The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years after its collapse, almost all Russian and Ukrainian aircraft have their roots in the communist super state. Favoring clever robust design over…
Category: Soviet History
Cold War Files: The Ghost of Soviet Past
CRAWLING THROUGH THE DECAYED NUCLEAR MISSILE BASES OF THE USSR Editor’s note: In December 2015, two Army intelligence officers set out on a trip to explore the mysterious remnants of the Soviet Union in the Baltic States. In the first of this two part series, they showed War on the Rocks readers what they saw…
World War Two Movies Worth A Damn: Cross of Iron (1977)
Sam Peckinpah is without a doubt, one of my favorite movie directors (and screenwriters) of all time. If you have not seen it already, I highly urge you to watch the 2004 Documentary “Sam Peckinpah’s West: The Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade.” It is a fitting tribute to a true artist.-SF ‘Cross of Iron’…
Curio and Relic Firearms Book Review: M91/30 Rifles & M38/M44 Carbines in 1941-1945
The full title is actually (deep breath) M91/30 Rifles and M38/M44 Carbines in 1941-1945: Accessories and Devices – History of Production, Development, and Maintenance, by Alexander Yuschenko and translated into English by Ryan Elliot. I saw this book mentioned a few weeks ago on a firearms discussion board, and figured I ought to get a copy,…
Socialism Sucks: The Political Rehabilitation of Che’ Guevera
It might surprise some of you to hear that I can be completely unreasonable and even aggressive about certain issues; the rest of you already know me well enough to expect it. I left all my social skills someplace in Eastern Europe. I’ve even been known to make an ass out of myself in public…
Modern Crime: “PutinFellas”
Putin’s Kleptocracy and the Russian Nationalized Mafia As deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin spent a lot of time with gangsters. He collaborated with the infamous Tambov and Malyshev organized crime groups to gain control of St. Petersburg’s gambling industry. He used his office to help launder mafia money and to…
On This Day in History: The Chernobyl Disaster
On this day, 30 Years Ago, in 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident to date occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear plant near Kiev in Ukraine. The full toll from this disaster is still being tallied, but experts believe that thousands of people died and as many as 70,000 suffered severe poisoning. In addition, a large…
Sweet Mother Russia: Putin’s “Gangster Rules”
Looking at some of the recent headlines in the news, you might almost feel as if you stepped back into a surreal time when the Cold War was not over and we lived with the constant threat that a war full of icy rhetoric could become hot with bullets and bombs. Putin, that lovable New/Old…
Espionage and Cold War Files: Extraordinary Lecture by Legendary Soviet Mole and Spy Kim Philby Emerges
A videotaped lecture by Kim Philby, one of the Cold War’s most recognizable espionage figures, has been unearthed in the archives of the Stasi, the Ministry of State Security of the former East Germany. During the one-hour lecture, filmed in 1981, Philby addresses a select audience of Stasi operations officers and offers them advice on…
Cold War Files: Tolkachev, The CIA’s Most Valuable Soviet Asset in the 80’s
How a troubled past turned a Soviet military engineer into one of the CIA’s most valuable spies. His family and friends called him Adik. His eyes were the color of ash, under a broad forehead and thick brown hair, with a crook in the bridge of his nose from a boyhood hockey accident. He stood…