On January 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at Nevsky Pyatachok, a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva River, to commemorate Jan. 27, 1944, when Red Army soldiers and valiant citizens broke the 872-day Wehrmacht siege of the city of Leningrad (today, St. Petersburg). The siege had been laid on Sept. 8, 1941.
Hitler had planned to use the Wehrmacht’s Army Group North and the Axis powers (particularly Finland) to blockade the city of 3.1 million, by surrounding the city and denying all food and other vital supplies to the population. The Russians were able to evacuate 1.75 million people over the next year and a half, including most children. The Luftwaffe continuously bombed the city, with orders from headquarters for no surrender negotiations: The city was to be obliterated.
With widespread famine and disease, the population chose to fight alongside the Soviet Army, using anti-aircraft guns that were supplied, and whatever else they could lay their hands on. After the war, the Soviets relied on archive figures to report that in this battle, approximately 500,000 Red Army soldiers were killed or captured, or went missing. Reports are that 670,000 civilians—and possibly significantly more—died, mostly from starvation, but also exposure and stress.
