Victory Day

Victory Day
War always starts suddenly, although after a generation for historians it seems inevitable. In 1941, the worst, closest, most expensive war began - the Great Patriotic War. They say that without huge losses the Nazis could not be stopped ...
May 9 - Victory Day in the war over fascist Germany - is one of the most important, touching and glorious holidays in Russia, the former Soviet republics and many European countries.
An important stage was the "Battle for the Caucasus." In the summer offensive of 1942, A. Hitler and his generals, despite their defeat in the battle of Moscow, hoped to defeat the entire southern flank of the Soviet front and secure their access to the Volga and the Caucasus. The German army needed the natural resources of the southern regions of the USSR - bread, oil, various minerals. Having accomplished this task, A. Hitler hoped to inflict a decisive defeat on the Red Army and secure for himself the successful conduct of the war on a global scale for many years.
The German command intended to bypass the Main Caucasian Range from the west, capturing Novorossiysk and Tuapse, and from the east - breaking into Grozny and Baku. The Soviet group was supposed to dismember and destroy, take oil fields into their own hands, and destroy the Black Sea Fleet bases or paralyze their activities.
German formations and their allies advanced very quickly at first. With heavy losses, Soviet troops retreated to the lower reaches of the Don River and to the Kuban River. In August 1942, the Germans captured Stavropol, Maykop (on the eve of the Red Army's withdrawal, it was possible to disable the main oil production capacities in the Maykop area), Krasnodar. At the end of August, units of the Wehrmacht broke into Mozdok, a threat arose to Grozny - its oil fields and refineries.
The enemy tried to break through the central part of the Caucasus Range - the Germans and Italians had trained climbers. But the courage of our troops frustrated these plans.
Gradually, enemy units began to lose their battle ardor. The desperate resistance of the Soviet troops at Ordzhonikidze (Vladikavkaz), through which the enemy tried to break through to Grozny, forced the Germans to roll back.
But, despite the numerical superiority and fierce fighting, by October 9, 1943 the territory of the Caucasus region was liberated. Prerequisites were created for the landing on the Kerch Peninsula and the liberation of the Crimea.