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 January 27, 1944, when Red Army soldiers, and the valiant citizenry broke the 872 day Wehrmacht siege of the city of Leningrad (today, St. Petersburg). The siege had been applied starting September 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 one-half, including most children. The Luftwaffe continuously bombed the city. The orders from headquarters were: 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 they could lay their hands on. After the second world war, the Soviets reported, based on archive figures, that approximately 500,000 Red Army soldiers in this battle 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.
