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

Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union.

On 18 December, Hitler signed War Directive No. 21 to the German High Command for an operation now codenamed " Operation Barbarossa " stating: " The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign.

Julian Semyonov was an influential spy novelist, writing in the Eastern Bloc, whose range of novels and novel series featured a White Russian spy in the USSR ; Max Otto von Stierlitz, a Soviet mole in the Nazi High Command, and Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka.

Because of the long period in which it took to build a battle fleet, Raeder was, despite his Anglophobia, hostile towards an anti-British foreign policy ( at least until the High Seas Fleet was resurrected ) and until 1937, Raeder saw his principal enemies as France, Poland and the Soviet Union.

High explosive rockets were used by British, U. S., Soviet and German aircraft though they were ( along with bombs ) found to be " barely adequate " because of their inaccuracy.

* in Austria, until 27 July 1955 when Allied occupation ends, restoring Austrian sovereignty, it was administered as a British Zone ( 6 consecutive High Commissioners, July 1945 ), a US Zone ( 4 incumbents from 5 July 1945 ), a Soviet Zone ( 4 from July 1945 ; only this had first been under a Military Governor from 8 April 1945 ) and a French Zone ( 2, from 8 July 1945 );

* in Germany there were also four major occupation zones: the British Zone ( after three consecutive Military governors from 22 May 1945, the last stayed on as first of three consecutive High Commissioners 21 September 1949 – 5 May 1955 ), the US Zone ( after five Military governors from 8 May 1945, four High Commissioners 2 September 1949 – 5 May 1955 ), the Soviet Zone ( after a military commander April 1945 – 9 June 1945 who stayed as first of three Military governors 9 June 1945 – 10 October 1949, the last of whom stayed on as only Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission 10 October 1949 – 28 May 1953, two High commissioners 28 May 1953 – 20 September 1955 ) and the French Zone ( after a Military commander from May 1945 and a Military governor from July 1945, a single High commissioner 21 September 1949 – 5 May 1955 ); the Nazi capital, Berlin, enclaved in the Soviet zone, is separately quartered under four military City Commanders ; only the small Dutch zone by the border is destined for annexation in 1949, so it is divided up in two districts, each under a landdrost ( Tudderen, attached to the province of ( Dutch ) Limburg and Elten, attached to Gelderland province ), but returned to Germany after compensation payments and minor border corrections on 11 August 1963

Egypitan President Nasser and Soviet leader Khrushchev at the ceremony to divert the Nile during the construction of the Aswan High Dam on May 14, 1964.

However the conflict with Poland did not break out and the Soviet High Command's 12 January directive was to cease advance on the Neman-Bug rivers.

The RBMK ( Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalniy, " High Power Channel-type Reactor ") () is a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor designed and built by the Soviet Union.

After German troops captured the city of Kharkov in October 1941, the German High Command planned an offensive to destroy the Soviet forces toward the southern sector of the Eastern Front.

Two factors made Operation Kremlin plausible to the Soviet High Command: first, it coincided with Soviet thinking — which the Germans did not know ; second, its premise — to simulate a repeat of the late 1941 drive to Moscow — had a firm foundation.

All Belarus ground forces were now grouped within these two commands, the Western Operational Command at Grodno, former from the previous 28th Army Corps, the former Soviet 28th Army, and the North Western Operational Command, the former 65th Army Corps, at Borisov.

The Command economy is distinguished from economic planning, and different theories for classifying the socioeconomic system of the Soviet Union exist ; most notably a command economy is associated with Bureaucratic collectivism, State capitalism or State socialism.

Ever since North Korea signed the Armistice Agreement with the United Nations Command, it has maintained relations with China, Moscow ( Soviet Union to 1991, Russian Federation onward ), Pakistan and often limited relations with other nations.

* 1979 – Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike.

Instead they relied on the network of ground stations, also called Command Points to communicate with the spacecraft ; all of these Command Points were located within the Soviet Union.

RAF Bomber Command attrition attacks against air defense targets in Warsaw Pact and European Russia alone by the V-Force ( in prosecuting their initial attacks upon the Soviet Union ) would be decisive in ensuring that NATO and SAC follow-on forces attacks would be successful in achieving the destruction of Soviet and Warsaw Pact targets.

A white paper produced by the Royal Air Force for the British government in 1961 claimed that the RAF's nuclear force was capable of destroying key Soviet cities such as Moscow and Kiev before bomber aircraft from the United States ' Strategic Air Command had entered Soviet airspace, " taking into account Bomber Command ’ s ability to be on target in the first wave several hours in advance of the main SAC force operating from bases in the United States .".

While originally a civil war, it quickly escalated into a war between the western powers under the United Nations Command led by the United States and its allies and the communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.

** Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike.

A top-secret White Paper, compiled by the Royal Air Force and produced for the British Government in 1959, estimated that British atomic bombers were capable of destroying key cities and military targets in the Soviet Union, with an estimated 16 million deaths in the USSR ( half of whom were estimated to be killed on impact and the rest fatally injured ) before bomber aircraft from the US Strategic Air Command reached their targets.

For the next three years Hadfield flew CF-18s for the North American Aerospace Defence Command ( NORAD ) with 425 Squadron, during which time he flew the first CF-18 intercept of a Soviet Tupolev Tu 95 " Bear " aircraft.

Part of the American reaction to the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb tests included maintaining a large Air Force, under the control of the Strategic Air Command ( SAC ).

At the U. N. General Assembly in November 1957 the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia condemned the decision of the United Nations Command to introduce nuclear weapons into Korea.

After a stint in the 1950s and 1960s as a Strategic Air Command ( SAC ) base ( earning Columbus a spot in Soviet Union target lists ), CAFB returned to its original role.

As the Soviet missile threat became more pronounced and warning time decreased, Strategic Air Command bases presented increasingly attractive targets.

* 1961 – The Russian ( Soviet ) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 ( Vostok 1 ).

* 1963 – The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M / S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.

* 1970 – Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.

* 1888 – Heinrich Neuhaus, Soviet pianist ( d. 1964 )

* 1937 – Igor Volk, Soviet astronaut

* 1961 – K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.

* 1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.

* 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.

During January – February 2007, Armenia ’ s trade with Russia and other former Soviet republics was $ 205. 6 million ( double the amount from the same period the previous year ), making them the country ’ s number one trading partner.

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

* 1934 – Valery Bykovsky, Soviet astronaut

* 1944 – Dmitry Nikolayevich Filippov, Soviet politician ( d. 1998 )

* 1948 – Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.

* 1935 – Georgy Shonin, Soviet astronaut ( d. 1997 )

* 1986 – A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union ( now Ukraine ), creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.

* 1929 – Larisa Bogoraz, Soviet dissident ( d. 2004 )

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

* 1922 – The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.

* 1945 – More than 7, 000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.

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

* 1921 – Tannu Uriankhai, later Tuvan People's Republic is established as a completely independent country ( which is supported by Soviet Russia ).