City of Military Glory
[2] On the eve of Victory Day in 2009, at the ceremony conferring "City of Military Glory" status upon Vyazma, Kronstadt and Naro-Fominsk at the Moscow Kremlin, President Dmitry Medvedev stated: What distinguishes human beings from the other inhabitants of this planet is that they have a soul and they have memory.
During World War II, Arkhangelsk, along with Murmansk, were at the forefront of efforts to keep Allied supply lines open to the Soviet Union what became known as the Arctic Convoys.
[7] A ceremony was held in the Moscow Kremlin on January 12, 2010 at which the city was represented by the Mayor of Arkhangelsk, Viktor Pavlenko, and World War II veteran Serafim Nesmelov.
[8] At the ceremony Dmitry Medvedev noted that Arkhangelsk, which was founded by Ivan the Terrible has always been a forward area of national defense for Russia, and had contributed to the success of Peter the Great in the Great Northern War, and the sailors of the White Sea Flotilla contributed to the defense of the northern borders of the Soviet Union during World War II.
[11] At the ceremony Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev stated “Leo Tolstoy once remarked that a people who can engage in all-out guerrilla warfare during a conflict is invincible, and the Bryansk partisan movement confirmed the truth of this”.
[14] A ceremony was held in the Moscow Kremlin on May 4, 2010 at which the city was represented by the Head of the Municipal Administration, Vladimir Krishtal, and honorary citizen, Major-General and Professor of the FSB Academy, Yevgeny Mokhov.
[15] The city of Khabarovsk in the Russian Far Eastern Krai of the same name (of which it is the capital city), named after Russian explorer Yerofey Khabarov who built the first of many forts among the Amur River in the 17th century, was in the Second World War the headquarters for the Far Eastern Military District and the command center for the Soviet Armed Forces units stationed in the Far East.
[17] The strong defense of the city coupled with its wartime role helped save Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from total destruction in the 1941–44 siege.
[21] Part of Kaluga Oblast, the small town of Maloyaroslavets was caught up in the action of the Battle of Moscow from October 1941 to January 1942 and thus became, because for the "courage, endurance and mass heroism, exhibited by defenders of the city in the struggle for the freedom and independence of the Motherland" shown during the town's two and a half month German occupation, eligible for the title of City of Military Glory by President Putin, by virtue of Presidential Law No.2012-608, in one of his first official acts as President, on May 7, 2012.
Mariupol was designated a City of Military Glory by President Vladimir Putin on November 15, 2022, on account of the resistance of its residents during the 3-year long German occupation (1941-1943).
Melitopol was designated a City of Military Glory by President Vladimir Putin on November 15, 2022, after being captured during the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier in the year.
[32] The town of Staraya Russa was from 1941 to 1944 heavily damaged given the 3+1⁄2-year German occupation that resulted in the deaths of many of its citizens and giving it a big role in the resistance effort, leading to its February 1944 liberation by the 1st Shock Army as part of the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive that winter.
[37] In July 1942, when Sevastopol fell under Nazi German control, Tuapse became the main naval base for the supply of Soviet troops in the Black Sea region.
The Soviet forces managed to halt Nazi troops 23 kilometres (14 mi) from Tuapse, with the loss of some 100,000 lives, and 25,000 dead on the German side.
[45] Volokolamsk was the scene of some major battles between Soviet and Nazi troops during the Great Patriotic War, and is where the Panfilovtsy under the command of Ivan Panfilov, and the Katyusha rocket launcher, gained wide recognition.
[1][25] Following orders not to give an inch of soil to the invading German troops, the Panfilovtsy held their defensive lines during a month of heavy fighting.
With the loss of 13,000 troops, the Soviet forces held the Germans at bay for long enough in order to allow a counter offensive to take place.
[46] A ceremony was held in the Moscow Kremlin on May 4, 2010 at which the city was represented by Head of Volokolamsky District, Vyacheslav Karabanov, and Pavel Osipov, a veteran from World War II.
[48] Vyazma in Smolensk Oblast was occupied by Nazi German forces on October 7, 1941 after fierce battles with the Red Army.
In the Continuation War (part of the Eastern Front) Germany's co-belligerent Finland conquered Vyborg essentially without a fight in August 1941.
[1][25] As a result of the offensive, the Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and Britain on the other and ended hostilities between the countries.
