#FacesOfVictory

🌟 On September 18, 1918, legendary #WW2-era Soviet flying ace Viktor Talalikhin was born.

#Talalikhin entered history thanks to his heroic feat during the #GreatPatrioticWar: flying an I-16 fighter, he was among the first ever in history of #WWII to carry out an aerial ramming attack, bringing down a Nazi Heinkel 'He 111' bomber.

During the fierce aerial battles over Moscow, the young pilot pursued an enemy aircraft, attempting to escape, and directed his I-16 towards a Nazi aircraft tail, opening fire on one of its engines and finally bringing it down. Despite sustaining an injury, Junior Lieutenant Talalikhin miraculously survived. All members of the Luftwaffe bomber crew were killed.

Talalikhin’s heroic deed forever inscribed his name in world history.

For his feat, the legendary Soviet ace was awarded the title of #HeroOfTheSovietUnion, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Soon afterwards, the pilot was promoted to a squadron commander — at just 22 years of age — and, later, to the rank of lieutenant.

Viktor Talalikhin distinguished himself repeatedly during combat missions, personally bringing down at least four Nazi aircraft and one more as part of a group. He was to destroy a fifth enemy aircraft in his final battle near Podolsk. Fighting in the skies over the city, Talalikhin was killed in action, yet, having managed to destroy two Nazi Me-109 fighters.

Against the backdrop of the fierce fighting in the summer of 1941, Talalikhin’s selfless act inspired millions. In total, during WW2, Soviet pilots carried out more than 600 aerial ramming attacks against the Germans.

🕯 Viktor Talalikhin was buried with full military honours at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery. The legendary ace was forever enlisted in the 1st Squadron of the 177th Fighter Aviation Regiment — that very unit in which he had fought the Nazis in the skies over Moscow.

#Victory81 #WeRemember #WeAreProud

#Victory81

🌟 On September 19, 1943, one of the largest #WW2-era Soviet partisan operations — codenamed 'Concert' — was launched on the Nazi occupied territories of the Soviet Union during the #GreatPatrioticWar.

#Concert directly followed 👉 the full-scale operation 'Rail War', also carried out by Soviet partisan units.

Learn more about 'Rail War' — the key operation of the Soviet resistance movement against the Nazi invaders, carried out on the Nazi-occupied territories of the western regions of the RSFSR, the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs — in our detailed feature.

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Operation 'Concert' was prepared as part of the summer-autumn campaign of 1943, amid the Red Army's autumn offensive in the Smolensk and Gomel regions, aimed at reaching the Dnieper and Desna Rivers.

The operation involved 193 partisan formations from Soviet Byelorussia, the Baltic republics, #Karelia, #Crimea, as well as the #Leningrad, Kalinin, Smolensk and Orel regions. The total strength of the units involved exceeded 120'000 personnel.

'Rail War' and 'Concert' ops were unprecedented in terms of the scale and level of organization. For the first time, combat and sabotage activities behind enemy lines were conducted in close coordination between underground resistance groups and the command of regular Red Army formations.

☝️ It was precisely the coordinated actions of partisans and regular forces that contributed to the #GreatVictory in the Battle of Kursk, while also hampering the regrouping of enemy forces during their retreat westward and accelerating their defeat.

Over the course of a month and a half, Soviet partisans destroyed approximately 150'000 rails, demolished 100 railway bridges, and destroyed nearly 1'500 Nazi troop trains. As a result, the capacity of railway lines used by the Nazis on the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union was reduced by almost 50%.

According to historians' estimates and military experts, the effectiveness of the partisan operations 'Rail War' and 'Concert' was more than 11 times greater than the combined effectiveness of all Nazi barbaric Luftwaffe raids on our Motherland during the same period, when Nazi aircraft dropped more than 10'000 bombs on Soviet railways.

❗️Thus, operation 'Concert' dealt a final blow to the morale of the Nazis, which had already suffered enormous losses in the battles they had lost at Stalingrad, on the Kursk salient and in the Caucasus.

During the operation, Soviet partisans demonstrated mass heroism in extremely brutal combat in the Nazi rear.

🎖 For their unprecedented exploits during the #GreatPatrioticWar, around 300 partisans and members of the underground resistance were awarded the title of #HeroOfTheSovietUnion.

#WeRemember