With three fine Russian films in recent months on World War 2, -- `` The House I Live In '', `` The Cranes Are Flying '' and `` Ballad Of A Soldier '' -- we had every right to expect a real Soviet block-buster in `` The Day The War Ended ''.

* 1944 – Continuation War: The Vyborg – Petrozavodsk Offensive, the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during World War II, ends to a strategic stalemate.

* 1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.

* 1920 – Polish – Soviet War: the Battle of Warsaw begins and will last till August 25.

* 1919 – Polish – Soviet War: The Polish army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.

* 1947 – Bernard Baruch coins the term " Cold War " to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

* 1960 – Cold War: in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

* 1943 – World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government in exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

* 1945 – World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna, Austria.

* 1939 – World War II: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

* 1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.

During World War II, Abadan was a major logistics center for Lend-Lease aircraft being sent to the Soviet Union by the United States.

* 1940 – World War II: the Soviet Union formally annexes Latvia.

* 1941 – World War II: The Battle of Smolensk concludes with Germany capturing about 300, 000 Soviet Red Army prisoners.

* 1920 – The Latvian – Soviet Peace Treaty, which relinquished Russia's authority and pretenses to Latvia, is signed, ending the Latvian War of Independence.

* 1945 – Cold War: Yugoslav leader Josip " Tito " Broz signs an agreement with the Soviet Union to allow " temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory ".

* 1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.

Assault guns were primarily used during World War II by the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

* 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Narva ends with a combined German – Estonian force successfully defending Narva, Estonia, from invading Soviet troops.

* 1945 – World War II: Soviet Union forces south of Berlin at Zossen attack the German High Command headquarters.

* 1988 – In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

After the Soviet withdrawal, between 1992 and 1996, he was minister of defense in the new government of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and acted as its military leader in the civil war against competing militias around Kabul.

:" The establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan 1973 increased the Soviet investment in Afghanistan and the PDPA influence in the government's military and civil bodies.

These developments gave rise to the Islamist and Islamic movement opposed to the increasing communist and Soviet influence over Afghanistan.

By 1975, after a failed uprising by the Muslim Youth, President Daoud Khan started to dissociate himself from the Soviet Union and the communist party of Afghanistan.

Following the 1979 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, Massoud devised a strategic plan for expelling the invaders and overthrowing the communist regime.

Category: People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan

The term can trace its origin to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when millions of Afghans took refuge in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

Category: People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan

Afghan Turkestan is a region in northern Afghanistan, on the border with the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Sakharov was arrested on January 22, 1980, following his public protests against the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and was sent to internal exile in the city of Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, a city that was off-limits to foreigners.

Karmal would remain in exile until December 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan ( with the consent of the Afghan government ) to stabilise the situation in the country, they killed Amin, the leader of the PDPA and the Afghan government.

He was one of the earliest founders and movement leaders of the Mujahideen in the late 1970s, right before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Failed attempts at reform, a standstill economy, and the success of United states of America against the Soviet Union's forces in the war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially in the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe.

Fighting in Afghanistan also intensified, but in the late autumn of 1984 the United States and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985.

The war in Afghanistan, often referred to as the Soviet Union's " Vietnam War ", led to increased public dissatisfaction with the Communist regime.

Jimmy Carter had officially ended the policy of Détente, by financially aiding the Mujahideen movement in neighboring Afghanistan, which served as a pretext for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan six months later, with the aims of supporting the Afghan government, controlled by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

Tensions between the superpowers increased during this time, when Carter placed trade embargoes on the Soviet Union and stated that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was " the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War.

US Financed the training for the Mujahideen warlords such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbudin Hekmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani eventually culminated to the fall of the Soviet satellite the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Moreover, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the mishandling of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which Gorbachev tried to cover up, further damaged the credibility of the Soviet government at a time when dissatisfaction was increasing.

* 1978 – The Soviet Union signs a " friendship treaty " with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.