🇷🇺 Excerpts from the statement by the Head of the Russian delegation at the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 11th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons:

📍 July 23, 2024, Geneva

☢️ The NPT remains a central element of the international security system. The Treaty is still effective and has proven its resilience and usefulness to all its parties. The successful functioning of the NPT-based international nuclear non-proliferation regime relies on a calibrated balance between the Treaty's three pillars: cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.

📉 We have to note with regret that the international security and strategic stability situation continues to deteriorate, as the number of conflicts is growing, their escalation is spiralling, and there is an obvious lack of readiness to engage in comprehensive work to ease tensions and build collective security on mutually acceptable terms. Most dangerously, a confrontation involving States possessing military nuclear capabilities is increasing.

🔥 Contradictions across the world have aggravated, bringing a number of brewing conflicts to their active phase and creating new hotbeds of tension. The US and its allies continue to intensify the Ukrainian crisis, which was triggered by NATO's unchecked expansion and the West's nurturing the anti-Russian Kiev regime relying on ultra-nationalist actors.

❗️ Desperate attempts to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia and remove our country from the international arena as a sovereign stronghold of those who struggle for a just, multi-polar world order, are fraught with a direct clash between nuclear powers. The Middle East conflict is expanding, which has already led to the use of "nuclear rhetoric". In the Asia-Pacific, the turbulence has intensified manifold, with rifts growing along various dividing lines and the nuclear factor gaining an increasing role.

🧯️ All members of the international community, both possessing nuclear weapons and not, should contribute to collective efforts to remedy the grave situation in global affairs and creating a favourable climate for disarmament. Urgent steps are required to extinguish the existing conflicts, as well as systemic measures to prevent new hotbeds of confrontation from escalating. Emphasis should be made on tackling the root causes of fundamental controversies relying on the principles of equality, indivisible security and mutual respect of each other's core interests.

📖 FULL STATEMENT

🏅 The Battle of the Caucasus, one of the most important battles of the Great Patriotic War, commenced on July 25, 1942. For 442 days, the outnumbered Red Army fought valiantly against the forces of Nazi Germany and its allies.

The goals of Hitler’s operation in the region were set out in the secret Directive No. 41of the German High Command that Hitler approved on April 5, 1942. The idea was “to seize the initiative again” and “force their will upon the enemy.” According to the plan, the main blow was supposed to target the southern sector of the Soviet-German front, “with the aim of destroying the enemy to the west of the Don River, in order to seize the Caucasian oilfields and then negotiate the passes across the Caucasus Mountains.” Without access to the Caucasian oil fields, the Third Reich’s war machine was doomed.

The Wehrmacht was ordered to annihilate the Southern Front forces and to capture the largest cities in the region including Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Grozny, and Baku.

For the USSR, the Caucasus was important as well. In addition to a significant number of oil fields in the region, the Black Sea Fleet was redeployed there after the loss of Sevastopol. In addition, most of the supplies sent to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act were channelled through Iran.

☝️ Therefore, the Red Army had to thwart the enemy’s advance at all costs, and after doing so, having exhausted the Nazis’ main forces in defensive battles, to press forward with a counteroffensive.

At first, the Nazis quickly advanced into the Caucasus. By early August, they had occupied Stavropol, Armavir, Maikop, Krasnodar, and Mozdok. By early September, tenacious battles began for a major Soviet port of Novorossiysk. The heaviest fighting unfolded in the central part of the Caucasus Range. It was there that the enemy was first forced to go on the defensive. After several unsuccessful attempts to break through towards Tuapse and Grozny, the Nazi’s offensive lost momentum.

In the winter of 1943, the Red Army began a major offensive. On January 3, Mozdok was liberated; Pyatigorsk was liberated on the 11th, Stavropol on the 21st, and Krasnodar, on February 12. As a result, the enemy was pushed back to the Taman Peninsula, where it continued to put up desperate resistance on layered defensive lines it had built in advance. Brutal battles in that theatre continued until October 9, 1943, until the last invader was thrown into the Kerch Strait.

During the Battle of the Caucasus, Soviet soldiers of all ethnicities showed exceptional heroism and high combat skills. The 588th Night Bomber Regiment under the command of Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, which the Nazis referred to as “Night Witches” with dread, earned nationwide renown. Gliding at extremely low altitudes, the brave women pilots approached the enemy’s positions and sowed panic and death among the invaders. For their military merit, 23 female pilots were awarded the high noscript of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the unit was later designated as the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Red Banner and Order of Suvorov Regiment.

❗️ During the Battle of the Caucasus, the enemy suffered enormous losses with over 275,000 soldiers and officers killed, and over 890 tanks, 2,000 aircraft, 2,127 guns, and more than 7,000 vehicles destroyed.

The offensive operations of 1943 marked a radical pivot in the Great Patriotic War, with the defenders of the Caucasus contributing to the reversal. The Red Army’s successes were due to the fast-growing capabilities of the Soviet defence industry, as well as the great skill and experience of Soviet commanders and soldiers.

🥇 The heroism of the defenders of the Caucasus was highly appreciated by the nation and the government. On January 25, 1943, the medal For the Defence of the Caucasus was instituted, which was awarded to many participants in the Battle of the Caucasus as well as home front workers.

🏅 On July 30, 1942, the Rzhev–Sychyovka offensive operation (The Battle of Rzhev) commenced in attempt to crush the Rzhev-Vyazma salient and neutralise the main forces of Army Group Centre, Germany’s most formidable military force, and making it impossible for the Wehrmacht to send part of these troops to Stalingrad and to the Caucasus.

📃 Here is how General Headquarters Directive No 170514 of July 16, 1942, described the Red Army’s mission:

“…the left wing of the Kalinin Front and the Western Front’s right wing must work together to carry out an operation designed to drive the enemy from the territories north of Volga near Rzhev, Zubtsov and east of Vazuza near Zubtsov, Karamzino, and Pogoreloye Gorodishche, while also capturing the cities of Rzhev and Zubtsov, reaching and taking position on the Volga and Vazuza, and creating bridgeheads near Rzhev and Zubtsov…”

🪖 The operation included the Kalinin Front’s 30th and 29th general troop armies, the 3rd Air Army under Colonel General Ivan Konev’s command, as well as the Western Front’s 31st and 20th general troop armies and the 1st Air Army under Georgy Zhukov’s command.

The Red Army command went to great lengths to plan the operation, but the weather interfered with their designs. Heavy rain on July 30, 1942, turned the roads into a muddy mess. Soldiers had to physically pull the guns and carry munitions on their backs, with their boots deep in mud as they tried to advance. Tanks would become stuck and could even sink in swampy terrain, especially the ones made by USSR’s allies and delivered under land-lease agreements. However, despite all these challenges, the Red Army started grinding through the Nazis’ multilayered defences, one step at a time.

⚔️ On August 21, after 20 days of gruelling combat, units of the Kalinin Front’s 30th Army took Polunino under their control and approached Rzhev’s suburbs from the northeast, while the 29th Army reached the Volga between Rzhev and Zubtsov.

On August 23, the Western Front’s 20th and 31st armies liberated Zubtsov, Kalinin Region, and Karmanovo, Smolensk Region, as part of Operation Pogoreloye Gorodishche.

☝️ It is the Red Army’s mass heroism, selfless dedication and unwavering determination to achieve victory that enabled the soldiers to advance between 40 and 45 kilometres and liberate three district centres, while also making it impossible for the adversary to send a major force elsewhere.

🎖 Hero of the Soviet Union noscripts were awarded to 43 Red Army personnel for their courage, valour and bravery during the Rzhev–Sychyovka offensive operation.