Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The activity emerged after Nazi Germany's Operation Barbarossa was launched from mid-1941 on. It was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modeled on that of the Red Army.
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity.
The NI tank also known as the Odessa tank, was a Soviet improvised fighting vehicle, based on an STZ-3 agricultural tractor, manufactured in Odessa during the Siege of Odessa in World War II.
When the Second World War in Europe began, the territory which now forms the country of Belarus was divided between the Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic. The borders of Soviet Belarus were greatly expanded in the Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939. In 1941, the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Following the German military disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk, the collaborationist Belarusian Central Council (BCC) was formed by the Germans in order to raise local support for their anti-Soviet operations. The BCC in turn formed the twenty-thousand strong Belarusian Home Defence (BKA), active from 23 February 1944 to 28 April 1945. Assistance was offered by the local Soviet administrative governments, and prewar public organizations including the former Soviet Belarusian Youth. The country was soon retaken by the Red Army in 1944. Devastated by the war, Belarus lost significant populations and economic resources. Many battles occurred in Belarusian and neighbouring territory. Belarusians also participated in regional conflicts.
During World War II, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union (1940–1941), Nazi Germany (1941–1944), and the Soviet Union again in 1944. Resistance during this period took many forms. Significant parts of the resistance were formed by Polish and Soviet forces, some of which fought with Lithuanian collaborators. This article presents a summary of the organizations, persons and actions involved. Lithuania was de facto independent from June 24, 1941, until June 30, 1941, when Nazi Germany took full control of the area.
The Bulgarian Resistance was part of the anti-Axis resistance during World War II. It consisted of armed and unarmed actions of resistance groups against the Wehrmacht forces in Bulgaria and the Tsardom of Bulgaria authorities. It was mainly communist and pro-Soviet Union. Participants in the armed resistance were called partizanin and yatak.
The 16th Rifle Division was a formation in the Red Army created during World War II. The division was formed twice, and was given the title 'Lithuanian' during its second formation.
Otomārs Aleksandrs Oškalns was a prominent Latvian communist and partisan fighter.
The 8th Estonian Rifle Corps was a formation in the Red Army, created on 6 November 1942, during World War II.
The Soviet partisans in Latvia were Soviet partisans who were deployed to Latvia and attempted to wage guerrilla warfare against the German armed forces during the German occupation of Latvia. Partisan activity was singularly unsuccessful in Latvia due to the general resistance of the population to the Soviet regime that the partisans represented.
Ahmadiyya Mikayil oghlu Jabrayilov is said to have been a French Resistance member of Azerbaijani ethnicity.
The Lithuanian partisans were partisans who waged a guerrilla warfare in Lithuania against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953. Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups, also known as Forest Brothers and cursed soldiers, fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Poland. It is estimated that a total of 30,000 Lithuanian partisans and their supporters were killed. The Lithuanian partisan war lasted almost for a decade, thus being one of the longest partisan wars in Europe.
Destruction battalions, colloquially istrebitels abbreviated: istrebki (Russian), strybki (Ukrainian), stribai (Lithuanian), were paramilitary units under the control of NKVD in the western Soviet Union, which performed tasks of internal security on the Eastern Front and after it. After the Fall of the Soviet Union the battalions were deemed by the Riigikogu to be a criminal entity.
Shalva Loladze was a former Soviet Georgian POW and an officer in the German Wehrmacht who headed a revolt of the Georgian soldiers against the German commandership on the Dutch island of Texel.
The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars", these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Ivan Fyodorovich Gnezdilov was a Soviet flying ace in World War II; for his actions he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 19 August 1944. Later in his career he participated in the Korean War.
The 11th Guards Fighter Aviation Division as an aviation division of the Soviet Air Forces, active from 1943 to 1991. It served in the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary for many years.
The Crimean resistance movement during World War II refers to various decentralised groups who resisted the occupation of Crimea by Nazi Germany during World War II. Also often referred to by the term Crimean partisans, the resistance movement in the Crimean peninsula formed a significant part of the Soviet partisan movement during World War II, and included many of the peninsula's various ethnic groups, such as Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, and Greeks.
Viktor Aleksandrovich Anfilov was a Russian military officer and historian. He earned the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences in 1973, became a professor in 1975 and was awarded the honorary title of Honoured Scientist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1990. He rose to the rank of colonel, and saw action on the Eastern Front in World War II.
Vasily Semyonovich Sukhov - participant in the Great Patriotic War, partisan, later rifleman of the 14th Infantry Regiment. Hero of the Soviet Union (1944).
