"The sudden silence was overwhelming and some of our soldiers, habituated to the constant din of fighting, couldn't stand it. The only time there was silence was just before an enemy attack. Men were shooting rifles, letting off grenades, just to relieve the tension." (Lieutenant A. Mereshko, 62nd Army).
"Then all our soldiers began to sing. We sang the Russian songs which helped to sustain us when all seemed hopeless." (Mark Slavin, 45th Division)

The German surrender at Stalingrad in February 1943 was the strategic turning point of WW2. After Stalingrad, the Germans had no hope of winning on the eastern front and that meant inevitable defeat in the wider conflict for WW2 was primarily a Soviet-German war.

When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22nd 1941 and invaded the Soviet Union, they launched a war of annihilation, a war to destroy ’judeobolshevism’ by the mass murder of Soviet citizens. Over the next four years more than 26 million Soviet citizens were killed, almost 11 million from the Armed Forces - at Stalingrad alone a million Russian people lost their lives.

In remembering the battle of Stalingrad we pay homage to the immense heroism of the soldiers of the Red Army. Despite Antony Beevor's attempt to denigrate, contemporary evidence is overwhelming: it was the sheer valour and guts of the soldiers of the 62nd Army, particularly the 13th Guards, which turned what was a militarily hopeless position into final victory.

"For us, it was life and death which met on the Volga. And it was life which won the fight." (Marshal K. Rokossovsky)

On 22nd June 1941 over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front.
The wa r evenually cost the lives of 23 million Soviet citizens including almost 11 million military personnel.

Today in Moscow's Red Square Russia's Armed Forces celebrated the 64th Victory Day commemorating the Soviet Union's victory over Germany in 1945.
The victory came at a terrible price. 11,000,000 Soviet soldiers were killed fighting the Germans in World War 2; some 20,000,000 Soviet civilians were also killed.

Veterans of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan have been marking the 20th anniversary of the army's pull-out from the country. The mothers of the 15,000 Russian conscript soldiers killed during the 10 year war also remember.

BBC: In pictures: Russia's Afghan veterans

Wait for me and I'll return, only wait very hard.
Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain.
Wait when the wind sweeps the snowdrifts.
Wait in the sweltering heat.
Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays.
Wait even when from afar no letters come for you.
Wait even when others are tired of waiting.

Wait for me and I'll return, but wait patiently.
Wait even when you are told that you should forget.
Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more.
And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory
Wait and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.

Wait for me and I'll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
They will never understand that in the midst of death
You with your waiting saved me.
Only you and I will know how I survived:
It was because you waited as no one else did.

Many frontline soldiers re-wrote this poem and kept it in the pockets of their tunics. They sent the poem to their girlfriends and wives back home. “Wait for me and I'll return…”

Konstantin Simonov: Wait for me
YouTube: Wait for me
YouTube: Wait for me

People of goodwill, remember,
we loved life,
our Motherland and
all of you dearly.

We were devoured by the flames of fire!

We appeal to all of you:
Let your sorrow and grief
turn into courage and strength
so that you can establish
long lasting peace on our planet
so that nowhere and never again
will life be devoured by the flames of fire!

(Son to Father…)
Do not call me, father. Do not seek me.
Do not call me. Do not wish me back.
We’re on a route unchartered, fire and blood erase our track.
On we fly on wings of thunder, never more to sheathe our swords.
All of us in battle fallen – not to be brought back by words.

Will there be a rendezvous? I know not. I only know we still must fight.
We are sand grains in infinity, never to meet, nevermore to see light.

(Father to son…)
Farewell then my son. Farewell then my conscience.
Farewell my youth, my solace, my one and my only.

Let this farewell be the end of the story,
A solitude vast in which none is more lonely,
In which you remained barred forever
From light, from air, with your death pains untold.
Untold and unsoothed, never to be resurrected.
Forever and ever an 18 year old.

Farewell then.
No trains ever come from those regions,
Unscheduled and scheduled.
No aeroplanes fly there.

Farewell then my son,
For no miracles happen, as in this world
Dreams do not come true.

Farewell.
I will dream of you still as a baby,
Treading the earth with little strong toes,
The earth where already so many lie buried.

This song to my son, then, is come to its close.

Extract from a poem by Junior Lieutenant Vladimir Pavlovich Antokolski who was killed in action on 6th June 1942.

AquilaVictrix: Full Russian Version
AquilaVictrix: English translation (kind of)