

605-486: A cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) was formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. "European" as a cultural term did not include many of the territories under the influence of Eastern Christianity until the early nineteenth century. A large section of Eastern Europe

726-573: A demobilisation controlled first, by increasing the number of military districts to 33, then reduced to 21 in 1946. The personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million. To establish and secure the USSR's eastern European geopolitical interests, Red Army troops who liberated eastern Europe from Nazi rule in 1945 remained in place to secure pro-Soviet régimes in Eastern Europe and to protect against attack from Europe. Elsewhere, they may have assisted

847-891: A geopolitical concept that became known as the Eastern Bloc . This consisted of: With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc , and indeed the world, changed. In the German reunification , the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In 1991, COMECON , the Warsaw Pact , and the Soviet Union were dissolved. Many European nations that had been part of

968-517: A gradualist manner, backed by the Soviets in many, but not all, cases. For a while, cooperative non-Communist parties were tolerated. The Communist governments nationalized private businesses, placing them under state ownership, and monitored the media and churches. When dividing up government offices with coalition partners, the Communists took control of the interior ministries, which controlled

1089-409: A high amount of military, economic, and political cost. After Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev realized the economic, diplomatic, and human toll the war was placing on the Soviet Union, he announced the withdrawal of six regiment of troops (about 7,000 men) on 28 July 1986. In January 1988 Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that it was hoped that "1988 would be the last year of

1210-417: A lesser degree, forms of Eastern Protestantism and Eastern Catholicism have also been influential in Eastern Europe. Countries where Eastern Protestantism or Eastern Catholicism hold historical significance include Belarus, Croatia , Greece, Hungary , Lithuania , Poland , Romania, Russia, Slovakia , Slovenia and Ukraine. The schism refers to the historical break of communion and theology between

1331-434: A monopoly on managing and implementing a state's or federation's monetary policy. Besides monetary policy, some of them even perform the supervision of the financial intermediary system. In the case of a price stability function, the inflation rate, in the examined area, relatively quickly dropped to below 5% by 2000. In monetary policy the differences are based on the euro-zone: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia use

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1452-639: A new social group known as " Afgantsy ". These men would become influential in popular culture and politics of the time. The extent military districts in 1990 were: From 1985 to 1991, General Secretary Gorbachev attempted to reduce the strain the Soviet Armed Forces placed on the USSR's economy . Gorbachev slowly reduced the size of the Armed Forces, including through a unilateral force reduction announcement of 500,000 in December 1988. A total of 50,000 personnel were to come from Eastern Europe,

1573-631: A precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult. After the East–West Schism of 1054, significant parts of Eastern Europe developed cultural unity and resistance to Catholic Western and Central Europe within the framework of the Eastern Orthodox Church , Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet . The earliest concept of Europe as

1694-969: A regional basis, with Soviet soldiers from Russia becoming part of the new Russian Ground Forces , while Soviet soldiers originating from Kazakhstan became part of the new Kazakh Armed Forces . As a result, the bulk of the Soviet Ground Forces, including most of the Scud and Scaleboard surface-to-surface missile (SSM) forces, became incorporated in the Russian Ground Forces . 1992 estimates showed five SSM brigades with 96 missile vehicles in Belarus and 12 SSM brigades with 204 missile vehicles in Ukraine , compared to 24 SSM brigades with over 900 missile vehicles under Russian Ground Forces' control, some in other former Soviet republics. By

1815-455: A relatively high standard of living . This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600. At the beginning of the 17th century, numeracy levels in eastern Europe were relatively low, although regional differences existed. During the 18th century, the regions began to catch up with western Europe, but did not develop as rapidly. Areas with stronger female autonomy developed more quickly in terms of numeracy. Serfdom

1936-489: A separate chapter deals with public finances. Generally, they soon encountered the following problems: high inflation, high unemployment, low economic growth, and high government debt. By 2000 these economies were stabilized, and between 2004 and 2013 all of them joined the European Union. Most of the constitutions define directly or indirectly the economic system of the countries parallel to the democratic transition of

2057-423: A series of radical modernization reforms throughout the country. Vigorously suppressing any opposition from among the traditional Muslim Afghans, the government arrested thousands and executed as many as 27,000 political prisoners. By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by December the government had lost control of territory outside of the cities. In response to Afghan government requests,

2178-434: A single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes. The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms , which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet soldiers lost their lives in this conflict. Following

2299-473: A tenth that number of tank formations. Their war experience gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut significantly. A total of 130 rifle divisions were disbanded in the Groups of Forces in Eastern Europe in summer 1945, as well as 2nd Guards Airborne Division , and by the end of 1946, another 193 rifle divisions ceased to exist. Five or more rifle divisions disbanded contributed to

2420-415: Is formed by countries with dominant Orthodox churches, like Belarus , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Georgia , Greece , Moldova , Montenegro , North Macedonia , Romania , Russia , Serbia , and Ukraine , for instance, as well as Armenia , which is predominantly Armenian Apostolic . The Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe . To

2541-536: Is nearly 44%, but the deviation is great because the lowest figure is close to 10% but the highest is 97%. The trend shows that the sovereign debt ratio to GDP in most countries has been rising. Only three countries are affected by high government debt: Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia (over 70% of the GDP), while Slovakia and Poland fulfill the Maastricht requirement but only 10% below the threshold. The contribution to cover

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2662-520: Is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used. Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern, but Southern or Western Europe. During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Eastern Europe enjoyed

2783-597: Is often carried out without any consistent standards. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System , is a system that has been used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST and ISO systems. OST 8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced on 16 October 1935. Developed by

2904-573: Is overwhelmingly Orthodox, but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe", for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more influenced by Mediterranean cultures and dynamics. The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the Cold War east–west division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by

3025-706: Is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The Library of Congress system (ALA-LC) is used for newer acquisitions. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce. In many publications, a simplified form of the system is used to render English versions of Russian names, typically converting ë to yo , simplifying -iy and -yy endings to -y , and omitting apostrophes for ъ and ь . It can be rendered using only

3146-799: The Achaemenid Persian , Parthian , and Sassanid Persian Empires. Parts of the Balkans and some more northern areas were ruled by the Achaemenid Persians as well, including Thrace , Paeonia , Macedon , and most of the Black Sea coastal regions of Romania , Ukraine , and Russia . Owing to the rivalry between the Parthian Empire and Rome , and later between Byzantium and the Sassanid Persians ,

3267-632: The Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe. E.g. Kazakhstan , which is mainly located in Central Asia with the most western parts of it located west of the Ural River , also shares a part of Eastern Europe. In the west, however, the historical and cultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which makes

3388-663: The Central and Eastern European member states, including the Baltic states , that accessed in 2004 and after: in 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic; in 2007 Bulgaria, Romania; and in 2013 Croatia. The economic changes were in harmony with the constitutional reforms: constitutional provisions on public finances can be identified and, in some countries,

3509-489: The Central Office for South Vietnam , North Vietnam's southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move "perpendicularly to the attack trajectory." These advance warnings gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill

3630-601: The Eastern Bloc under the influence of the Soviet Union . The term is sometimes considered to be pejorative, through stereotypes about Eastern Europe being inferior (poorer, less developed) to Western Europe ; the term Central and Eastern Europe is sometimes used for a more neutral grouping. Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist in the early 21st century, but they often lack precision and may be anachronistic. These definitions are debated across cultures and among experts, even political scientists , as

3751-716: The Engineer Troops ; the Air Defence Troops of the Ground Forces ; the Chemical Troops; and the Rear of the Ground Forces. In 1955, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact with its Eastern European socialist allies, solidifying military coordination between Soviet forces and their socialist counterparts. The Ground Forces created and directed the Eastern European armies in its image for

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3872-727: The European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in the future. Georgia and Armenia are seeking EU membership, with Georgia also seeking NATO membership alongside. There are two de facto republics with limited recognition in the South Caucasus region that exist under the presence of Russian military. Both states participate in the Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations : Former republics with limited recognition: Some European republics of

3993-834: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 . In 1958, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania . The Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia was established after Warsaw Pact intervention against the Prague Spring of 1968. In 1969, in the far east of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969) prompted establishment of a 16th military district, the Central Asian Military District, at Alma-Ata , Kazakhstan. From 1947 to 1989, Western intelligence agencies estimated that

4114-727: The Ministry of Public Security recruit foreigners within high-level diplomatic circles among the Western-allies of the US, under a clandestine program known as "B12,MM" which produced thousands of high-level documents for nearly a decade, including targets of B-52 strikes. In 1975, the SIGINT services had broken information from Western US-allies in Saigon, determining that the US would not intervene to save South Vietnam from collapse. In 1979,

4235-602: The NKVD in suppressing anti-Soviet resistance in Western Ukraine (1941–1955) and the Forest Brothers in the three Baltic states . Soviet troops, including the 39th Army , remained at Port Arthur and Dalian on the northeast Chinese coast until 1955. Control was then handed over to the new Chinese communist government. Within the Soviet Union, the troops and formations of the Ground Forces were divided among

4356-747: The Nordic-Baltic Eight regional cooperation forum whereas Central European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group . The Northern Future Forum , the Nordic Investment Bank , the Nordic Battlegroup , the Nordic-Baltic Eight and the New Hanseatic League are other examples of Northern European cooperation that includes the three countries collectively referred to as

4477-513: The Russian language (the transliteration of Russian text from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script ), aside from its primary use for including Russian names and words in text written in a Latin alphabet, is also essential for computer users to input Russian text who either do not have a keyboard or word processor set up for inputting Cyrillic, or else are not capable of typing rapidly using

4598-733: The Strategic Rocket Forces first in traditional Soviet order of precedence; the Ground Forces, second; the Air Defence Forces , third, the Air Forces , fourth, and the Soviet Navy , fifth, among the branches of the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until it

4719-497: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian Federation officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war. Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs , 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, and 120 helicopters. During

4840-554: The signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities of the North Vietnamese, through an operation known as Vostok (also known as Phương Đông, meaning "Orient" and named after the Vostok 1 ). The Vostok program was a counterintelligence and espionage program. These programs were pivotal in detecting and defeating CIA and South Vietnamese commando teams sent into North Vietnam, as they were detected and captured. The Soviets helped

4961-406: The 1920s, but all of them (except Czechoslovakia and Finland) gave up democracy during the depression years of the 1930s, in favor of autocratic, strong-man or single-party states. The new states were unable to form stable military alliances, and one by one were too weak to stand up against Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which took them over between 1938 and 1945. Russia ended its participation in

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5082-408: The 1990s: free-market economy (sometimes complemented with the socially [and ecologically] oriented sector), economic development, or only economic rights are included as a ground for the economy. In the case of fiscal policy, the legislative, the executive and other state organs (Budget Council, Economic and Social Council) define and manage the budgeting. The average government debt in the countries

5203-508: The 19–21 August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Gorbachev. Commanders despatched tanks into Moscow, yet the coup failed. On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia , Belarus , and Ukraine formally dissolved the USSR, and then constituted the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Soviet President Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991; the next day, the Supreme Soviet dissolved itself, officially dissolving

5324-459: The 5th century, marking the start of the Early Middle Ages . By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire—the Byzantine Empire —had a survival strategy that kept it alive for another 1,000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided Eastern and Western Christianity in 1054, heightened the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. Much of Eastern Europe

5445-486: The Baltic states. The South Caucasus nations of Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia are included in definitions or histories of Eastern Europe. They are located in the transition zone of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. They participate in the European Union 's Eastern Partnership program, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly , and are members of the Council of Europe , which specifies that all three have political and cultural connections to Europe. In January 2002,

5566-456: The British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system for bibliographic cataloguing requires some diacritics, two-letter tie characters , and prime marks. The standard is also often adapted as a "simplified" or "modified Library of Congress system" for use in text for a non-specialized audience, omitting the special characters and diacritics, simplifying endings, and modifying iotated initials. British Standard 2979:1958

5687-448: The Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Southeast European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European. Partially recognized states : Despite being frequently classified as a Central Asian country, about 4% of Kazakhstan 's territory, situated west of the Ural River , geographically lies in Eastern Europe, thus technically making it a transcontinental country . Ancient kingdoms of

5808-450: The Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches. Later developments meant that the divide was no longer solely between Catholic and Orthodox churches. From the 16th century, both Western and Eastern forms of Protestantism began to emerge in Europe. Additionally, Eastern Catholic Churches began to spread in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, following the establishment of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1596. However,

5929-453: The First World War in March 1918 and lost territory, as the Baltic countries and Poland became independent. The region was the main battlefield in the Second World War (1939–45), with German and Soviet armies sweeping back and forth, with millions of Jews and others killed by the Nazis in the Generalplan Ost , and millions of others killed by disease, starvation, and military action, or executed after being deemed as politically dangerous. During

6050-455: The First World War was the breakup of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires, as well as partial losses to the German Empire. A surge of ethnic nationalism created a series of new states in Eastern Europe, validated by the Versailles Treaty of 1919 . Poland was reconstituted after the partitions of the 1790s had divided it between Germany, Austria, and Russia. New countries included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (which

6171-431: The General Staff, while the chiefs of the combat arms and specialised forces came under the direct command of the Minister of Defence . The Main Command was then recreated again in November 1967. Army General Ivan Pavlovsky was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Ground Forces with effect from 5 November 1967. From 1945 to 1948, the Soviet Armed Forces were reduced from about 11.3 million to about 2.8 million men,

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6292-461: The Ground Forces. Nonetheless, Soviet forces possessed too few theater-level nuclear weapons to fulfill war-plan requirements until the mid-1980s. The General Staff maintained plans to invade Western Europe whose massive scale was only made publicly available after German researchers gained access to files of the East German National People's Army following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Red Army advanced into northern Korea in 1945 after

6413-418: The Latin Alphabet is an adoption of ISO 9:1995 . It is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). GOST 52535.1-2006 Identification cards. Machine readable travel documents. Part 1. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO standard for travel documents. It was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013 ( see below ). The standard

6534-450: The Main Command was disbanded, an organisational gap that "probably was associated in some manner with the Korean War ". The Main Command was reformed in 1955. On February 24, 1964, the Defense Council of the Soviet Union decided to disband the Ground Forces Main Command, with almost the same wording as in 1950 (the corresponding order of the USSR Minister of Defense on disbandment was signed on March 7, 1964). Its functions were transferred to

6655-416: The National Administration for Geodesy and Cartography at the USSR Council of Ministers , GOST 16876-71 has been in service since 1973. Replaced by GOST 7.79-2000. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as an official standard of the COMECON . GOST 7.79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship, and Publishing–Rules for Transliteration of the Cyrillic Characters Using

6776-431: The Parthians would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the area, unlike the Sassanids who controlled most of the Caucasus during their entire rule. The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of the Roman Republic . As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared. The mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces had formed

6897-409: The Soviet Ground Forces' strength remained c. 2.8 million to c. 5.3 million men. In 1989 the Ground Forces had two million men. To maintain those numbers, Soviet law required a three-year military service obligation from every able man of military age, until 1967, when the Ground Forces reduced it to a two-year draft obligation. By the 1970s, the change to a two-year system seems to have created

7018-521: The Soviet Union in 1991, a considerable number of weapons were transferred to the national forces of emerging states on the periphery of the former Soviet Union, such as Armenia , Azerbaijan and Tajikistan . Similarly, weapons and other military equipment were also left behind in the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Some of these items were sold on the black market or through weapons merchants, whereof, in turn, some ended up in terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda . A 1999 book argued that

7139-404: The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its puppet government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance. Between 850,000 and 1.5 million civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran . Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur Mohammad Taraki government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated

7260-486: The Soviet Union declared or regained their independence ( Belarus , Moldova , Ukraine , as well as the Baltic States of Latvia , Lithuania , and Estonia ). Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Many countries of this region joined the European Union , namely Bulgaria , the Czech Republic , Croatia , Estonia, Hungary , Latvia, Lithuania, Poland , Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia . The term "EU11 countries" refer to

7381-550: The Soviet Union to support Korea's growth directly. When northern Korea eventually wished to invade South Korea in 1950, Kim Il Sung traveled to Moscow to gain approval from Stalin. It was granted with full support, leading to the full-scale invasion of South Korea on June 25. Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to PAVN/VC forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam . Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to

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7502-402: The Soviet army. It included the German Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany), formed by the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. All the countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of control by 1948. These countries were officially independent of the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence was quite limited. Yugoslavia and Albania had Communist control that

7623-412: The Soviet government under leader Leonid Brezhnev first sent covert troops to advise and support the Afghan government, but, on December 24, 1979, began the first deployment of the 40th Army . Arriving in the capital Kabul on December 27, they staged a coup , killing the president Hafizullah Amin , and installing a rival socialist Babrak Karmal , who was viewed as more moderate and fit to lead

7744-537: The Soviet official newspaper of record . First, the combined arms formations, divisions and armies, would be reorganised, and as a result division numbers would be reduced almost by half; second, tank regiments would be removed from all the motor rifle (mechanised infantry) divisions in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and tank divisions would also lose a tank regiment; air assault and river crossing units would be removed from both Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia; fourth, defensive systems and units would rise in number under

7865-407: The Soviet troops stay"; the forces pulled out in the bitter winter cold of January–February 1989. The cost for the military due to the war is estimated to have been roughly 15 billion rubles in 1989. The combat casualties estimates at 30,000–35,000. During 1984–1985, more than 300 aircraft were lost, and thus a significant military cost of the war is attributed to air operations. Since the first year,

7986-479: The USSR on 26 December 1991. During the next 18 months, inter-republican political efforts to transform the Army of the Soviet Union into the CIS Armed Forces failed; eventually, the forces stationed in the republics formally became the militaries of the respective republican governments. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the Ground Forces dissolved and the fifteen Soviet successor states divided their assets among themselves. The divide mostly occurred along

8107-442: The abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Emancipation meant that the ex-serfs paid for their freedom with annual cash payments to their former masters for decades. The system varied widely country by country, and was not as standardized as in Western Europe. Historians, until the 20th century, focused on master-serf economic and labor relations, portraying the serfs as slave-like, passive, and isolated. 20th century scholars downplayed

8228-427: The basic letters and punctuation found on English-language keyboards: no diacritics or unusual letters are required, although the interpunct character (·) may be used to avoid ambiguity. This particular standard is part of the BGN/PCGN romanization system which was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use . The portion of

8349-446: The candidate countries Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia as Central and Eastern European . UNESCO , EuroVoc , National Geographic Society , Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography , and the STW Thesaurus for Economics place the Baltic states in Northern Europe , whereas the CIA World Factbook places the region in Eastern Europe with a strong assimilation to Northern Europe . They are members of

8470-443: The changes implicit in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty began to create more disruption. The withdrawals became extremely chaotic; there was significant hardship for officers and their families, and "large numbers of weapons and vast stocks of equipment simply disappeared through theft, misappropriation and the black market." In February 1989, Defence Minister Dmitri Yazov outlined five major planned changes in Izvestiya ,

8591-487: The common currency. The economies of this decade – similar to the previous one – show a moderate inflation. As a new phenomenon, a slight negative inflation (deflation) appeared in this decade in several countries (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), which demonstrates sensitivity regarding international developments. The majority of the constitutions determine the national currency, legal tender or monetary unit. The local currency exchange rate to

8712-668: The concept of Eastern Catholicism itself predates this. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Catholic (and later additionally Protestant ) churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (often incorrectly labelled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example, Greece

8833-498: The end of World War II , with the intention of aiding in the process of rebuilding the country. Marshals Kirill Meretskov and Terentii Shtykov explained to Joseph Stalin the necessity of Soviet help in building infrastructure and industry in northern Korea. Additionally, the Soviets aided in the creation of the North Korean People's Army and Korean People's Air Force . The Soviets believed it would be strategic to

8954-465: The end of 1992, most remnants of the Soviet Army in former Soviet Republics had disbanded or dispersed. Forces garrisoned in Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states ) gradually returned home between 1992 and 1994. This list of Soviet Army divisions sketches some of the fates of the individual parts of the Ground Forces. In mid-March 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed himself as

9075-557: The evils and emphasize the complexities. Before 1870, the industrialization that had started to develop in Northwestern and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. Even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia , for example, remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom. A major result of

9196-580: The fall of the Berlin Wall, continued to feel a moral duty to support states that have not been "liberated from the tyranny of capitalism". This shared duty collapsed when most of the former Soviet satellites abandoned socialism and adopted capitalism. EuroVoc , a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union , classifies Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, plus

9317-599: The final stages of World War II the future of Eastern Europe was decided by the overwhelming power of the Soviet Red Army, as it swept the Germans aside. It did not reach Yugoslavia and Albania, however. Finland was free but forced to be neutral in the upcoming Cold War. Throughout Eastern Europe, German-speaking populations were expelled to the reduced borders of Germany in one of the largest ethnic cleansing operations in history. Regions where Germans had formed

9438-522: The finances for common needs is declared, the principle of just tax burden-sharing is supplemented sometimes with special aspects. Tax revenues expose typically 15–19 % of the GDP, and rates above 20% only rarely can be found. The state audit of the government budget and expenditures is an essential control element in public finances and an important part of the concept of checks and balances. The central banks are independent state institutions, which possess

9559-551: The first of the new High Commands, for the Far East, was created at Ulan-Ude in Buryatia under Army General Vasily Petrov . In September 1984, three more were established to control multi-Front operations in Europe (the Western and South-Western Strategic Directions) and at Baku to supervise three southern military districts. Western analysts expected these new headquarters to control multiple Fronts in time of war, and usually

9680-617: The following equipment. The 1991 estimates are drawn from the IISS Military Balance and follow the Conventional Forces in Europe data exchange which revealed figures of November 1990. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 1992 that the USSR had previously had over 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armoured combat vehicles, at least 13,000 artillery pieces, and just under 1,500 helicopters. Romanization of Russian The romanization of

9801-484: The forces in Mongolia (totaling five divisions and 75,000 troops) were to be reduced, but the remainder was to come from units inside the Soviet Union. There were major problems encountered in trying to organise the return of 500,000 personnel into civilian life, including where the returned soldiers were to live, housing, jobs, and training assistance. Then the developing withdrawals from Czechoslovakia and Hungary and

9922-402: The formation of NKVD convoy divisions, some used for escorting Japanese prisoners of war . The Tank Corps of the late war period were converted to tank divisions, and from 1957 the rifle divisions were converted to motor rifle divisions (MRDs). MRDs had three motorized rifle regiments and a tank regiment, for a total of ten motor rifle battalions and six tank battalions; tank divisions had

10043-1228: The former Soviet Union are considered a part of Eastern Europe: Unrecognized states : The term "Central Europe" is often used by historians to designate states formerly belonging to the Holy Roman Empire , the Habsburg Empire , and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In some media, "Central Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of the Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Central European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European. Some countries in Southeast Europe can be considered part of Eastern Europe. Some of them can sometimes, albeit rarely, be characterized as belonging to Southern Europe , and some may also be included in Central Europe . In some media, "Southeast Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of

10164-632: The geopolitical impact of the "iron curtain": From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe: Warsaw , Berlin , Prague , Vienna , Budapest , Belgrade , Bucharest , and Sofia . Eastern Europe after 1945 usually meant all the European countries liberated from Nazi Germany and then occupied by

10285-482: The government spend roughly 2.5–3.0% of the yearly military budget on funding the war in Afghanistan, increasing steadily in cost until its peak in 1986. The Soviet Army also suffered from deep losses in morale and public approval due to the conflict and its failure. Many injured and disabled veterans of the war returned to the Soviet Union facing public scrutiny and difficulty re-entering civilian society, creating

10406-564: The greatest opportunity for terrorist organizations to procure weapons was in the former Soviet Union. In 2007, the World Bank estimated that out of the 500 million total firearms available worldwide, 100 million were of the Kalashnikov family , and 75 million were AKMs . However, only about 5 million of these were manufactured in the former USSR. In 1990 and 1991, the Soviet Ground Forces were estimated to possess

10527-553: The hazing practice known as dedovshchina , "rule of the grandfathers", which destroyed the status of most NCOs. Instead the Soviet system relied very heavily on junior officers. Soviet Armed Forces life could be "grim and dangerous": a Western researcher talking to former Soviet officers was told, in effect that this was because they did not "value human life". By the middle of the 1980s, the Ground Forces contained about 210 divisions . About three-quarters were motor rifle divisions and

10648-532: The highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization . In contrast, the western territories largely adopted the Latin language . This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire . The division between these two spheres deepened during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages due to a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in

10769-628: The increased role played by the rulers of Bohemia and Poland . The conquest of the Byzantine Empire , center of the Eastern Orthodox Church , by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Catholic / Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe. Armour points out that Cyrillic -alphabet use

10890-443: The introduction of a dedicated Latin alphabet for writing the Russian language. Such an alphabet would not necessarily bind closely to the traditional Cyrillic orthography. The transition from Cyrillic to Latin has been proposed several times throughout history (especially during the Soviet era), but was never conducted on a large scale, except for informal romanizations in the computer era. The most serious possibility of adoption of

11011-407: The local majority, creating upheaval regarding demands of self-determination. Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania likewise were independent. Many of the countries were still largely rural, with little industry and only a few urban centres. Nationalism was the dominant force but most of the countries had ethnic or religious minorities who felt threatened by majority elements. Nearly all became democratic in

11132-570: The local police. They also took control of the mass media, especially radio, as well as the education system. They confiscated and redistributed farmland, and seized control of or replaced the organizations of civil society, such as church groups, sports, youth groups, trade unions, farmers' organizations, and civic organizations. In some countries, they engaged in large-scale ethnic cleansing, moving ethnic groups such as Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians far away from where they previously lived, often with high loss of life, to relocate them within

11253-652: The local population majority were re-settled with Polish- or Czech-speakers. The region fell to Soviet control and Communist governments were imposed. Yugoslavia, Albania (and later Romania) had their own Communist regimes independent of Moscow. The Eastern Bloc at the onset of the Cold War in 1947 was far behind the Western European countries in economic rebuilding and economic progress. Winston Churchill, in his well-known "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri , stressed

11374-642: The main socio-cultural characteristics of Eastern Europe have historically been defined by the traditions of the East Slavs and Greeks , as well as by the influence of Eastern Christianity as it developed through the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire . Another definition was created by the Cold War , as Europe was ideologically divided by the Iron Curtain , with "Eastern Europe" being synonymous with communist states constituting

11495-489: The media. Another definition was used during the 40 years of Cold War between 1947 and 1989, and was more or less synonymous with the terms Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact . A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegated. Many former Communist states in this region, although their formal alliances were severed by

11616-839: The military districts. There were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR (see table). Yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany , which suppressed the anti-Soviet Uprising of 1953 in East Germany . East European Groups of Forces were the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary , which put down

11737-419: The nation. While the Soviet government initially hoped to secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the communist regime, and withdraw from the region within the span of one year, they experienced major difficulties in the region, due to rough terrain and fierce guerrilla resistance. Soviet presence would reach near 115,000 troops by the mid-1980s, and the complications of the war increased, causing

11858-466: The new Russian minister of defence, marking a crucial step in the creation of the new Russian Armed Forces , comprising the bulk of what was left of the Soviet Armed Forces. The last vestiges of the old Soviet command structure were finally dissolved in June 1993, when the paper Commonwealth of Independent States Military Headquarters was reorganized as a staff for facilitating CIS military cooperation. In

11979-461: The new divisional organisation; and finally the troop level in the European part of the USSR would drop by 200,000, and by 60,000 in the southern part of the country. A number of motor-rifle formations would be converted into machine gun and artillery forces intended for defensive purposes only. Three-quarters of the troops in Mongolia would be withdrawn and disbanded, including all the air force units there. The Armed Forces were extensively involved in

12100-590: The new post-war borders of their respective countries. Under Stalin's direct instructions, these nations rejected grants from the American Marshall Plan . Instead, they joined the Molotov Plan , which later evolved into the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) . When NATO was created in 1949, most countries of Eastern Europe became members of the opposing Warsaw Pact , forming

12221-484: The new system and the old one, citizens who wanted to retain the old version of a name's transliteration, especially one that had been in the old pre-2010 passport, could apply to the local migration office before they acquired a new passport. The standard was abandoned in 2013. In 2013, Order No. 320 of the Federal Migration Service of Russia came into force. It states that all personal names in

12342-513: The next few years, the former Soviet Ground Forces withdrew from central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states ), as well as from the newly independent post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan , Armenia , Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan , Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan . Now- Russian Ground Forces remained in Tajikistan , Georgia and Transnistria (in Moldova ). After the dissolution of

12463-509: The passports must be transliterated by using the ICAO system , which is published in Doc 9303 " Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part 3 ". The system differs from the GOST R 52535.1-2006 system in two things: ц is transliterated into ts (as in pre-2010 systems), ъ is transliterated into ie (a novelty). In a second sense, the romanization or Latinization of Russian may also indicate

12584-657: The proportions reversed. The Land Forces Main Command was created for the first time in March 1946. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov became Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces in March 1946, but was quickly succeeded by Ivan Konev in July 1946. By September 1946, the army decreased from 5 million soldiers to 2.7 million in the Soviet Union and from 2 million to 1.5 million in Europe. Four years later

12705-573: The region included Orontid Armenia , Caucasian Albania , Colchis and Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe ), of which the former two were the predecessor states of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively, while the latter two were the predecessor states of modern-day Georgia . These peripheral kingdoms were, either from the start or later on, incorporated into various Iranian empires, including

12826-400: The region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct ". While the eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe is not geographical but historical, religious and cultural, and is harder to designate. The Ural Mountains , Ural River , and

12947-452: The remainder lower strength formations. The Soviet system anticipated a war preparation period which would bring the strength of the Ground Forces up to about three million. Soviet planning for most of the Cold War period would have seen Armies of four to five divisions operating in Fronts made up of around four armies (and roughly equivalent to Western Army Groups ). On 8 February 1979,

13068-635: The remainder of the Cold War, shaping them for a potential confrontation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After 1956, Nikita Khrushchev , General Secretary of the Communist Party , reduced the Ground Forces to build up the Strategic Rocket Forces , emphasizing the armed forces' nuclear capabilities. He removed Marshal Georgy Zhukov from the Politburo in 1957 for opposing these reductions in

13189-444: The remainder tank divisions. There were also a large number of artillery divisions, separate artillery brigades, engineer formations, and other combat support formations. However, only relatively few formations were fully war ready. By 1983, Soviet divisions were divided into either "Ready" or "Not Ready" categories, each with three subcategories. The internal military districts usually contained only one or two fully Ready divisions, with

13310-502: The system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports , transliteration was based on French rules but without diacritics and so all names were transliterated in a French-style system . In 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports , a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs , but

13431-447: The system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST R 52535.1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports and introduces its own system of transliteration. In 2010, the Federal Migration Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all personal names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST R 52535.1-2006. Because of some differences between

13552-405: The term has a wide range of geopolitical , geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. It has also been described as a "fuzzy" term, as the idea itself of Eastern Europe is in constant redefinition. The solidification of the idea of an "Eastern Europe" dates back chiefly to the (French) Enlightenment . There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of

13673-671: The use of diacritics) that faithfully represents the original and allows for reverse transliteration for Cyrillic text in any contemporary language. The UNGEGN , a Working Group of the United Nations , in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71 . It may be found in some international cartographic products. American Library Association and Library of Congress (ALA-LC) romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in

13794-435: The war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $ 450 million. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers—in all more than 10,000 military personnel. The KGB had also helped develop

13915-654: Was soon absorbed by the Soviet Union), Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Austria and Hungary had much-reduced boundaries. The new states included sizeable ethnic minorities, which were to be protected according to the League of Nations minority protection regime. Throughout Eastern Europe, ethnic Germans constituted by far the largest single ethnic minority. In some areas, as in the Sudetenland , regions of Poland , and in parts of Slovenia , German speakers constituted

14036-544: Was a prevalent status of agricultural workers until the 19th century. It resembled slavery in terms of lack of freedom, with the distinction that the landowners could not buy and sell serfs separately from the specific plots of land that they were permanently attached to. The system emerged in the 14th and 15th century, the same time it was declining in Western Europe. The climax came in the 17th and 18th century. The early 19th century saw its decline, marked especially by

14157-667: Was formally abolished on 14 February 1992. The Soviet Ground Forces were principally succeeded by the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation in Russian territory; beyond, many units and formations were taken over by the post-Soviet states ; some were withdrawn to Russia, and some dissolved amid conflict, notably in the Caucasus . At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and about

14278-639: Was independent of the Kremlin. The communists had a natural reservoir of popularity in that they had destroyed the Nazi invaders. Their goal was to guarantee long-term working-class solidarity. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD , working in collaboration with local communists, created secret police forces using leadership trained in Moscow. This new secret police arrived to arrest political enemies according to prepared lists. The national Communists then took power in

14399-549: Was invaded and occupied by the Mongols . During the Ostsiedlung , towns founded under Magdeburg rights became centers of economic development and scattered German settlements were founded in parts of Eastern Europe. Introduction of German town law is often seen as a second great step after introduction of Christianity at the turn of the first and second millennia. The ensuing modernization of society and economy allowed

14520-458: Was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/ IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, but directly refers to the ICAO romanization ( see below ). Names on street and road signs in the Soviet Union were romanized according to GOST 10807-78 (tables 17, 18), which was amended by newer Russian GOST R 52290-2004 (tables Г.4, Г.5), the romanizations in both the standards are practically identical. ISO/R 9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968,

14641-570: Was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages. ISO 9:1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R 9:1968, which it deprecates; for Russian, the two are the same except in the treatment of five modern letters. ISO 9:1995 is the first language-independent, univocal system of one character for one character equivalents (by

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