Tag Archives: Kremlin
On this day: the end of the Battle of Grozny
The Battle of Grozny, the Russian siege of the capital of Chechnya that began in 1999, ended on the 6th of February, 2000.
In 2003, the United Nations named Grozny the “most destroyed city on Earth”.
Destruction after the Russian siege.
On this day…
On 28 January 2003, Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma signed the Agreement on the Ukrainian-Russian state border. Eleven years later, Russia broke that treaty and invaded Ukraine. X
On this day…
The Russian invasion of Georgia: Russian tanks move along a street as children play with a toy truck in Tskhinvali on 30 August, 2008.
On this day: the defection of Alexander Godunov
On the 21st of August, 1979 Soviet ballet dancer Alexander Godunov defected to the United States. His defection took place during a Bolshoi Ballet tour to New York City.
A childhood classmate of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Godunov was one of the Bolshoi’s star dancers, and the gold medal winner at the 1973 Moscow International Ballet Competition.
He was also a known actor in the USSR.
Godunov was married to a company soloist at the time of his defection, though his wife did not defect with him.
He went on to become a principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre until he had a falling out with Baryshnikov, after which he toured internationally and became a known actor in Hollywood.
Godunov was found dead in his home in May, 1995.
On this day: the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
The couple after being found guilty. X
On the 19th of June, 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair in Ossining, USA after being convicted of spying for the Kremlin.
Alongside several others, who were imprisoned but not executed (including Ethel’s brother), they were found guilty of passing on information to Moscow about the atomic bomb.
Julius and Ethel under arrest.
The Rosenbergs were the only two people in the United States executed for espionage during the Cold War. Their crime was considered worse because the judge also considered them responsible for deaths in the Korean War.
On this day: the beginning of the June Deportation
The Kremlin began its mass deportation of the people of the Baltic countries and Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Poland on the 14th of June, 1941. Tens of thousands of people were moved from their homes in regions occupied and annexed by Russia.
Many people did not survive.
Deportation taking place in Latvia:
In Times Gone By... 
