The last frontier. The story of the battle that became a legend of the border troops

Sappers, orderlies, tank destroyers and hand-to-hand combat masters... These and other professions over the years Great Patriotic War mastered not only by people, but also by dogs. Dog handlers trained thousands of first-class four-legged fighters for the front, who performed difficult and responsible tasks, rescuing victims Soviet soldiers and destroying the enemy's strength. In the history of the war, there was a case when the dogs had to act against Germans armed to the teeth: 150 shepherd dogs along with 500 border guards heroically accepted unequal battle near the village of Legedzino in Cherkasy region...

Today, the monument to the heroic border guards and service dogs, installed in Legedzino in 2003 with voluntary donations from veterans and dog handlers. There are no analogues to this monument in the vastness former USSR you won’t find, and there are no precedents in the whole world when animals would take a full-fledged fight. However, at the end of July 1941, Soviet soldiers had no choice: the attack of the Germans, who planned to capture Kyiv in a matter of days, had to be urgently stopped.

The defense of the village of Legedzino was held by a detachment of border guards numbering 500 people. The soldiers fought heroically while they had ammunition, they managed to inflict a significant blow on enemy personnel and burn 17 tanks. The situation became critical when ammunition ran out and it was necessary to fight with bayonets against rifles and tanks. There was nowhere to wait for reinforcements, so the order was given to release the dogs onto the battlefield...

What happened next is impossible to imagine. The trained animals furiously attacked the enemy. Fearlessly they rushed forward, under the bullets, digging into the body of the Fritz, inflicting severe injuries, leaving lacerated wounds. The adrenaline level was so high that the dogs attacked even when they themselves were mortally wounded. They felt no pain, there was only rage in their embittered and hungry eyes.

The Nazis were shocked by what was happening. To stop the advance of the dog squad, they climbed onto the armor of tanks and shot the animals. In this terrible meat grinder, all 500 border guards died; the surviving dogs remained on the battlefield next to the bodies of their dead owners, not allowing anyone to get closer. The Germans shot many of the animals after breaking through the defenses. The dogs that managed to stay alive did not move, dooming themselves to starvation; the bodies of their owners lay nearby. According to the residents of Legedzino, one shepherd managed to get into the village, was reliably hidden from the Germans and nursed for a long time.

Having survived the horror of a dog attack, the Germans shot all the dogs they found in the village, even those that were chained and clearly did not pose a threat. For village residents, the fallen border guards and their four-legged companions are real heroes. When the Germans allowed Soviet soldiers to be buried from the battlefield, local residents dug a mass grave for everyone who died in this terrible battle. Dogs were buried with the same respect as warriors. The village residents hid the grave for a long time and talked about it years later, in peacetime. To preserve the memory of the dead border guards, after the battle, photographs were torn out from the surviving ID cards and books (one could pay with one’s life for storing documents), but after the war, identifying at least someone from the surviving photographs turned out to be problematic.

Today, the mass grave of the border guards is located near the local school; here the bodies of the soldiers were reburied in 1955. The monument to military personnel and dogs was erected on the outskirts of the village, where all the participants in those terrible events died a heroic death. Its grand opening took place on May 9, 2003, on the anniversary of Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War.

There is a memorial inscription on the monument that in July 1941, at this place, soldiers of the Separate Kolomyia Border Commandant’s Office launched their final attack on the enemy: 500 border guards and 150 of their service dogs. Next to the monument depicting a fighting shepherd dog, it says: “Raised by border guards, they (the dogs) were faithful to them to the end.”

The places where these fierce battles took place in the summer of 1941 are popularly called Green Brama. In total, by August there were about 130-140 thousand Soviet soldiers here; only 11 thousand soldiers and officers managed to survive in the bloody battles, and even then, mainly those who were in the rear.

There are monuments to animals that died during the war in other countries of the world. Thus, the monument in London is dedicated terrible event- before the start of World War II, at the urgent request of the government...

Many of us have heard about the four-legged heroes of the Great Patriotic War. They served in different regiments and performed different tasks: there were miner dogs, postman dogs, anti-tank dogs, ambulance dogs (who carried the wounded from the battlefield) and, of course, border guard dogs. It is about the latter that my story today will be.

The fact of dogs fighting against people is still for some unknown reason is almost unknown. Meanwhile, the episode of the Second World War, when 150 border dogs tore apart an entire German regiment in hand-to-hand combat, is worthy of at least coverage.

The year was 1941. According to Hitler's plan, the German army was supposed to occupy Kyiv on August 3. And already on the 8th, the Ukrainian capital was supposed to host a victory parade, in which the “great” Fuhrer himself would participate. In order to meet the deadline, the forces of 22 SS divisions and the 49th Mountain Rifle Corps were sent to break through our defenses between Cherkassy and Uman (Green Brama). The elite of the German army is part of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler!

On Green Brama, the Germans almost completely destroyed the 6th and 12th soviet armies Southwestern Front: out of 130,000, only 11,000 fighters left the cordon. At the same time, the retreating battalion of the Kolomyia border detachment arrived here with dogs. The food was running out, and the border guards unfastened their collars, releasing their beloved pets, but they continued to walk alongside, remaining faithful to their owners.

Covering the village Legedzino On July 30, the withdrawal of other units, 500 border guards were surrounded by an entire German formation with armored vehicles and artillery.

The Russians took the last stand!

When the last cartridge was fired, Major Lopatin raised the soldiers into hand-to-hand combat. The remaining fighters ran towards the enemy, running so that they could strangle at least one German enemy before death.

And then, overtaking the owners, their faithful fighting dogs rushed forward. 150 half-starved dogs, the very last reserve, fearlessly ran towards the enemy under a hail of bullets and shells. The picture was terrible: the dogs rushed onto the tree trunks and, even dying, bit into German throats in their death throes. Horror, screams, screams of bleeding German soldiers torn to shreds! The enemy fled. When they reached the tanks, the Nazis climbed onto the armor and shot the animals from there.

All the border guards died that day.

As local residents said, the surviving dogs lay next to the bodies of their owners, guarding them. The Germans shot them point blank. Several who miraculously survived remained lying on the battlefield near their guides, refusing the food that the local residents brought them. The faithful four-legged warriors died of wounds and hunger.

The enraged invaders then killed all the dogs in the village of Legedzino. Alexander Fuka, a researcher, reports that local residents were so amazed by the heroism of the border guards and their pets that half of the village proudly wore the green caps of the fallen soldiers.

Only in 2003, with the help and funds of veterans, was a monument to the Soviet soldier and his true friend.

In the Cherkasy region there is a unique monument to 150 border dogs who “torn” a regiment of fascists in hand-to-hand combat. This is the only battle between people and dogs in the history of world wars and conflicts that took place in the very center of Ukraine many years ago, and it was like this... It was the third month war, or rather, it had just begun when, at the end of July, events occurred that for the first time changed the course of the Great Patriotic War, or the entire course of the “Eastern Company,” as the war was called at Hitler’s headquarters. Few people know that by his own order, Kyiv was supposed to fall by August 3, and on the 8th Hitler himself was going to come to the “victory parade” in the capital of Ukraine, and not alone, but with the leader of Italy Mussolini and the dictator of Slovakia Tisso.

It was not possible to take Kyiv head-on, and an order was received to bypass it from the south... So it appeared in people’s rumors scary word"Green Brahma", an area not shown on any maps of the great battles of the Great War. This wooded and hilly area on the right bank of the Sinyukha River, near the villages of Podvysokoe in the Novoarkhangelsk district of the Kirovograd region and Legezino Talnovsky district of the Cherkasy region is only known today as one of the most tragic events of the first months of the Great Patriotic War. And even then, thanks to the fact that the famous songwriter Evgeniy Aronovich Dolmatovsky took part in the fierce battles during the Uman defensive operation.

With the publication of his book "Green Brahma" (full format) in 1985, the secret of "Green Brahma" was revealed... In these places, the 6th and 12th armies of the South were surrounded and almost completely destroyed. -Western Front of Generals Muzychenko and Ponedelin. By the beginning of August, they numbered 130 thousand people, 11 thousand soldiers and officers, mainly from the rear units, came out from Brama to their own. The rest were either captured or remained forever in the Green Brama tract...

In a separate battalion border detachment guarding the rear of the Southwestern Front, which was created on the basis of the Separate Kolomiysk Border Commandant's Office and the border detachment of the same name, retreating from the border with heavy fighting, there were service dogs. They, together with the fighters of the border detachment, steadfastly endured all the hardships of the harsh times. The battalion commander, who is also the deputy chief of staff of the Kolomiysk border detachment, Major Lopatin (according to other sources, the combined detachment was commanded by Major Filippov), despite the extreme bad conditions maintenance, lack of proper food and the command’s proposals to release the dogs, he did not do this. Near the village of Legedzino, the battalion, covering the withdrawal of the headquarters units of the command of the Uman army group, took its last battle on July 30... The forces were too unequal: against half a thousand border guards, a regiment of fascists. And at a critical moment, when the Germans went to another attack, Major Lopatin gave the order to send border guards and service dogs into hand-to-hand combat with the Nazis. This was the last reserve.

The sight was terrible: 150 (various data - from 115 to 150 border dogs, including those from the Lviv border school service dog breeding) trained, half-starved shepherd dogs, against the Nazis pouring machine-gun fire on them. Shepherd dogs dug into the throats of the Nazis even in their death throes. The enemy, literally bitten and hacked to pieces with bayonets, retreated, but tanks came to help. The bitten German infantrymen, with lacerations, with screams of horror, jumped onto the armor of the tanks and shot the poor dogs. In this battle, all 500 border guards died, not one of them surrendered. And the surviving dogs, according to eyewitnesses - residents of the village of Legedzino, remained faithful to their handlers to the end. Each of those who survived in that meat grinder lay down next to their owner and did not let anyone near him. German animals shot every shepherd, and those of them who were not shot by the Germans refused food and died of hunger in the field... Even the village dogs got it - the Germans shot large dogs villagers, even those who were on a leash. Only one shepherd was able to crawl to the hut and fell at the door.

Devotee four-legged friend sheltered, went out, and by the collar on her the villagers knew that they were border dogs not only the Kolomiya Border Commandant's Office, but also special school service dog breeding captain M.E. Kozlova. After that battle, when the Germans collected their dead, according to the recollections of the village residents (unfortunately there are few left in this world) it was allowed to bury the Soviet border guards. Everyone who was found was gathered in the center of the field and buried, along with their faithful four-legged assistants, and the secret of the burial was hidden for many years... Alexander Fuka, a researcher of that memorable battle, says that the memory of the heroism of the border guards and their assistants among the village residents was so great that, despite the presence of the German occupation administration and a detachment of policemen, half the village of boys proudly wore the green caps of the dead. And the local residents who buried the border guards, hiding from the Nazis, tore out photographs of the dead from the Red Army books and officer’s certificates, in order to later send them for identification (it was necessary to store such documents mortal danger, so it was not possible to establish the names of the characters). And the planned triumphal meeting between Hitler and Mussolini took place on August 18, but, of course, not in Kyiv, but there, near Legedzino, on the road that led to Talny and which the Soviet border guards held as their border.

Only in 1955, the residents of Legedzino were able to collect the remains of almost all 500 border guards and move them to the village school, near which there is a mass grave. And on the outskirts of the village, where the only hand-to-hand fight in the world between people and dogs and the Nazis took place, on May 9, 2003, on voluntary donations from veterans of the Great Patriotic War, border troops and dog handlers of Ukraine, the world’s only monument to a man with a gun and his faithful friend - dog. There is no such monument anywhere else. “Stop and bow. Here in July 1941, soldiers of the separate Kolomyia border commandant’s office launched their final attack on the enemy. 500 border guards and 150 of their service dogs died a heroic death in that battle. They remained forever faithful to their oath and their native land.” Today the faces of only two dead border guards are known.

While another monument is being demolished in Ukraine (this time Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov), we want to talk about the still “living” monument - in the Cherkassy region there is a unique monument to 150 border dogs who “torn” a fascist regiment in hand-to-hand combat!

This battle, the only one in the history of world wars, between people and dogs took place in the very center of Ukraine many years ago, it was like this... It was the third month of the war, or rather, it had just begun, when at the end of July events took place that for the first time changed the course of the Great Patriotic War, or the entire the progress of the “Eastern Company,” as the war was called at Hitler’s headquarters. Few people know that by his own order, Kyiv was supposed to fall by August 3, and on the 8th Hitler himself was going to come to the “victory parade” in the capital of Ukraine, along with the leader of Italy Mussolini and the dictator of Slovakia Tisso. It was not possible to take Kyiv head-on, and an order was received to bypass it from the south... So the terrible word “Green Gate” appeared in people’s rumors, an area not indicated on any battle maps. This wooded and hilly area on the right bank of the Sinyukha River, near the villages of Podvysokoe in the Novoarkhangelsk district of the Kirovograd region and Legezino Talnovsky district of the Cherkasy region is today known as one of the most tragic places in the first months of the Great Patriotic War.
In these places, the 6th and 12th armies of the Southwestern Front of Generals Muzychenko and Ponedelin, departing from the western border, were surrounded and almost completely destroyed. By the beginning of August, they numbered 130 thousand people, 11 thousand soldiers and officers, mainly from the rear units, came out from Brama to their own. The rest were either captured or remained forever in the Green Brama tract...
In a separate battalion of the border guard detachment of the rear of the South-Western Front, which was created on the basis of the Separate Kolomiysk border commandant's office and the border detachment of the same name, retreating from the border with heavy fighting, there were service dogs. They, together with the fighters of the border detachment, steadfastly endured all the hardships of the harsh times. The battalion commander, Major Lopatin (according to other sources, the combined detachment was commanded by Major Filippov), despite the extremely poor conditions of detention, the lack of proper food and the command’s proposals to release the dogs, did not do this. Near the village of Legedzino, the battalion, covering the withdrawal of the headquarters units of the command of the Uman army group, took its last battle on July 30...
The forces were too unequal: there was a regiment of fascists against half a thousand border guards. And at a critical moment, when the Germans launched another attack, Major Lopatin gave the order to send border guards and service dogs into hand-to-hand combat with the Nazis. This was the last reserve. The spectacle was terrible: 150 trained, half-starved shepherd dogs against the Nazis pouring machine-gun fire on them. Shepherd dogs dug into the throats of the Nazis even in their death throes. The enemy, literally bitten and chopped down with bayonets, retreated, but tanks came to help. The bitten German infantrymen, with lacerated wounds and screams of horror, jumped onto the armor of the tanks and shot the poor dogs.
In this battle, all 500 border guards died, not one of them surrendered. And the surviving dogs, according to eyewitnesses - residents of the village of Legedzino, remained faithful to their handlers to the end. Each of those who survived in that meat grinder lay down next to their owner and did not let anyone near him. The German animals shot every shepherd dog, and those of them who were not shot by the Germans refused food and died of hunger in the field... Even the village dogs got it - the Germans shot the large dogs of the villagers, even those who were on a leash. Only one shepherd was able to crawl to the hut and fell at the door. They sheltered their devoted four-legged friend, went out, and by the collar the villagers learned that these were border dogs not only of the Kolomiysk Border Commandant's Office, but also of the special school of service dog breeding of Captain M.E. Kozlova.
After that battle, when the Germans collected their dead, according to the recollections of the village residents, it was allowed to bury the Soviet border guards. Everyone who was found was gathered in the center of the field and buried along with their faithful four-legged helpers, and the secret of the burial was hidden for many years...
Researchers of that memorable battle say that the memory of the heroism of the border guards and their assistants among the village residents was so great that, despite the presence of the German occupation administration and a detachment of policemen, half the village boys proudly wore the green caps of the dead. And the local residents who were burying the border guards, hiding from the Nazis, tore out photographs of the dead from the Red Army books and officer’s ID cards in order to later send them for identification (keeping such documents was a mortal danger, so it was not possible to establish the names of the heroes). And the planned triumphal meeting between Hitler and Mussolini took place on August 18, but, of course, not in Kyiv, but there, near Legedzino, on the road that led to Talny and which the Soviet border guards held as their border.
Only in 1955, the residents of Legedzino were able to collect the remains of almost all 500 border guards and move them to the village school, near which there is a mass grave. And on the outskirts of the village, where the only hand-to-hand fight in the world between people and dogs and the Nazis took place, on May 9, 2003, on voluntary donations from veterans of the Great Patriotic War, border troops and dog handlers of Ukraine, the world’s only monument to a man with a gun and his faithful friend - dog. There is no such monument anywhere else.
“Stop and bow. Here, in July 1941, soldiers of the separate Kolomyia border commandant’s office launched their final attack on the enemy. 500 border guards and 150 of their service dogs died the death of the brave in that battle. They remained forever faithful to their oath and their native land.”

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The battle near the Ukrainian village of Legedzino showed the strength of the spirit of the Soviet soldier

In the history of the Great Patriotic War there were a lot of battles and battles that, for one reason or another, remained, as they say, “behind the scenes” Great War. And although military historians have not left without attention practically not a single battle, or even a local clash, nevertheless, a number of battles initial period The Great Patriotic War has been studied very poorly, and this topic is still waiting for its researcher.

German sources mention such battles very sparingly, and on the Soviet side there is no one to mention them, since in the vast majority of cases there were simply no living witnesses left. However, the story of one of these “forgotten” battles, which took place on July 30, 1941 near the Ukrainian village of Legedzino, fortunately, has survived to this day, and the feat of Soviet soldiers will never be forgotten.

In fact, calling what happened at Legedzino a battle is not entirely correct: rather, it was an ordinary battle, one of the thousands that took place every day in the tragic July 1941 for our country, if not for one “but.” The battle at Legedzino has no analogues in the history of wars. Even by the standards of the terrible and tragic year of 1941, this battle went beyond all conceivable boundaries and clearly showed the Germans what kind of enemy they faced in the person of the Russian soldier. To be more precise, in that battle the Germans were opposed not even by units of the Red Army, but by the border troops of the NKVD - the same ones that only the lazy have not defamed over the past quarter century.

At the same time, many liberal historians point blank do not want to see the obvious facts: the border guards were not only the first to take the blow of the aggressor, but in the summer of 1941 they performed functions completely unusual for them, fighting the Wehrmacht. Moreover, they fought valiantly and sometimes no worse than the regular units of the Red Army. Nevertheless, they were en masse registered as executioners and called “Stalin’s guardsmen” - only on the grounds that they belonged to L.P.’s department. Beria.

After the tragic battles near Uman for the 6th and 12th armies of the Southwestern Front, which resulted in another “cauldron,” the remnants of the encircled 20 divisions tried to break through to the east. Some succeeded, some did not. But this does not mean at all that the surrounded units of the Red Army were “whipping boys” for the Germans. And although liberal historians paint a picture of the Wehrmacht’s summer offensive as a complete “drape” of the Red Army, millions of prisoners and bread and salt for Hitler’s “liberators” in Ukraine, this does not correspond to reality.

One of these historians, Mark Solonin, generally presented the confrontation between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army as a battle between the colonialists and the natives. Allegedly, against the backdrop of the French campaign, where Hitler’s troops suffered, in his opinion, significant losses, in the USSR in the summer of 1941 there was not a war, but almost an easy pleasure stroll: “A loss ratio of 1 to 12 is possible only in the case when white colonialists, who sailed to Africa with cannons and rifles, are advancing on the aborigines, who are defending themselves with spears and hoes” (M. Solonin. “June 23: M Day”). This is the description Solonin gave to our grandfathers, who won the most terrible war in the history of mankind, comparing them with aborigines armed with hoes.

The ratio of losses can be debated for a long time, but everyone knows how the Germans counted their killed soldiers. They still have dozens of divisions “missing in action,” especially those that were destroyed in the summer offensive of 1944. But let’s leave such calculations to the conscience of liberal historians and better turn to the facts, which, as we know, are stubborn things. And at the same time, let’s see what the Nazis’ “easy walk” across Ukraine at the end of July 1941 actually looked like.

On July 30, near the Ukrainian village of Legedzino, an attempt was made to stop the advancing Wehrmacht units with the forces of a combined battalion of border troops of a separate Kolomyia commandant’s office under the command of Major Rodion Filippov with the company of the Lviv border dog breeding school attached to him. Major Filippov had less than 500 border guards and about 150 service dogs at his disposal. The battalion did not have heavy weapons, and in general, simply by definition, it should not have fought in an open field with a regular army, especially one that was superior in number and quality. But this was the last reserve, and Major Filippov had no choice but to send his soldiers and dogs on a suicidal attack. Moreover, in a fierce battle that escalated into hand-to-hand combat, the border guards managed to stop the Wehrmacht infantry regiment opposing them. Many German soldiers were torn to pieces by dogs, many died in hand-to-hand combat, and only their appearance on the battlefield German tanks saved the regiment from a shameful flight. Of course, the border guards were powerless against tanks.

Monument to border guard heroes and service dogs. Photo from the site parabellum1941.narod.ru

No one from Filippov’s battalion survived. All five thousand fighters died, as did 150 dogs. Or rather, only one of the dogs survived: the wounded shepherd was rescued by the residents of Legedzino, even though after occupying the village the Germans shot all the dogs, including even those sitting on a chain. Apparently, they got it badly in that battle if they took out their anger on innocent animals.

The occupation authorities did not allow the dead border guards to be buried, and only by 1955 were the remains of all the dead soldiers of Major Filippov found and buried in a mass grave near a rural school. 48 years later, in 2003, with the help of voluntary donations from Ukrainian veterans of the Great Patriotic War and with the help of Ukrainian dog handlers, a monument to the heroic border guards and their four-legged pets who honestly and to the end, at a price own life, fulfilled their military duty.

Unfortunately, in the bloody whirlwind of the summer of 1941, it was not possible to establish the names of all the border guards. It didn’t work after that either. Many of them were buried unknown, and out of 500 people, the names of only two heroes were established. Five thousand border guards deliberately went to their death, knowing for sure that their attack against a well-equipped Wehrmacht regiment would be suicidal. But we must pay tribute to Major Filippov: before his death, he managed to see how Hitler’s warriors, who had conquered all of Europe, were torn to pieces and driven like hares by shepherd dogs and destroyed in hand-to-hand combat by his border guards. This moment was worth living and dying for...

Liberal historians, who are actively rewriting the history of the Great War, have been trying to tell us chilling tales about the bloody “exploits” of the NKVD for many years. But at least one of these “historians” remembered the feat of Major Filippov, who forever went down in the history of world wars as the man who stopped the Wehrmacht infantry regiment with the forces of just one battalion and working dogs!

Why did the now so revered Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after whom streets in Russian cities are named, not mention Major Filippov in his multi-volume works? For some reason, Alexander Isaevich preferred not to remember the heroes, but to describe the post-apocalyptic frozen barracks in Kolyma, which, in his words, were covered with the corpses of unfortunate prisoners “to keep warm.” It was for this cheap trash in the spirit of a low-budget Hollywood horror film that a street in the center of Moscow was named after him. In his name, and not in the name of Major Filippov, who accomplished an unprecedented feat!

The Spartan king Leonidas and his 300 fighters immortalized their name for centuries. Major Filippov, in conditions of total chaos of retreat, having 500 tired soldiers and 150 hungry dogs, went into immortality, not hoping for rewards and not hoping for anything at all. He simply launched a suicidal attack on machine guns with dogs and three-line guns and... won! At a terrible price, but he won those hours or days, which later allowed him to defend Moscow, and the whole country. So why doesn’t anyone write or make films about him?! Where are the great historians of our time? Why didn’t Svanidze and Mlechin say a word about the battle at Legedzino? journalistic investigation didn't remove Pivovarov? An episode unworthy of their attention?..

It seems to us that they won’t pay well for the hero Major Filippov, so no one needs him. It is much more interesting to savor, for example, the Rzhev tragedy, kicking Stalin and Zhukov, and simply ignore Major Filippov, and dozens of similar heroes. It's as if they all never existed...

But God be with them, with liberal historians. It would be much more interesting to imagine the moral state of the conquerors of Europe, who yesterday cheerfully marched through Paris, and near Legedzino they sadly looked at the torn pants on their butts and buried their comrades, for whom the victorious march ended in Ukraine. The Fuhrer promised them Russia - a colossus with feet of clay, poke it and it will fall apart; and what did they get in just the second month of the war?

But the Russians have not yet begun to fight, traditionally harnessing for a long time. Ahead there were still thousands of kilometers of territory where every bush was shooting; ahead were still Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge, as well as a people that was impossible to defeat simply by definition. And it was possible to understand all this already in Ukraine, when faced with the soldiers of Major Filippov. The Germans did not pay attention to this battle, considering it a completely insignificant clash, but in vain. For which many later paid.

If Hitler's generals had been a little smarter, like their Fuhrer, they would have already in the summer of 1941 begun to look for ways out of the adventure with the Eastern Front. It is possible to enter Russia, but few people managed to get back on their own two feet, which was once again very clearly proven by Major Filippov and his soldiers. It was then, in July 1941, long before Stalingrad and Kursk Bulge, the prospects for the Wehrmacht became hopeless.

Historians like Mark Solonin can talk about the ratio of losses as long as they like, but the fact remains: after a successful summer offensive, which ended on December 5 near Moscow with a knockout counterattack of the Red Army, the Wehrmacht ran back. He ran so fast that Hitler was forced to revive his scurrying army with barrage detachments. And it couldn’t be any other way: after all, it would be naive to believe that it would be possible to defeat people like Major Filippov and his fighters. Kill, yes, but not win. Therefore, the war ended the way it should have ended - in victorious May 1945. And the beginning Great Victory was initiated in the summer of 1941, when Major Filippov, his border guards and dogs went into immortality...