135-517: 1943 The Battles of Rzhev ( Russian : Ржевская битва , romanized : Rzhevskaya bitva ) were a series of Red Army offensives against the Wehrmacht between 8 January 1942 and 31 March 1943, on the Eastern Front of World War II . The battles took place in the northeast of Smolensk Oblast and the south of Tver Oblast , in and around the salient surrounding Rzhev . Due to
270-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
405-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
540-576: A debated topic. American military historian, Colonel David M. Glantz claimed that Zhukov had to take the main responsibility in the tactical failure of this operation, and this was "the greatest defeat of Marshal Zhukov." In more detail, David Glantz asserted that Zhukov's command in this offensive was not careful, too ambitious, too clumsy and all these led to a disaster. However, Antony Beevor disagreed with Glantz's comment. According to Beevor, at that time Zhukov had to concentrate on Operation Uranus at Stalingrad, so he had little time to care about what
675-635: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) 6th Army (Wehrmacht) The 6th Army ( German : 6. Armee ) was a field army of the German Army during World War II . It is widely known for its defeat by and subsequent surrender to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943. It committed war crimes at Babi Yar while under
810-556: A hospital after a heart attack in January 1942. He was succeeded by his former chief of staff, General Friedrich Paulus . Paulus led the 6th Army to a major victory at the Second Battle of Kharkov during the spring of 1942. On 28 June 1942, Army Group South launched Case Blue , the German Army 's summer offensive into southern Russia. The goals of the operation were to secure both the oil fields at Baku , Azerbaijan , and
945-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
1080-632: A large number of tanks, the numbers of low quality, damaged and outdated ones were also large. In the Bryansk, Western and Kalinin Front, the proportion of low quality tanks was 69% and the rates of damaged tanks about 41-55%. All the above facts meant that the Red Army in the Rzhev area did not have adequate preparation in terms of equipment, weapons and logistics. The worst mistakes of the Red Army in 1942 at
1215-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
1350-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
1485-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
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#17327795811921620-606: A result, a salient was formed along the front line in the direction of the capital, which became known as the Rzhev–Vyazma salient. It was strategically important for the German Army Group Centre due to the threat it posed to Moscow, and was therefore heavily fortified and strongly defended. Initial Soviet forces committed by the Kalinin and Western Front included the 22nd , 29th , 30th , 31st , 39th of
1755-457: A strategic reserve which allowed the Germans to stabilize the front and somewhat recover from massive losses at Stalingrad . German General Heinz Guderian had doubts about the strategic aims of the later Operation Citadel , since the Germans had to abandon the strategically important Rzhev–Vyazma salient for gathering troops to attempt to take a much less valuable one at Kursk. The retreat of
1890-627: Is 25 metres high on a 10-metre mount, surrounded by a war memorial. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of
2025-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
2160-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
2295-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
2430-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
2565-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
2700-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
2835-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
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#17327795811922970-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
3105-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
3240-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
3375-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
3510-446: Is the hesitation in retreating from threatened sectors. As a results, many Soviet units were trapped in a notable number of "pockets" when the Germans counter-attacked. In these cases, only the troops of 11th Cavalry Corps and 6th Tank Corps managed to escape successfully. The escape of 33rd and 41st Army was conducted on time, but they failed to keep it secret and chose the wrong direction to move, leading to considerable casualties. And in
3645-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
3780-473: Is unclear if the salient was worth the loss of around 20 high quality divisions for offensive or defensive operations elsewhere in 1942. The abandonment of the salient was necessary in 1943 to create reserves for the front as a whole. But the reserves and the strength created were mostly used up in the costly offensive directed at Kursk in 1943 (Operation Citadel). This part of the Second World War
3915-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
4050-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
4185-581: The Battle of Belgium . The 6th Army was then involved in the breakthrough of the Paris defences on 12 June 1940, before acting as a northern flank for German forces along the Normandy coast during the closing stages of the Battle of France . The 6th Army took part in Operation Barbarossa as the spearhead of Army Group South . Reichenau died in an aircraft accident while being transported to
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4320-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
4455-475: The Don , with the second thrust beginning a day later attacking far to the south of Stalingrad. The 6th Army's flanks were protected by Romanian troops, who were quickly routed, and on 23 November, the pincers met at Kalach-na-Donu , thereby encircling the 6th Army. A relief attempt was launched on 12 December by Hermann Hoth 's 4th Panzer Army , codenamed Operation Winter Storm . Despite initial progress, capturing
4590-570: The Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of
4725-570: The Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic influence in European civilization. In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war, but also the ruthless standard bearer of a national conception and the avenger of bestialities which have been inflicted upon German and racially related nations. For this reason
4860-511: The Obsha valley and then split the Soviet forces into two isolated pockets. The battle lasted eleven days and ended with the elimination of the encircled Soviet forces. The next Rzhev–Sychyovka offensive (25 November 1942 – 20 December 1942) was codenamed Operation Mars. The operation consisted of several incremental offensive phases: This operation was nearly as heavy in losses for
4995-577: The President of Russia Vladimir Putin on 8 October 2007, for "courage, endurance and mass heroism, exhibited by defenders of the city in the struggle for the freedom and independence of the Motherland". This act also caused heated debate and controversy. Many people believed that Rzhev should not be a "City of Military Glory" since it was the Germans who were "defenders of the city" against numerous and unsuccessful Soviet attacks. However, according to
5130-690: The Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as
5265-584: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
5400-721: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
5535-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
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5670-567: The 6th Army became part of Army Group Dumitrescu, commanded by the Romanian general Petre Dumitrescu . The Army Group also included the Romanian 3rd Army . This instance marked the first time in the war when German commanders came under the actual (instead of nominal) command of their foreign allies. This came one month after Dumitrescu became the 5th non-German recipient of the Knight's Cross of
5805-655: The 6th Army had the Hungarian Second Army placed under its command, and it was known as "Army Group Fretter-Pico" ( Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico ). Command passed to General Hermann Balck on 23 December 1944. In December 1944, one of the 6th Army's subordinate units, the IX SS Mountain Corps , was encircled in Budapest . IV SS Panzer Corps was transferred to the 6th Army's command and a series of relief attempts, codenamed Operation Konrad ,
5940-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
6075-594: The Front commanders had to make occasional appeals for equipment. The serious lack of ammunition hampered Soviet efforts in neutralizing German strongpoints, leading to heavy casualties in the assaults. The lack of munitions did not only occur in the case of cannons and mortars, but also for small arms. During the "ammunitions famine" at Rzhev salient, on average, the Red Army only had 3 bullets for each rifle, 30 bullets for each submachine gun, 300 bullets for each light machine gun and 600 bullets for each heavy one. The "famine" of munitions in firearms and artillery pieces forced
6210-532: The German onslaught in 1941 . During the first half of 1942 the reserve sources of equipment were still inadequate. For example, during January and February 1942, the Western Front only received 55% of the needed 82 mm mortar rounds, 36% of needed 120 mm rounds and 44% of needed artillery munitions. On average, each artillery battery only had 2 rounds per day. The weapons deficit was so severe that
6345-575: The Germans in Operation Büffel was tactically and militarily successful, but the abandonment of the "Rzhev–Vyazma pistol" was a strategic loss for Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front. The Soviet Army paid a high price for their victory at Rzhev, but the Germans were forced to withdraw from an important bridgehead which had enabled the Germans to threaten Moscow. The Germans, however, retreated to defensive positions that were as strong as
6480-498: The Germans suffered 40,000 casualties. According to German reports, which are still stored at the Storage Center of National Documents of Germany, from March 1942 to March 1943 the casualties of the 2nd, 4th, 9th, 2nd Panzer, 3rd Panzer and 4th Panzer Armies (the latter only having data from March to April 1942) amount to 162,713 killed, 35,650 missing, and 469,747 wounded. However, according to Gerasimova, German casualties in
6615-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
6750-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
6885-603: The Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (4 April 1944). The 6th army was encircled and almost entirely destroyed during the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive carried out by the Soviets. In October 1944, under the command of General Maximilian Fretter-Pico , the 6th Army encircled and destroyed three Soviet corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev in the Battle of Debrecen . During this time,
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#17327795811927020-526: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
7155-409: The Red Army and also his own faults in this period: Today, after reflecting the events of 1942, I see that I had many shortcomings in evaluating the situation at Vyazma. We overestimated ourselves and underestimated the enemies. The "walnut" there was much stronger than what we predicted. The Soviet Army suffered terribly from severe deficits in weapons and equipment due to the tremendous losses during
7290-564: The Red Army as the first offensive, and also failed to reach its desired objectives, but the Red Army tied down German forces which may have otherwise been used to try to relieve the Stalingrad garrison . An NKVD double agent known as Heine provided information about the offensive to the German Army High Command as part of the plan to divert German forces from any relief of those trapped at Stalingrad. German forces in
7425-403: The Red Army, progress was reduced to no more than several meters a day. Eventually, by mid November, the 62nd Army had been pushed to the banks of the Volga, but the 6th Army was unable to eliminate the remaining Soviet troops. On 19 November the Stavka launched Operation Uranus , a major offensive by Soviet forces on the flanks of the German army. The first pincer attacked far to the west of
7560-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
7695-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
7830-404: The Rzhev battles are not mentioned such as the breakout of 1st Guard Cavalry Corps, the breakout of more than 17,000 remaining troops of 33rd Army during Operation Seydlitz, and the breakout of the 41st Army. According to Isayev, if the film of Pivovarov and the thesis of Gerasimova were true, many living people should have been recorded as KIA. The role of Zhukov in this infamous offensive is also
7965-481: The Rzhev salients lies in the coordination and cooperation between its Fronts and the control of Stavka towards them. During the offensives in January and February 1942, instead of establishing a centralized command and control with tight cooperation between the Fronts, the Soviet Stavka and I. V. Stalin let each Front carry out their own assault without notable cooperation between the Fronts. Such separated and uncooperative assaults failed to achieve their goals and lead to
8100-607: The Sixth Army bloodlessly captured the Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva . Immediately after the town's capitulation, Sixth Army police units separated the Jewish population of the town into a ghetto and required that they wear the Star of David as identification. Two weeks after the occupation, members of Einsatzgruppen marched the Jews out of the town, 800 men and women in all, to be shot. The Sixth Army provided logistical support for this massacre, providing drivers, guards, weapons and ammunition. Afterwards ninety children aged twelve and under were left, their parents having been killed
8235-404: The Soviet army commanders, in many cases, to use tanks in the role of artillery; such inappropriate usage together with outdated military thinking (which did not pay enough attention to the assault role of tank forces) sharply reduced the effectiveness of the tank units, preventing them from conducting deep penetration into the German defensive line. For the tank forces, although the Soviet possessed
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#17327795811928370-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
8505-444: The Soviets also started using tanks as a main assault force instead of a mere supporting tool for infantry. The Front commanders also got some important experience in commanding and coordinating a combined force. From May 1942, Soviet Fronts started to deploy their own air armies for supporting the land troops, reporting under the direct command of the Front commanders. Thus these commanders began to have some sort of full authority to use
8640-441: The Spring of 1945. 6th Army surrendered to US Army forces on 9 May 1945. The 6th Army was formed on 10 October 1939 with General Walther von Reichenau in command through the redesignation of the 10th Army that had fought during the Invasion of Poland . During the invasion of the Low Countries the 6th Army saw active service linking up with paratroopers and destroying fortifications at Eben Emael , Liège , and Namur during
8775-412: The Toropets–Kholm offensive. The offensive was conducted in late 1942. This offensive was conducted across the northern part of the Western Front against the Wehrmacht 's 16th Army and 9th Army. A Soviet airborne operation, conducted by the 4th Airborne Corps in seven separate landing zones, five of them intended to cut major road and rail lines of communication to the Wehrmacht's 9th Army. In
8910-507: The U.S. Army on 9 May 1945. Soon after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the Sixth Army's surgeon, the staff doctor Gerhart Panning, learned about captured Russian expanding bullets by using Jewish POWs. To determine the effects of this type of ammunition on German soldiers, he decided to test them on other human beings after asking SD member and SS- Standartenführer Paul Blobel for some "guinea pigs" (Jewish POWs). In July 1941 while conducting operations in Right-bank Ukraine ,
9045-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
9180-415: The aftermath of the Soviet winter counteroffensive of 1941–1942, substantial Soviet forces remained in the rear of the German Ninth Army. These forces maintained a hold on the primitive forested swamp region between Rzhev and Bely . On 2 July 1942, the Ninth Army under General Walter Model launched Operation Seydlitz to clear the Soviet forces out. The Germans first blocked the natural breakout route through
9315-544: The air forces, except the long-ranged strategic bomber units which were still under direct command of the Soviet Stavka . After the "manpower crisis" of late 1941, in 1942 the Soviets had gathered enough strategic reserves, and they also began to pay more attention to developing them. In 1942 the Soviets managed to build 18 new reserve armies and resupply 9 others. At Rzhev, the army received 3 reserve armies and had 3 others resupplied. Of course, in this period, many Soviet units still had inadequate strength and equipment, but with
9450-581: The battle for Rzhev–Vyazma are uncertain, and the commonly cited 350,000–400,000 range lacks substantiation and references to documentary sources. The number of soldiers that died during hospital treatment is still unknown. Before the war, Rzhev had more than 56,000 people, but when it was liberated on 3 March 1943, there were only 150 people remaining, plus 200 in the surrounding rural area. The inhabitants were transported to Germany and Eastern Europe. Out of 5,443 houses, only 297 remained. Material losses were estimated at 500 million rubles (1941 value). Vyazma
9585-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
9720-576: The case of 11th Cavalry and 39th Army, the Stavka made a serious mistake when they planned to keep them in the Kholm-Zhirkovsky bridgehead for future attacks; however not only they failed to conduct any attacks but also they were surrounded and nearly destroyed during the Seydlitz operation . After the Soviet winter counter-offensive of 1941–42, the Germans were able to securely hold and defend
9855-402: The children were murdered by Sixth Army regulars. Groscurth, appalled by the murders, wrote to his wife that "We cannot and should not be allowed to win this war". The army's commander, Walther von Reichenau , a committed, fanatical Nazi, had this to say about the expected conduct of soldiers under his command. The order said, in part "The most important objective of this campaign against
9990-614: The city of Stalingrad on the river Volga to protect the forces advancing into the Caucasus. Two months after the beginning of Case Blue, the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad on 23 August. On the same day, over 1,000 aircraft of the Luftflotte 4 bombed the city, killing many civilians. Stalingrad was defended by the 62nd Army (Soviet Union) under the command of General Vasily Chuikov . Despite German air superiority over Stalingrad, and with more artillery pieces than
10125-597: The command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa . The 6th Army was reformed in March 1943, and participated in fighting in Ukraine and later Romania, before being almost completely destroyed in the Second Jassy-Kishinev Offensive in August 1944. Following this it would fight in Hungary, attempting to relieve Budapest , and subsequently retreating into Austria in
10260-417: The consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
10395-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
10530-664: The data from the archives of the Russian Ministry of Defence , Isayev claimed that Igor Elkov's estimates were exaggerated, and claimed the casualties of the Soviet forces as below: Isayev also claimed that his estimates match the research of Colonel-General Grigoriy Krivosheyev , his superior at the Russian Military History Institute, which is considered the sole officially recognized source on Soviet casualties in WWII. Isayev also claims that
10665-517: The defence of Moscow in 1941. According to all these facts, Rzhev, Vyazma and many other cities have enough conditions to have the title "City of Military Glory," whether they were occupied or not. The Rzhev Memorial to the Soviet Soldier was unveiled by the presidents of Russia and Belarus on 30 June 2020. The statue was designed by sculptor Andrei Korobtsov and architect Konstantin Fomin and
10800-411: The depth of the German flank. To eliminate this threat to the 9th Army's rear, the Germans had started Operation Seydlitz by 2 July. However, due to the nature of the terrain the supply route for the Soviet 22nd, 29th, and 39th Armies, which had attempted to enlarge the penetration, became difficult and they were encircled. The cutting of a major highway to Rzhev by the cavalry signalled the commencement of
10935-536: The earlier victory at the Battle of Stalingrad and create some advantages in the critical sector of the front. Their attacks threatened the flanks of Army Group Center and forced the Germans to divert the forces to these areas, therefore reducing the pressure on Moscow. During this time, the USSR's Army commanders began to concentrate their main forces at the critical zones to strengthen their position in these areas, or to muster enough power for their assaults. In addition,
11070-471: The electronic draft of Krivosheyev's research was stolen and illegally used by the hackers, hence these drafts were completely deleted from the Institute Website. According to Isayev the total Soviet casualties at Rzhev from January 1942 to March 1943 were 392,554 KIA and 768,233 WIA. The documentary by Pivovarov was also disparaged by Isayev; who stated that in this film, many important events of
11205-463: The enemy." . Groscurth himself sought out the district commander and insisted that the execution must be stopped. Sixth Army headquarters was faced with a decision on what to do with the children left behind now that their parents had been murdered. The division commander passed the decision up to Walter von Reichenau , then commander of the Sixth Army, who personally authorized the massacre. All
11340-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
11475-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
11610-438: The former, and the 1st Shock , 5th , 10th , 16th , 20th , 33rd , 43rd , 49th , and 50th armies and three cavalry corps for the latter. The intent was for the 22nd, 29th, and 39th Armies supported by the 11th Cavalry Corps to attack west of Rzhev, and penetrate deep into the western flank of Army Group Centre's 9th Army. This was achieved in January, and by the end of the month the cavalry corps found itself 110 km into
11745-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
11880-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
12015-536: The high losses suffered by the Red Army, the campaign became known by veterans and historians as the " Rzhev Meat Grinder " (Russian: Ржевская мясорубка , romanized: Rzhevskaya myasorubka ). The major operations that were executed in this area of the front were: During the Soviet winter counter-offensive of 1941 , and the Rzhev–Vyazma strategic offensive operation (8 January 1942 – 20 April 1942), German forces were pushed back from Moscow . As
12150-496: The latter including Field Marshal Paulus, 24 generals and 2,500 officers of lesser rank. Only 5,000 would survive Soviet internment and return to Germany after the war. A new 6th Army was deployed by renaming Armee-Abteilung Hollidt on 5 March 1943 under the command of General Karl-Adolf Hollidt . This new 6th Army later fought in Ukraine and Romania as part of Army Group South until transferred to Army Group A (later renamed to Army Group South Ukraine ). In May 1944,
12285-505: The law, being occupied does not prevent a city from receiving this honorary title. As long as its citizens, military personnel and government officers paid a large contribution for the Great Patriotic War and expressed great heroism, bravery and patriotism in these contributions, that is enough. Furthermore, the fierce and heroic resistance of Soviet citizens at Rzhev not only occurred during the 1942–1943 period, but also during
12420-411: The more plentiful reserve force, they managed to somewhat maintain stable fighting capability and prevent the severe fluctuation in manpower. This enabled the Red Army to conduct active defenses and prepare for large-scaled offensives. As the second highest ranking member of the Stavka, Marshal Georgy Zhukov was one of the first Soviet military officers to admit and to make a strict self-criticism about
12555-473: The most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on
12690-519: The night before. A staff officer with the division that made the town their headquarters wrote of their conditions: "The rooms were filled with about 90 children. There was an indescribable amount of filth; Rags, diapers, refuse lay everywhere. Countless flies cover the children, some of whom were naked. Almost all of the children were crying or whimpering. The stench was unbearable. In the above mentioned case, measures were taken against women and children which were no different from atrocities committed by
12825-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
12960-521: The numbers are not clear. But, since the mobilized manpower of both sides was enormous and the fighting was violent, casualties would be expected to be very high. According to A. V. Isayev, the Soviet losses from January 1942 to March 1943 were 392,554 irrecoverable casualties (killed, missing, died before hospitalisation) and 768,233 sanitary (medical) casualties . The Soviet losses during the beginning period of 1942 (including "Operation Jupiter") were 272,320 irrecoverable and 504,569 sanitary; with 25.7% of
13095-408: The offensives. Early 1942, the Red Army had just recovered from the disastrous losses during the late half of 1941, therefore it was still very weak. In every offensive, the aims and scale have to be correlative with the army's strength, but at the battles of Rzhev, the Soviet commanders demanded too much from their subordinates. Last but not least, another "palindromic disease" of the Red Army in 1942
13230-478: The official Soviet casualty count of 1,324,823 men for the four offensive operations against the Rzhev-Vyazma salient only accounts for approximately 8 out of the 15 months of fighting. Soviet operational losses from May–July and October–November 1942, and January–February 1943 are missing and not included in the official figure. Gerasimova states that with the inclusion of casualties from these seven months, and
13365-598: The official casualty figures of the four offensive operations, the total losses approach 2,300,000 men. Retired German General Horst Grossmann did not provide the total casualties of the German side in his book Rzhev, the basement of the Eastern Front . According to his description, from 31 July to 9 August, one German battalion at the front line, after being exhausted in the violent battles, only had one commandant and 22 soldiers, and by 31 August there were battalions which had only one commandant and 12 soldiers (equal to one squad ). According to Grossmann, during Operation Mars,
13500-430: The ones they held within the salients, contributing to the failure of Red Army offensives against Army Group Center in the summer of 1943. Losses for the entire series of operations around the Rzhev salient from 1941 to 1943 are difficult to calculate. These operations cover an entire series of battles and defensive operations over a wide area involving many formations on both sides. For the whole series of Rzhev battles,
13635-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
13770-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
13905-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
14040-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
14175-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
14310-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
14445-463: The positions only due to losses elsewhere in the war and were able to withdraw from the salient with minimal losses. German operations in 1941 directed at Moscow lasted too late into the year. Rather than stabilize the front and create defensive positions, the Germans pushed their forces forward and left them poorly prepared for the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The losses in men and equipment to Army Group Centre were considerable. The Army group lacked
14580-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
14715-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
14850-548: The region west of Székesfehérvár . After the failure of the offensive, the army held the line until the Soviet Vienna Offensive on 16 March 1945. This offensive tore a gap in the 6th Army between the IV SS Panzer Corps and the 3rd Hungarian Army (subordinated to Balck's command), shattering the formation. By the end of March 1945, the 6th Army was retreating towards Vienna. It surrendered to
14985-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
15120-503: The salient against a series of large Soviet offensives. The operations led to disproportionately high Soviet losses and tied down large numbers of Soviet troops. The defense of the Salient provided the Germans with a base from which they could launch a new offensive against Moscow at a future time. The defensive positions created by the Germans after the retreat from Moscow were well constructed and placed. The Germans eventually withdrew from
15255-520: The salient were eventually withdrawn by Hitler during Operation Büffel to provide greater force for the German offensive operation at Kursk . Fighting in the area remained mostly static for 14 months. Losses and setbacks elsewhere along the front finally compelled the Germans to abandon the salient in order to free up reserves for the front as a whole. Defending the salient required 29 divisions. Its abandonment freed up 22 of those divisions and created
15390-1233: The soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry. A further purpose of this retribution is the annihilation of revolts in hinterland which, as experience proves , have always been caused by Jews. Das wesentlichste Ziel des Feldzuges gegen das jüdisch-bolschewistische System ist die völlige Zerschlagung der Machtmittel und die Ausrottung des asiatischen Einflusses im europäischen Kulturkreis. Der Soldat ist im Ostraum nicht nur ein Kämpfer nach den Regeln der Kriegskunst, sondern auch Träger einer unerbittlichen völkischen Idee und der Rächer für alle Bestialitäten, die deutschem und artverwandtem Volkstum zugefügt wurden. Deshalb muss der Soldat für die Notwendigkeit der harten aber gerechten Sühne am jüdischen Untermenschentum volles Verständnis haben. Sie hat den weiteren Zweck, Erhebungen im Rücken der Wehrmacht, die erfahrungsgemäß stets von Juden angezettelt wurden, im Keime zu ersticken. — Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories Immediately after this order
15525-556: The strength to go back on the offensive in 1942. After the front stabilized, the German Army tied down enormous amounts of manpower in holding salients from which they did not intend to exploit. This reduced the amount of manpower the Germans could devote to operations elsewhere on the front. The Germans also used some of their best formations, such as 9th Army, in a strictly static defensive role. The Rzhev salient had value and tied down disproportionate numbers of Soviet troops, but it
15660-626: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
15795-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
15930-426: The total failure of the whole offensives. To make matters worse, on 19 January 1942 Stalin suddenly retook the 1st Shock Army from the Western Front with a "very nonsense" reason. That unreasonable act severely weakened the right wing of the Western Front and lead to the failure of the offensive at the area Olenino–Rzhev–Osuga. Further errors in the Soviet tactics and commands were the ambitious and unrealistic goals of
16065-521: The total manpower that participated in these battles being killed on the battlefield. According to V. V. Beshanov, the casualties of the July–September Rzhev offensive were 193,683 overall, and during Operation Mars the Soviets suffered 250,000 casualties with 800 tanks damaged or destroyed. Isayev provided a somewhat lower number: 70,340 irrecoverable and 145,300 sanitary casualties. Russian historian Svetlana Gerasimova states that
16200-521: The town of Verkhne-Kumsky and reaching the river Myshkova, the 4th Panzer Army was eventually halted and later forced to withdraw due to the threat posed to its rear by Operation Little Saturn . Also contributing to Winter Storm's failure was Adolf Hitler's refusal to approve of Operation Thunderclap, a planned breakout attempt by the 6th Army, to occur simultaneously. The 6th Army surrendered between 31 January and 2 February 1943. German casualties were 147,200 killed and wounded and over 91,000 captured,
16335-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
16470-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
16605-471: The winter of 1941–1942, in these camps, about 300 people each day were killed by diseases, cold, starvation, torture and other causes. After the war, two mass graves were discovered in the area, each 4 by 100 m in area and in total containing an estimated 70,000 bodies, all of them unidentified. Germans also discovered and executed 8 local political leaders, 60 commissars and political instructors , and 117 Jews at Dulag camp 230. The Soviets managed to exploit
16740-400: Was actually the commander in charge of all the fronts at the Rzhev salient. Zhukov took part in the command at Rzhev only during its later periods as a "firefighter" who was solving the serious problems of the battlefield at that moment. Therefore, Beevor asserted that Glantz's comments about Zhukov's responsibility were incorrect. Rzhev was conferred the status of " City of Military Glory " by
16875-424: Was aired in Russia entitled Rzhev: Marshal Zhukov's Unknown Battle , which made no attempt to cover up the huge losses suffered by Soviet forces. As a consequence, there were public calls in Russia for the arrest of some of those involved in its production. In the movie, the casualties of Soviet forces are given as 433,000 KIA . The journalist Alina Makeyeva , in an article of Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper which
17010-422: Was also virtually destroyed during the war. In the city, two transit camps of Nazi Germany named Dulag No. 184 and Dulag No. 230 were established. Prisoners in these camps were Soviet soldiers and civilians from the area of Smolensk , Nelidovo , Rzhev, Zubtsov , Gzhatsk , and Sychyovka . According to German data collected by the Soviet counter-espionage agency SMERSH , 5,500 people died of their wounds. During
17145-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
17280-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
17415-459: Was happening at Rzhev, which is questionable considering that Operation Uranus was planned by Andrei Yeremenko and Andrei Vasilevsky , and Zhukov played little to no part in it. The Russian authors Vladimir Chernov and Galina Green also disagreed with Glantz. They asserted that from 26 August 1942 Zhukov did not command the Western Front, and that from 29 August he was preoccupied with serious matters at Stalingrad. It has been asserted that Stalin
17550-473: Was issued, Sixth Army records show a dramatic increase in shootings, rapes and massacres committed by Sixth Army constituent units. The BBC upon examining the now released records of the Sixth Army, stated that there were "so many executions, and so many victims that it was impossible to keep them a secret." The Sixth Army confiscated large quantities of food to be used by its troops, creating acute food shortages in Ukraine. By January 1942, around one-third of
17685-551: Was launched during the 46-day-long Siege of Budapest . After the failure of Konrad III, the 6th Army was made part of " Army Group Balck " ( Armeegruppe Balck ). This army group fell back to the area near Lake Balaton . Several units, including the III Panzer Corps, took part in Operation Spring Awakening , while the rest of the Sixth Army provided defence for the left flank of the offensive, in
17820-399: Was poorly covered by Soviet military historiography , and what coverage exists occurred only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union , when historians gained access to relevant documents. Exact dates of particular battles, their names, outcomes, significance, and even losses have not been fully clarified and there are still many controversies about these topics. In 2009, a television movie
17955-501: Was published on 19 February 2009, wrote: "The number presented by the historian is too low. There must be more than one million Soviet soldiers and officers killed! Rzhev and its neighboring towns were completely destroyed."; however, Makeyeva could not present any proof. Journalist Elena Tokaryeva in her article which was published in the newspaper The Violin (Russia) on 26 February 2009 also claimed that more than 1,000,000 Soviet soldiers were killed at Rzhev. The number of casualties again
18090-471: Was raised with the claim of journalist Igor Elkov in his articled published in the Russian Weekly on 26 February 2009. Igor said: "The accurate number of casualties of both sides is still dubious. Recently, there are some opinions about from 1.3 to 1.5 million Soviet soldiers was killed. It may reach the number of 2 million". All this data was heavily criticized by historian A. V. Isayev. Referencing
18225-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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