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Official channel for the Russian Embassy in the Republic of South Africa - Latest foreign policy, cultural, economic news. We take digital diplomacy seriously, share information on all things Russia-related
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👩‍🚀 #OnThisDay 60 years ago, Soviet citizen Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Her mission aboard the Vostok-6 spacecraft became a world sensation and inspired millions of women in the Soviet Union and abroad.

The issue of launching a female cosmonaut was raised immediately after Yury Gagarin’s triumphant return from orbit. The goal was to compare the impact of outer space on male and female bodies and to study the possibility of launching civilian specialists into space in future.

🚀 The Vostok-6 flight lasted for two days, 22 hours and 50 minutes and circled the Earth 48 times. Tereshkova made the flight alone; this was never again repeated later. She maintained radio communications with Vostok-5, piloted by Valery Bykovsky.

The first woman in space successfully accomplished her mission. For example, she was able to take pictures of the horizon, and these photos later made it possible to locate aerosol layers in the atmosphere. She violated her strict instructions only after landing in the Altai Territory. While there, she handed out space food tubes to local residents and partook of potatoes and Koumiss, fermented mare’s milk.

🎖Valentina, then 26, lifted off as a Lieutenant and came back a Captain. Three days after landing, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later, she was made a Hero of Socialist Labour of Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Vietnam and Mongolia and became an honorary citizen of 18 Russian and foreign cities.

Tereshkova became the sixth Soviet cosmonaut, the 12th person in space and the youngest woman in orbit. Her daughter Yelena became the first child both of whose parents were cosmonauts.
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🕯 #OnThisDay in 1944, Russian Princess and legendary member of the French Resistance movement Vera Obolenskaya was executed in Berlin. Viewed by the Third Reich as an extremely dangerous criminal, she left a mark in the history of France with her courage and unbending will. At the time of her execution, Vera was only 33 years old.

Born into a family of Russian émigrés, she studied in Paris, and was among the first to join the Resistance movement when the Nazis occupied France. Vera collected information on the occupying force, helped Soviet prisoners of war and copied classified documents. Together with her husband, Prince Nicholas Obolensky, she was part of Organisation civile et militaire – Civil and Military Organisation, which emerged as France’s largest resistance network by 1942.

When the organisation was exposed in the autumn of 1943, Nicholas was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and Vera, or Vicky, as her comrades called her, found herself in the hands of the Gestapo, who interrogated her regularly for seven months. She refused to collaborate.

💬 During one such interrogation, this is how the Princess explained her refusal to talk: “The goal that you pursue in Russia is the destruction of the country and the destruction of the Slavic race. I am Russian, but I grew up in France and spent my whole life here. I will not betray either my homeland or the country that has sheltered me.”

Unable to make her speak, the Nazis sentenced Vera to be guillotined and executed her in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin. When the war ended and Nicholas Obolensky returned from the concentration camp, his wife was already dead.

🎖 Vera Obolenskaya was posthumously awarded in France the Legion of Honour, as well as the Croix de Guerre and the Resistance Medal. In Russia, she will always be remembered as a remarkable compatriot who was sincerely devoted to her homeland.
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🕯 #OnThisDay in 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing almost 80,000 people. About as many people would die in agony later from radiation poisoning. This was the first time in human history that a nuclear device was used in warfare. In fact, it was a merciless test on the civilian population.

The United States has been carrying out research on military applications for nuclear weapons since 1939, seeking to create a formidable weapon that would enable Washington to impose its will on the entire world. Codenamed Manhattan, the project received almost $2 billion in funding.

Three nuclear bombs were developed by mid-summer 1945, cynically codenamed the Gadget, Little Boy and Fat Man. The Gadget was to be used in a test explosion, while the other two were intended to intimidate Japan and also impress the USSR as it reinforced its positions.

Almost all clocks in Hiroshima stopped ticking at 8:15 am. The city was completely wiped from the surface of the Earth with the blast from the explosion turning people into ashes.

Attempts by Western historians to justify this monstrous crime by saying that the United States wanted to force Japan to withdraw from World War II do not hold water. Japan’s military resources were largely depleted by early August 1945, and it was the USSR’s entry into war in the Far East that played a decisive role here.

Therefore, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was nothing other than a barbarous display of force and an attempt to justify all the money that had been invested in the Manhattan Project. It never occurred to President Harry Truman or any of his successors in this office to apologise for the suffering the people of Hiroshima had to endure.

💬 Sergey Lavrov on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (August 6, 2020): To this day, the terrible death of innocent civilians strikes a chord with millions of people on our planet. It is hard to fully understand what the masterminds and perpetrators of such an inhumane act were guided by.
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🗓 #OnThisDay in 1944, the Battle of Leningrad, the longest military engagement in the history of the Great Patriotic War, ended with a Red Army victory.

The fighting, which lasted from July 1941 to August 1944, took place on the territory of the Leningrad Region, the Estonian SSR, in the western Kalinin Region, and the southern part of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.

Destroying Leningrad was a primary goal under the Operation Barbarossa plan, given the city’s industrial and cultural significance. Hitler planned to use Leningrad as a springboard to strike at the rear of the Soviet troops defending Moscow.

The battle included several stages: defence of the distant and near approaches, 872 days of a siege, the breakthrough and the Soviet offensive in the northwestern direction. Instead of taking the city in three weeks, as Hitler expected, the Nazi troops spent about three years at the gates.

While the Red Army fought fierce battles, the local people selflessly laboured and steadfastly endured the horrors of the siege. The ring finally closed around Leningrad on September 8, 1941. More than 2.8 million people, including 400,000 children, found themselves in the enemy pincers, facing harsh winters, famine and continuous bombing.

Favourable conditions finally developed in January 1943, when the main forces of the Wehrmacht were sent to Stalingrad. During Operation Iskra, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts broke through the German defences, restoring the land connection of the city with the mainland.

🕯 Losses among the defenders and the population of Leningrad, resulting from the fighting and from the siege totaled 1.5 to 2 million people.

🎖 Over 350,000 soldiers, officers and generals of the Leningrad Front were decorated with orders and medals. The medal For the Defence of Leningrad was conferred on 1.5 million people. In 1965, Leningrad was among the first to receive the title Hero City as a tribute to the heroism and courage shown by its residents during the siege.
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📅 #OnThisDay in 1945, Soviet troops and Korean patriots liberated the territory of Korea, ending the Japanese colonial occupation.

▪️Korea remained under Japan’s colonial rule for 35 years after its annexation in 1910, with the Japanese colonial administration conducting a policy of forced assimilation and seeking to root out the Korean language and culture.

In November 1943, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China agreed in Cairo to deprive Japan of all its conquered territories. In July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, the USSR, the United States, and Great Britain demanded that Japan surrender unconditionally and called for restoring Korea as a sovereign state.

On August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union joined the war against Japan by launching a military campaign against the Kwantung Army in Manchuria and Korea in keeping with its commitments to the Allies. The 25th Army of the Red Army’s 1st Far Eastern Front, supported by Korea’s national liberation movement, fought against nine formidable Japanese divisions on the Korean Peninsula.

📻 On August 14, the main phase in the USSR’s Manchurian operation came to an end. It was on this day that Emperor Hirohito of Japan recorded a radio message announcing Japan’s unconditional surrender. Broadcast in Korea on August 15, this message caused jubilation all around the peninsula. Today, this day is a state holiday in both the DPRK and the Republic of Korea.

To streamline the capitulation of the Japanese army, the Soviet Union and the United States divided the peninsula into two spheres of influence along the 38th parallel, with the USSR in charge of the territories to the north of it, and the US to the south. The American troops completed their deployment in their southern section after the hostilities were over and the signing by Japan of its capitulation act.

🕯 Twelve thousand Soviet soldiers and officers fell while waging a courageous struggle for the freedom and independence of the Korean people.
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📆 #OnThisDay in 1945, the Allied Soviet, US, British and French forces held a joint parade in Berlin. The anti-Hitler coalition allies marched through the defeated Nazi stronghold of Berlin.

The initiative for this celebration came from the Soviet Union, whose leaders suggested organising a joint Allied military pass-by in Berlin after its own Victory Parade in Moscow in June. It was arranged that it would take place on Alexanderplatz near the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate after the downfall of militarist Japan, their last enemy.

👉 Originally it was assumed that the parade would be reviewed by all the commanders-in-chief of the Allied forces in Germany. On the eve of the event, however, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower (USA), Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (GB), and Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (France) refused to attend, sending their representatives instead. This was a clear attempt to belittle the Soviet Union’s role in gaining a victory over the hydra of German Nazism and Japanese militarism.

The Berlin parade involved all branches of the land forces. It was decided to do without Air Force and Navy units because they were deployed far from Berlin. Soviet generals primarily sought to invite officers and men who had particularly distinguished themselves during the assault on Berlin.

The parade began at 11 am on the dot. The stands were filled with Soviet military leaders, generals and admirals of the British, US, and French armies and navies, and a group of US congressmen. Nearly 20,000 Berliners assembled around the parade ground. After reviewing the troops, Marshal Georgy Zhukov delivered a speech praising the historic achievements of the Soviet and Allied forces. Next there was a pass-by of the foot columns.

☝️ The memorable Victory Parade near the Brandenburg Gate was the last symbolic act involving the anti-Hitler coalition Allies. This joint military holiday became a prologue to the Cold War that was about to begin by the West's initiative.
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🕯 #OnThisDay 85 years ago, the leaders of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and France signed an agreement in Munich on the German annexation of the Sudetenland, an industrial region of Czechoslovakia where ethnic Germans made up 90 percent of the population. Czechoslovakia had not been invited to the talks; it was presented with the fact that its sovereign territory must be ceded to Nazi Germany as a fait accompli.

This disgraceful pact between the Western powers and Nazi Germany went down in history as the #MunichBetrayal.

▪️ Following the signing of the agreement between the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy in Munich, German troops crossed Czechoslovakia’s border on October 1 and occupied the entire area of the Sudetenland by October 10.

▪️ The Soviet Union was ready to defend Czechoslovakia, but the Soviet Army had to obtain permission to pass through Poland or Romania. Warsaw, which was interested in getting part of Czechoslovakia’s territory for itself, adamantly refused to support Prague against Germany and prohibited possible flights of Soviet aircraft to render aid to the Czechoslovak army. Romania made every effort to slow down the process as much as possible.

▪️ The Munich Betrayal crowned the Western powers’ policy of appeasing the aggressor. Hoping to avoid a conflict with the Third Reich, they tried to satisfy its growing territorial claims at the expense of Eastern and Central European countries.

▪️ As the world witnessed the collapse of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations that existed at the time, many countries began to cooperate with the Third Reich and fell into its sphere of influence.

▪️The Czechoslovakia crisis became a prologue to the bloodiest conflict in the history of humanity, demonstrating what underhanded plotting and reliance on countries’ selfish interests can lead to, i.e. paved the way to World War II.

📖 Find out more about those tragic events.
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🎖 #OnThisDay in 1939, the Gold Star Medal was established - awarded to those bearing the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The medal is made of 950 gold hallmark and resembles a five-pointed star with smooth two-edge rays on the obverse side. The distance between the centre of the star and the tip of each ray is 15 mm.

Here are several interesting facts about the award:

♦️ Overall 95 women have received this high award, including 1st woman to make a spacewalk Svetlana Savitskaya who was a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union. Only three women, Marina Raskova, Valentina Grizodubova and Polina Osipenko, had received this award for their record-breaking flight prior to the Great Patriotic War.

♦️ First Lieutenant Otakar Jaroš from Czechoslovakia was the first foreign citizen to receive the Gold Star Medal. He commanded a company in the Detached Czechoslovak Volunteer Corps and served with General Ludvik Svoboda’ battalion. On March 8, 1943, Jaros distinguished himself while fighting near the village of Sokolovo in the Kharkov Region and was killed in action that day.

♦️ 44 foreign citizens, including cosmonauts and the leaders of countries friendly to the Soviet Union, received these distinguished medals.

♦️ A total of 159 people were recognised as two-time Heroes of the Soviet Union. Alexander Pokryshkin, Ivan Kozhedub and Semyon Budyonny received three medals each. Georgy Zhukov and Leonid Brezhnev received four Gold Star medals each.

♦️ Soviet pilot Anatoly Lyapidevsky received the first Gold Star for his part in rescuing 104 people from the steamship Chelyuskin that sank in the ice-covered Chukotka Sea. Leonid Solodkov, an officer with the Rescue Divers Service, was the last to receive this highest award of the USSR.

♦️ In total, 12,777 Soviet and foreign citizens received Gold Star medals, including 11,695 during the Great Patriotic War.

The tradition continues today, with Heroes of Russia receiving Gold Star medals since 1992.

#OurHistory
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⚓️ October 30 marks the Foundation Day of the Russian Navy.

#OnThisDay in 1696, the Boyar Duma approved Peter the Great’s edict on the foundation of the regular Navy – “Sea-going ships shall set sail.”

A small vessel, found by 16-year-old Peter the Great in the village of Izmailovskoye and restored at his request, became the “grandfather” of the Russian Navy. Although this was not the first Russian warship, it was the vessel that sparked the Russian Tsar’s interest in shipbuilding.

The Azov Fleet became the first regular unit of the Russian Navy. Established in Voronezh, the fleet defended Russia’s southern borders. Voronezh was also home to Russia’s first Admiralty and navigation school. A white flag with a St Andrew’s Cross, now the official Russian naval pennant, was also hoisted for the first time in that city.

In 1702, during the Great Northern War, the Baltic Fleet was established, while the Caspian Flotilla was founded in 1722, following the successful Persian campaign. In 1783, the Black Sea Fleet was established, after Crimea became part of the Russian Empire.

The first Soviet shipbuilding programme was approved in 1926. The existing fleets were reinforced and the Pacific Fleet and the Northern Fleet were established in 1935 and 1937, respectively.

🎖 During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Navy fought enemy naval forces, protected sea-going and inland shipping and supported coastal operations involving Red Army units. Seventy-eight ships that distinguished themselves in battle received Guards status and over 500 sailors became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Today, the Russian Navy consists of strategic nuclear naval forces and general-purpose naval forces. It operates surface and submarine units, naval aviation and coastal troops. The latter include coastal missile and artillery units and the marine corps.

🚢 We are proud of the heroic history of the Russian Navy, and we cherish the memory of our shipbuilders and naval commanders!
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🕯 #OnThisDay, in 1941, Dmitry Lavrinenko, the most successful tank operator of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War, was killed on the approaches to Volokolamsk. During two and a half months of ferocious fighting, he took part in 28 battles, destroying 52 Nazi tanks, a result no other Red Army soldier was able to surpass.

Lavrinenko took part in the Battle of Moscow and provided support to the famous Panfilov Division. He demonstrated great skill in driving a T-34 tank, the ability to manoeuvre between the clumsy German machines, and the capacity to make unconventional decisions during the battle for the capital.

The 27-year-old hero was killed in December 1941 by a bomb fragment when liberating the village of Goryuny during the counteroffensive near Moscow. Before his death, he destroyed an enemy heavy tank, the 52nd tank on his kill score.

🎖 Posthumously awarded with the Hero of the Soviet Union title.

#FacesOfVictory
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🇷🇺 #OnThisDay, 🔟 years ago, day to day, the all-Crimean Referendum was held.

On March 16, 2014, the people of the peninsula made an independent and conscious choice, voting in favour of forever being with Russia. To this day it remains one of the most striking and sincere examples of a true triumph of the will of the people and democracy.

🗳 At the referendum, 96.77% of Crimeans voted for reunification with Russia, the turnout was 83.1%. In Sevastopol, the relevant figures were 95.6% and 89.5%, respectively.

The voting was monitored by 135 international observers from 23 countries and 1,240 representatives of local organisations. All noted that the referendum was held without violations and in full conformity with international standards and democratic procedure.

Based on the results of the free expression of will by Crimeans, a treaty was signed on the incorporation of the two new regions into the Russian Federation – the Republic of Crimea and the City of Federal Significance, Sevastopol.

💬 President Putin: In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm conviction is based on truth and justice and was passed from generation to generation (from the Address by the President of the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014).

Since the reunification, Crimea has undergone fundamental changes, becoming one of the most dynamically developing regions in the country and the entire continent. The atmosphere of interreligious accord has been maintained on the peninsula, and the rights of all of its ethnic groups are observed without exception.

The processes that have occurred during the last ten years, steady socio-economic development and enduring peace in the multi-ethnic Crimea confirm that the people of this region were correct when making the historic choice in favour of reunification with Russia.

#CrimeaIsRussia #TogetherForever
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🗓 June 6 is #RussianLanguageDay in Russia.

✍️ #OnThisDay in 1799 the greatest poet, writer, playwright, historian, publicist, creator of the modern Russian literary language Alexander Pushkin was born.

🇷🇺 On June 6, 2011, the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree on the annual celebration of Russian Language Day in order to “preserve, support and develop the Russian language as a national treasure of the peoples of the Russian Federation, a tool of international communication and an integral part of the cultural and spiritual heritage of world civilization”.

Russian is one of the most popular languages in the world. It is spoken by about 146 million citizens of the Russian Federation and 109 million abroad.

Watch the video to learn more interesting facts 👆

#RussianLanguage #Pushkin
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🌟 #OnThisDay in 1943, the Battle of Prokhorovka took place, the largest tank engagement in human history fought as part of the wider Battle of Kursk. In the fiercest moments of the fighting, up to 1,200 tanks and self-propelled artillery units were engaged simultaneously.

By July 1943, a significant part of Soviet territory was still under Nazi control, but the potential of the Third Reich war machine was already running out. Trying to regain the initiative, the Wehrmacht command developed a summer offensive plan, codenamed Operation Citadel. The Nazis intended to destroy the Voronezh and Central fronts and crush the Red Army tank reserves near Prokhorovka, a village in the Belgorod Region.

🔻 By the night of July 9, German troops succeeded in cutting into the Voronezh Front defences, but their further advance was curbed. The German command then decided to try and break the Soviet defence line by striking at Prokhorovka, to reach Kursk from the south-east. To disrupt the offensive, the Voronezh Front command launched a counterattack on July 12, which went down in history as the Battle of Prokhorovka.

On July 12, Germany’s 2nd SS Panzer Corps faced off against two Soviet forces, Alexey Zhadov’s 5th Guards Army and the 5th Guards Tank Army commanded by Pavel Rotmistrov in the vicinity of Prokhorovka. The battle was fought with varying success; both sides were forced to draw on reserves.

✍️ Soviet ace tanker Vasily Bryukhov recalled in his memoirs: “Strong explosions often made a tank just collapse, turn into a pile of metal in a matter of seconds. <...> The opponents were perfect matches for each other. They fought desperately, ferociously, with fierce abandon.”

In every instance of the battle, the Red Army soldiers demonstrated unparalleled courage and extraordinary fighting skill. Thanks to their decisive actions, the enemy exhausted offensive opportunities and on July 16, began to withdraw its troops to the initial positions held at the beginning of the Battle of Kursk. The Red Army seized the strategic initiative and held it for the rest of the war.

#Victory79 #WeRemember
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❗️#OnThisDay 86 years ago, the leaders of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and France signed an agreement in Munich on the German annexation of the Sudetenland, an industrial region of Czechoslovakia where ethnic Germans made up 90 percent of the population.

Czechoslovakia had not been invited to the talks; it was presented with the fact that its sovereign territory must be ceded to Nazi Germany as a fait accompli.

This disgraceful pact between the Western powers and Nazi Germany went down in history as the #MunichBetrayal.

▪️ Following the signing of the agreement between the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy in Munich, German troops crossed Czechoslovakia’s border on October 1 and occupied the entire area of the Sudetenland by October 10.

▪️ The Soviet Union was ready to defend Czechoslovakia, but the Soviet Army had to obtain permission to pass through Poland or Romania. Warsaw, which was interested in getting part of Czechoslovakia’s territory for itself, adamantly refused to support Prague against Germany and prohibited possible flights of Soviet aircraft to render aid to the Czechoslovak army. Romania made every effort to slow down the process as much as possible.

▪️ The Munich Betrayal crowned the Western powers’ policy of appeasing the aggressor. Hoping to avoid a conflict with the Third Reich, they tried to satisfy its growing territorial claims at the expense of Eastern and Central European countries.

▪️ As the world witnessed the collapse of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations that existed at the time, many countries began to cooperate with the Third Reich and fell into its sphere of influence.

▪️ The Czechoslovakia crisis became a prologue to the bloodiest conflict in the history of humanity, demonstrating what underhanded plotting and reliance on countries’ selfish interests can lead to, i.e. paved the way to World War II.

Find out more about those tragic events
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