⚔️ On January 8, 1942, the #BattleOfRzhev commenced – one of the most large-scale and brutal battles of the Great Patriotic War, lasting 438 days.

The chronology of the battle includes four offensive operations carried out by Soviet forces of the Western Front (Commander – Georgy Zhukov) and the Kalinin Front (Commander – Ivan Konev) against Germany’s Army Group Centre. Their objective was to liberate Rzhev, Sychevka, and Vyazma, thereby eliminating the Rzhev-Vyazma salient.

In the Rzhev sector, the Wehrmacht deployed one of its largest groupings – 1,569,000 personnel, around 13,000 artillery pieces, and 1,100 tanks. These forces were tied down in prolonged fighting with the Red Army and could not be redeployed to other key sectors of the front – the Caucasus and Stalingrad.

In the winter of 1943, following the crushing defeat of Nazi forces at Stalingrad, when the strategic initiative finally shifted to the USSR, the German command decided to abandon the Rzhev-Vyazma salient. The pursuit of the retreating enemy, from March 2-31, 1943, pushed the front line 130-160 kilometres farther away from Moscow.

On March 3, 1943, Rzhev was fully liberated.

🕯 The offensive and defensive operations conducted by the Western and Kalinin Fronts were of decisive strategic importance in achieving the turning point in favour of the Red Army across the entire Soviet-German theatre of war. The feat of Soviet soldiers is eternal and shall never be forgotten.

In 2020, at the initiative of Great Patriotic War veterans and the Russian Military Historical Society, and with the participation of President of Russia Vladimir Putin, the Rzhev Memorial was unveiled at the site of the fierce battles of 1942-1943 – a 25-metre figure of a soldier, rising above the field and seemingly dissolving into a flock of cranes, symbolising the souls of fallen soldiers – perished, yet never forgotten.

#Victory81 #WeRemember

⚡️ Comment by Foreign Ministry Official Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on certain Western countries’ plans to continue the militarisation of Ukraine (January 8, 2026)

💬 Maria Zakharova: On January 6 in Paris, participants of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, led by the UK and France, signed a declaration titled Robust Security Guarantees for a Solid and Lasting Peace in Ukraine.

The document turned out to be extremely far from a peace settlement. The declaration is not aimed at achieving a lasting peace and security but rather at continuing the militarisation, escalation and further conflict aggravation.

Its core element is the deployment of “a multinational force” on Ukrainian territory that the coalition will have to form to contribute to the “rebuilding” of the Ukrainian armed forces and “support deterrence” [against Russia] following the cessation of the hostilities.

The document also includes clauses on further consolidation of Ukraine’s and NATO’s military industrial sectors.

As clarified by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who signed the corresponding trilateral statement along with Zelensky, London and Paris plan to establish their own military bases in Ukraine post-ceasefire and build weapon and military equipment storage facilities.

⚠️ The Russian Foreign Ministry warns that the deployment of military units and the setting-up of military facilities, storages and other Western infrastructure on Ukrainian territory will be qualified as foreign intervention that directly threatens the security of Russia and other European countries.

All such units and facilities will be considered as legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces.

Warnings to this effect have been repeatedly made at the highest level and remain relevant.

❗️ We also reaffirm that a peaceful resolution of the conflict is solely possible through the elimination of its root causes, the re-establishment of Ukraine’s neutral non-aligned status, its demilitarisation and denazification, and Kiev’s observance of the language, cultural and religious rights and freedoms, including those of ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking people, and members of ethnic minorities, and through the recognition of the current territorial realities that emerged as a result of the peoples’ exercised right to self-determination.

All these goals will, undoubtedly, be achieved either by political and diplomatic means or in the course of the special military operation, in which the Russian Armed Forces are maintaining full initiative on the battlefield.

The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kiev regime are forming a true Axis of war.

Its participants’ plans are becoming increasingly more dangerous and destructive for the future of the European continent and its residents, who are also forced by Western politicians to pay for such ambitions out of their own pockets.

🎙 Comment by Russia's Foreign Ministry Official Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the Kiev regime’s terrorist attack on civilians in Russian regions (January 11, 2026)

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The Kiev regime has once again demonstrated its inhumane Nazi nature with another brutal crime.

On January 10, the Voronezh, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions were subjected to a mass attack using fixed-wing drones. According to the Russia's Ministry of Defence, a total of 33 hostile drones were launched.

The principal target was the residential areas of Voronezh. One young woman has been confirmed dead, having succumbed to her injuries in intensive care overnight. At least three further civilians were wounded.

The Foreign Ministry strongly condemns these acts of terrorism. They are characterised by the extremely cynical targeting of a wide range of civilian infrastructure. This includes over ten blocks of flats and an equal number of private homes. A secondary school and several administrative buildings were also struck and damaged.

Such deliberate killings of civilians attest to the desperation of the Kiev regime, which – in the face of its obvious failures on the battlefield – now seeks to vent its frustration on innocent populations of Russia’s regions. All masterminds and perpetrators of this and other crimes will be inevitably held to account.

It is our hope that the relevant international bodies will provide an impartial assessment of these criminal acts committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Continued silence in the face of the Kiev regime’s unbridled barbarity renders those bodies complicit in its heinous consequences.