🏅 #OnThisDay in 1945, the Red Army launched its Vistula-Oder offensive, liberating Polish territory west of the Vistula and capturing a bridgehead on the left bank of the Oder, which was later used in the advance on Berlin.

By early 1945, the Red Army in the east and the Western Allies from the Second Front had closed in on Germany for a series of final assaults on the enemy. As before, the Wehrmacht concentrated its main forces – 185 divisions, including 33 tank and mechanised divisions, as well as 21 brigades – against the Soviet fronts.

The Soviet offensive was planned for January 20. But on January 6, the Allies suffered a major setback in the Ardennes and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for help by moving up the offensive on the Vistula front. The Soviet Supreme High Command General Headquarters responded by curtailing preparations for the Vistula-Oder offensive and setting the date for its start on January 12.

☝️ The Red Army had to break through 300-500 kilometres of multi-layered defensive positions between the Vistula and the Oder rivers. The first line of defence on the Vistula consisted of four belts 30 to 70 kilometres deep. The most formidable obstacle for the attacking forces was the sixth line of defence that ran along the 1939 German-Polish border and included the Pomerania, Meseritz, and Glogau-Breslau fortified areas.

As a result, 35 enemy divisions were routed and another 25 lost between 50 and 70% of their strength, weapons and equipment. Forces of the two Soviet fronts took prisoner 147,400 officers and men and captured 14,000 guns and mortars, as many as 1,400 tanks and assault guns, and over 1,000 aircraft.

🎖 The Vistula-Oder operation went down in history as the most rapid WWII offensive. The Soviet forces advanced 500 kilometres within 23 days (!), liberated vast territories in Poland, and emerged on roads leading directly to the capital of Nazi Germany.

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Key takeaways from an interview by Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov with TASS:

▪️US-Russian relations continue to deteriorate, teetering on the brink of an abyss

▪️ Washington’s policy of weakening Moscow’s economic and military potential remains unchanged as the United States will try to defeat Russia in Ukraine

▪️ The United States sees Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as a challenge to the world order that is favorable to Washington and will make every effort to preserve this world order

▪️Moscow will have to resort to symmetric measures in case the West decides to confiscate Russia’s state assets

▪️ Employees of the Russian embassy heading to the US have been waiting for visas from Washington for years; around two dozen staffers had to leave the Russian diplomatic mission due to US instructions in December

▪️Russia does not see any prospects for settling the situation involving its diplomatic property blocked by the United States

▪️The Russian government is conducting dialogue on the release of all Russian citizens in US custody through the relevant agencies

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