OPERATION "UNEXPECTED" - the plan of the Allied attack on the USSR in 1945

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The events and facts discussed in this article seem incredible and unthinkable. It is really hard to believe in them, how difficult it is for a normal person to believe in the possibility of betraying someone whom he considered an ally and friend. And yet it was.

For a long time this information was kept secret and only now it becomes available. It will be about the plan for a surprise attack on the USSR in the summer of 1945, developed by the allies, a plan that was thwarted at the very last moment.

The third world war was supposed to begin on July 1, 1945 with a sudden blow by the united Angosaxon forces on the Soviet troops … Nowadays very few people know this, just as how Stalin managed to thwart the plans of "probable allies", why we were forced to hastily take Berlin, against whom the British instructors in April 45 trained the undisbanded divisions of the Germans who surrendered to them, why Dresden was destroyed with inhuman cruelty in February 1945, and whom exactly the Anglo-Saxons wanted to intimidate.

According to the official models of the history of the late USSR, the true reasons for this were not explained in schools - then there was a "struggle for peace", a "new thinking" was already ripening at the top and the legend of "honest allies - the USA and Great Britain" was welcomed in every possible way. And then few documents were published - this period was hidden for many reasons. In recent years, the British began to partially open the archives of that period, there is no one to fear - the USSR is no longer there.

At the beginning of April 1945, just before the end of the Great Patriotic War, W. Churchill, the Prime Minister of our ally, Great Britain, ordered his chiefs of staff to develop an operation for a surprise strike against the USSR - Operation Unthinkable. It was provided to him on May 22, 1945 in 29 pages.

According to this plan, the attack on the USSR was to begin following Hitler's principles - with a sudden blow. On July 1, 1945, 47 British and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians who did not expect such boundless meanness from their allies. The attack was supposed to be supported by 10-12 German divisions, which the "allies" kept undisturbed in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark, they were trained daily by British instructors: they were preparing for war against the USSR. In theory, a war of the united forces of Western civilization against Russia was to begin - later other countries, for example, Poland, then Hungary were to participate in the "crusade" … The war was supposed to lead to the complete defeat and surrender of the USSR. The ultimate goal was to end the war in about the same place where Hitler planned to end it according to the Barbarossa plan - at the Arkhangelsk-Stalingrad line.

The Anglo-Saxons were preparing to crush us with terror - the savage destruction of large Soviet cities: Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, Murmansk and others with crushing blows of waves of "flying fortresses". Several million Russian people were to die in the "fiery whirlwinds" worked out to the smallest detail. So Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were destroyed … Now they were preparing to do this with us, with the allies. The usual thing: the most vile betrayal, extreme meanness and savage cruelty are the hallmark of Western Civilization and, especially, the Anglo-Saxons, who exterminated as many people as no other nation in human history.

Dresden after bombardment using the "fire tornado" technology. The Anglo-Saxons wanted to do the same with us

However, on June 29, 1945, the day before the planned start of the war, the Red Army suddenly changed its deployment for the insidious enemy. It was the decisive weight that shifted the scales of history - the order was not given to the Anglo-Saxon troops. Prior to this, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, showed the power of the Soviet Army and the enemy's military experts were inclined to cancel the attack on the USSR. Fortunately, Stalin was at the helm of the USSR.

The naval forces of Great Britain and the United States then had absolute superiority over the Soviet Navy: 19 times against destroyers, 9 times against battleships and large cruisers, and 2 times against submarines. More than a hundred aircraft-carrying ships and several thousand aircraft carrier-based aircraft against zero from the USSR. The "probable ally" had 4 air armies of heavy bombers capable of delivering crushing blows. Soviet long-range bomber aviation was incomparably weaker.

In April 1945, the Allies presented our troops as exhausted and exhausted, and our military equipment as worn out to the limit. Their military experts were greatly surprised by the power of the Soviet Army, which it demonstrated during the capture of Berlin, which they considered impregnable. There is no doubt that the conclusion of the great historian V. Falin is correct - Stalin's decision to storm Berlin in early May 1945 prevented the third world war. This is confirmed by recently declassified documents. Otherwise Berlin would have been surrendered to the "allies" without a fight, and the combined forces of all of Europe and North America would have attacked the USSR.

Even after the capture of Berlin, plans for a treacherous strike continued to be developed at full speed. They were stopped only by the fact that they realized that their plans had been revealed and the strategists' calculations showed that it would not be possible to break the USSR without a sudden blow. There was another important reason why the Americans objected to the British - they needed the USSR to crush the Kwantung Army in the Far East, without which the US victory over Japan on its own was in question.

Stalin was unable to prevent the Second World War, but he was able to prevent the third. The situation was extremely serious, but the USSR won again without flinching.

Now in the West they are trying to present Churchill's plan as a "response" to the "Soviet threat", to Stalin's attempt to conquer all of Europe.

“Did the Soviet leadership at that time have plans for an offensive to the shores of the Atlantic and the capture of the British Isles? This question should be answered in the negative. Confirmation of this is the law adopted by the USSR on June 23, 1945 on the demobilization of the army and navy, their consecutive transfer to the states of peacetime. Demobilization began on July 5, 1945 and ended in 1948. The army and navy were reduced from 11 million to less than 3 million people, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters were abolished. The number of military districts in 1945-1946 decreased from 33 to 21. The number of troops in East Germany, Poland and Romania was significantly reduced. In September 1945, Soviet troops were withdrawn from northern Norway, in November from Czechoslovakia, in April 1946 from the island of Bornholm (Denmark), in December 1947 from Bulgaria …

Did the Soviet leadership know about the British plans for a war against the USSR? This question, perhaps, can be answered in the affirmative … This is indirectly confirmed by a prominent connoisseur of the history of the Soviet armed forces, Professor of the University of Edinburgh D. Erickson. In his opinion, Churchill's plan helps explain “why Marshal Zhukov unexpectedly decided in June 1945 to regroup his forces, received orders from Moscow to strengthen the defenses and to study in detail the deployment of the Western Allies' troops. Now the reasons are clear: obviously, Churchill's plan became known in advance to Moscow and the Stalinist General Staff took appropriate countermeasures (Rzheshevsky Oleg Aleksandrovich Military-historical research

A brief "extract" from the materials of an interview with our largest expert on this issue, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Falin:

It is difficult to find in the past century a politician equal to Churchill in his ability to confuse strangers and friends. But the future Sir Winston was especially successful in terms of pharisaism and intrigue in relation to the Soviet Union.

In his letters to Stalin, he "prayed that the Anglo-Soviet Union would be a source of many benefits for both countries, for the United Nations and for the whole world," and wished "complete success for this noble enterprise." This meant a broad offensive by the Red Army along the entire eastern front in January 1945, which was hastily preparing in response to the plea of Washington and London to provide assistance to the allies in crisis in the Ardennes and Alsace. But this is in words. In fact, Churchill considered himself free from any obligations to the Soviet Union.

It was then that Churchill gave orders to stockpile captured German weapons with an eye on its possible use against the USSR, placing the surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers and officers as subdivisions in Schleswig-Holstein and in southern Denmark. Then the general meaning of the insidious undertaking started by the British leader will become clear. The British took under their protection the German units, which surrendered without resistance, sent them to southern Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. In total, about 15 German divisions were stationed there. The weapons were stored, and the personnel trained for future battles. In late March and early April, Churchill gave his headquarters the order to prepare Operation Unthinkable - with the participation of the United States, Britain, Canada, Polish corps and 10-12 German divisions, to begin hostilities against the USSR. The third world war was supposed to break out on July 1, 1945.

Their plan was clearly spelled out: the Soviet troops at this moment will be exhausted, the equipment that participated in the hostilities in Europe is worn out, food supplies and medicines will come to an end. Therefore, it will not be difficult to push them back to the pre-war borders and force Stalin to resign. A change of state system and a split in the USSR awaited us. As a measure of intimidation - the bombing of cities, in particular, Moscow. She, according to the plans of the British, was waiting for the fate of Dresden, which, as you know, the allied aviation, leveled to the ground.

American General Patton, the commander of the tank armies, bluntly stated that he did not plan to stop at the demarcation line along the Elbe agreed in Yalta, but to move on. To Poland, from there to Ukraine and Belarus - and so on to Stalingrad. And to end the war where Hitler did not have time and could not end it. He called us nothing more than "the heirs of Genghis Khan, who must be expelled from Europe." After the end of the war, Patton was appointed governor of Bavaria, and soon removed from his post for sympathizing with the Nazis.

General Patton

London has long denied the existence of such a plan, but a few years ago the British declassified part of their archives, and among the documents were papers concerning the Unthinkable plan. There is nowhere to dissociate oneself …

Let me emphasize that this is not speculation, not a hypothesis, but a statement of a fact that has a proper name. American, British, Canadian forces, the Polish Expeditionary Force and 10-12 German divisions were to take part in it. The ones that were kept undeveloped had been trained by English instructors a month before.

Eisenhower in his memoirs admits that the Second Front practically did not exist at the end of February 1945: the Germans were retreating to the east without resistance. The tactics of the Germans were as follows: to hold, as far as possible, positions along the entire line of the Soviet-German confrontation until the virtual Western and real Eastern fronts closed, and the American and British troops would, as it were, take over from the Wehrmacht formations in repelling the "Soviet threat "hanging over Europe.

Churchill at this time, in correspondence, telephone conversations with Roosevelt, was trying to convince at all costs to stop the Russians, not to let them into Central Europe. This explains the importance that the capture of Berlin had acquired by that time.

It is appropriate to say that the Western allies could advance eastward a little faster than they could if the headquarters of Montgomery, Eisenhower and Alexander (the Italian theater of military operations) better planned their actions, better coordinated forces and means, spent less time on internal squabbles and finding a common denominator. Washington, while Roosevelt was alive, for various reasons was in no hurry to put an end to cooperation with Moscow. And for Churchill, "the Soviet Moor did his job, and he should have been removed."

Let's remember that Yalta ended on February 11. In the first half of February 12, the guests flew home. In Crimea, by the way, it was agreed that the aviation of the three powers would adhere to certain lines of demarcation in their operations. And on the night of February 12-13, bombers of the Western Allies wiped out Dresden, then walked through the main enterprises in Slovakia, in the future Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, so that the factories would not get to us intact. In 1941, Stalin suggested that the British and Americans bomb the oil fields in Ploiesti using the Crimean airfields. No, they did not touch them then. They were raided in 1944, when Soviet troops approached the main center of oil production, which had been supplying Germany with fuel throughout the war.

One of the main targets of the raids on Dresden was the bridges over the Elbe. The Churchill's directive, which was shared by the Americans, was in effect, to detain the Red Army as far as possible in the East. In the briefing before the departure of the British crews, it was said: it is necessary to clearly demonstrate to the Soviets the capabilities of the allied bomber aviation. So they demonstrated it. Moreover, more than once. In April 1945, Potsdam was bombed. Oranienburg was destroyed. We were notified that the pilots were mistaken. They seemed to be aiming at Zossen, where the headquarters of the German Air Force was located. The classic "distraction" statement that was innumerable. Oranienburg was bombed on the orders of Marshall and Lega, because there were laboratories working with uranium. So that neither laboratories, nor personnel, nor equipment, nor materials fall into our hands, everything has been turned to dust.

Why did the Soviet leadership make great sacrifices literally at the end of the war, then again we have to ask ourselves - was there room for choice? In addition to pressing military tasks, it was necessary to solve political and strategic puzzles for the future, including erecting obstacles to the adventure planned by Churchill.

Attempts were made to influence partners by a good example. From the words of Vladimir Semyonov, a Soviet diplomat, I know the following. Stalin invited Andrei Smirnov, who was then the head of the 3rd European Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and concurrently the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR, to discuss, with the participation of Semyonov, options for action in the territories set aside for Soviet control.

Smirnov reported that our troops, pursuing the enemy, went beyond the demarcation lines in Austria, as agreed in Yalta, and suggested de facto stake out our new positions in anticipation of how the United States would behave in similar situations. Stalin interrupted him and said: "Wrong. Write a telegram to the allied powers." And he dictated: "The Soviet troops, pursuing parts of the Wehrmacht, were forced to cross the line previously agreed upon between us. I hereby want to confirm that at the end of hostilities, the Soviet side will withdraw its troops into the established zones of occupation."

On April 12, the US embassy, state and military institutions received Truman's instructions: all documents signed by Roosevelt are not subject to execution. This was followed by a command to toughen up the position in relation to the Soviet Union. On April 23, Truman holds a meeting at the White House, where he declares: “Enough, we are no longer interested in an alliance with the Russians, and therefore we may not fulfill the agreements with them. We will solve the problem of Japan without the help of the Russians.” He set himself the goal of “making the Yalta agreements non-existent, as it were”.

Truman was close to not hesitating to announce the break of cooperation with Moscow publicly. The military literally rebelled against Truman, with the exception of General Patton, who commanded the US armored forces. By the way, the military also thwarted the Unthinkable plan. They were interested in the entry of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan. Their arguments to Truman: if the USSR does not side with the United States, then the Japanese will transfer a million-strong Kwantung army to the islands and will fight with the same fanaticism as it was in Okinawa. As a result, the Americans will only lose from one to two million people killed.

In addition, the Americans had not yet tested a nuclear bomb at that time. And public opinion in the States would not have understood such a betrayal then. American citizens were then mostly sympathetic to the Soviet Union. They saw what losses we are suffering for the sake of a common victory over Hitler. As a result, according to eyewitnesses, Truman broke down a little and agreed with the arguments of his military experts. “Well, if you think so that they should help us with Japan, let them help, but we will end our friendship with them,” concludes Truman. Hence such a tough conversation with Molotov, who wondered what had suddenly happened. Truman here already relied on the atomic bomb.

In addition, the American military, like, indeed, their British counterparts, believed that it was easier to start a war with the Soviet Union than to successfully end it. The risk seemed to them too great - the storming of Berlin made a sobering impression on the British. The conclusion of the chiefs of staff of British troops was unequivocal: a blitzkrieg against the Russians would not work, and they did not dare to get involved in a protracted war.

So, the position of the US military is the first reason. The second is the Berlin operation. Third, Churchill lost the election and was left without power. And finally, the fourth - the British commanders themselves were against the implementation of this plan, because the Soviet Union, as they were convinced, was too strong.

Note that the United States not only did not invite England to participate in this war, they squeezed her out of Asia. Under the agreement of 1942, the US line of responsibility was not limited to Singapore, but also concerned China, Australia, and New Zealand.

Stalin, and this was a major analyst, bringing everything together, said: "You are showing what your aviation can do, and I will show you what we can do on the ground." He demonstrated the striking firepower of our Armed Forces so that neither Churchill, nor Eisenhower, nor Marshall, nor Patton, or anyone else would have a desire to fight the USSR. Behind the determination of the Soviet side to take Berlin and reach the line of demarcation, as they were designated in Yalta, there was an overriding task - to prevent the British leader's adventure with the implementation of the Unthinkable plan, that is, the escalation of World War II into the Third. If this had happened, there would have been thousands and thousands of times more victims!

Were such high sacrifices justified for the sake of taking Berlin under our control? After I had a chance to read in full the original British documents - they were declassified 5-6 years ago - when I compared the information contained in these documents with the data that I had to get acquainted with in the 1950s on duty, a lot settled in their places and part of the doubts disappeared. If you like, the Berlin operation was a reaction to the "Unthinkable" plan, the feat of our soldiers and officers during its implementation was a warning to Churchill and his associates.

The political scenario of the Berlin operation belonged to Stalin. The general author of its military component was Georgy Zhukov.

The Wehrmacht intended to arrange a second Stalingrad on the streets of Berlin. Now on the Spree River. Establishing control over the city was a daunting task. On the approaches to Berlin, it was not enough to overcome the Seelow Heights, to break through with heavy losses seven lines equipped for long-term defense. On the outskirts of the Reich capital and on the main city highways, the Germans buried tanks, turning them into armored pillboxes. When our units left, for example, on Frankfurter Allee, the street led straight to the center, they were met by heavy fire, which again cost us many lives …

When I think about all this, my heart still flutters - wouldn't it have been better to close the ring around Berlin and wait until he surrenders himself? Was it really necessary to plant the flag on the Reichstag, damn it? During the capture of this building, hundreds of our soldiers were killed.

Stalin insisted on the Berlin operation. He wanted to show the initiators of the "Unthinkable" the fire and striking power of the Soviet armed forces. With a hint, the outcome of the war is decided not in the air and at sea, but on the ground.

One thing is certain. The battle for Berlin sobered many dashing heads and thus fulfilled its political, psychological and military purpose. And there were more than enough heads in the West, intoxicated by a relatively easy success in the spring of 1945. Here is one of them - the American tank general Patton. He hysterically demanded not to stop on the Elbe, but, without delay, to move US troops through Poland and Ukraine to Stalingrad in order to end the war where Hitler was defeated. This Patton called you and me "the descendants of Genghis Khan." Churchill, in turn, was also not distinguished by scrupulousness in expressions. The Soviet people followed him for "barbarians" and "wild monkeys". In short, the "subhuman theory" was not a German monopoly. Patton was ready to start the war on the move and go … to Stalingrad!

The storming of Berlin, hoisting the banner of Victory over the Reichstag were, of course, not only a symbol or the final chord of the war. And least of all propaganda. It was a matter of principle for the army to enter the enemy's lair and thus mark the end of the most difficult war in Russian history. From here, from Berlin, the soldiers believed, a fascist beast crawled out, bringing immeasurable grief to the Soviet people, the peoples of Europe, and the whole world. The Red Army came there in order to start a new chapter in our history, and in the history of Germany itself, in the history of mankind …

Let us delve into the documents that, on Stalin's instructions, were being prepared in the spring of 1945 - in March, April and May. An objective researcher will be convinced that it was not the feeling of revenge that determined the outlined course of the Soviet Union. The country's leadership ordered to treat Germany as a defeated state, with the German people as responsible for unleashing the war. But … no one was going to turn their defeat into a punishment without a statute of limitations and without a term for a worthy future. Stalin realized the thesis put forward in 1941: Hitlers come and go, but Germany and the German people will remain.

Naturally, the Germans had to be forced to contribute to the restoration of the "scorched earth" that they left behind in the occupied territories. To fully compensate for the losses and damage caused to our country, the entire national wealth of Germany would not be enough. To take as much as possible, without hanging the life support of the Germans themselves, "to plunder more" - in this not too diplomatic language Stalin guided his subordinates on the issue of reparations. Not a single nail was superfluous in order to lift Ukraine, Belarus, and the Central regions of Russia from the ruins. More than four fifths of production facilities there were destroyed. More than a third of the population lost their homes. The Germans blew up, turned in a tailspin 80 thousand kilometers of the track, even broke the sleepers. All the bridges have been brought down. And 80 thousand km is more than all the railways in Germany before World War II combined.

At the same time, the Soviet command was given firm instructions to suppress the ugliness - the companions of all wars - in relation to the civilian population, especially to its female half and children. The rapists were subject to a military tribunal. It was all there.

At the same time, Moscow demanded to strictly punish any sorties, sabotage of the "underexpanded and incorrigible" that could take place in the defeated Berlin and on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone. Meanwhile, there were not so few who wanted to shoot the winners in the back. Berlin fell on May 2, and the "local battles" ended there ten days later. Ivan Ivanovich Zaitsev, he worked in our embassy in Bonn, told me that “he was always the most lucky.” The war ended on May 9, and he fought in Berlin until 11th. In Berlin, SS units of 15 resisted the Soviet troops Along with the Germans, the Norwegian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourgish and, God knows, what other Nazis acted there …

I would like to touch on how the Allies wanted to steal Victory Day from us by accepting the surrender of the Germans on May 7 in Reims. This essentially separate deal fit into the Unthinkable plan. It is necessary that the Germans capitulate only to the Western allies and be able to participate in the Third World War. Hitler's successor Dönitz said at this time: "We will end the war in front of England and the United States, which has lost its meaning, but we will continue the war with the Soviet Union." The surrender at Reims was in fact the brainchild of Churchill and Dönitz. The surrender agreement was signed on May 7 at 2:45 am.

Germany's "surrender" in Reims to the "allies"

It cost us enormous efforts to force Truman to agree to the surrender in Berlin, more precisely, in Karlhorst on May 9 with the participation of the USSR and the allies, to agree on Victory Day on May 9, because Churchill insisted: consider May 7 as the end of the war. By the way, there was another forgery in Reims. The text of the agreement on Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies was approved by the Yalta Conference; Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin signed it. But the Americans pretended to have forgotten about the existence of the document, which, by the way, lay in the safe of Chief of Staff Eisenhower Smith. Eisenhower's entourage, under the leadership of Smith, drew up a new document, "cleared" of the Yalta provisions undesirable for the allies. At the same time, the document was signed by General Smith on behalf of the Allies, and the Soviet Union was not even mentioned, as if it did not participate in the war. This is the kind of performance that took place in Reims. The document of surrender in Reims was handed over to the Germans before it was sent to Moscow.

Eisenhower and Montgomery refused to participate in the joint Victory Parade in the former capital of the Reich. Together with Zhukov, they were supposed to receive this parade. The conceived Victory Parade in Berlin nevertheless took place, but it was received by one Marshal Zhukov. This was in July 1945. And in Moscow, the Victory Parade took place, as you know, on June 24.

The death of Roosevelt turned into an almost lightning-fast change of landmarks in American politics. In his last message to the US Congress (March 25, 1945), the president warned: either the Americans will take responsibility for international cooperation - in implementing the decisions of Tehran and Yalta - or they will be responsible for a new world conflict. Truman was not embarrassed by this warning, this political testament of his predecessor. Pax Americana must be at the forefront.

Knowing that we will go to war with Japan, Stalin even gave the United States the exact date - August 8, Truman nevertheless gives the command to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. There was no need for this, Japan made a decision: as soon as the USSR declares war on it, it capitulates. But Truman wanted to show us his strength and therefore subjected Japan to atomic bombing.

Returning on the cruiser Augusta from the Potsdam conference in the United States, Truman gives Eisenhower an order: to prepare a plan for conducting an atomic war against the USSR.

In December 1945, a meeting of foreign ministers was held in Moscow. Truman's first secretary of state Byrnes, returning to the States and speaking on the radio on December 30, said: "After meeting with Stalin, I am more confident than ever that a world just by American standards is achievable." On January 5, 1946, Truman gives him a sharp rebuke: “Everything you said is nonsense. We do not need any compromise with the Soviet Union. We need a Pax Americana that will meet our proposals 80 percent.”

The war is going on, it did not end in 1945, it grew into the third world war, only waged in other ways. But here we must make a reservation. The Unthinkable plan failed as Churchill had conceived it. Truman had his own thoughts on this matter. He believed that the confrontation between the USA and the USSR did not end with the surrender of Germany and Japan. This is only the beginning of a new stage of the struggle. It is no coincidence that Kennan, Counselor of the Embassy in Moscow, seeing how Muscovites celebrated Victory Day on May 9, 1945 in front of the American Embassy, said: “They rejoice … They think the war is over. And the real war has just begun.”

Truman was asked: "How is the 'cold' war different from the 'hot' one? He replied: "This is the same war, only it is waged by different methods." And it was carried out and is being carried out for all subsequent years. The task was set to push us back from the positions we had reached. It is done. The task was to achieve the rebirth of people. As you can see, this task has been practically completed. By the way, the United States has fought and is waging a war not only with us. They threatened China, India with an atomic bomb … But their main enemy was, of course, the USSR.

According to American historians, twice on Eisenhower's desk were orders to deliver a preemptive strike against the USSR. According to their laws, the order comes into force if it is signed by all three chiefs of staff - sea, air and land. There were two signatures, the third was missing. And only because the victory over the USSR, according to their calculations, was achieved if 65 million of the country's population were destroyed in the first 30 minutes. The chief of staff of the ground forces knew that he would not provide this.

This should be studied in schools, told to children in families. Our children must learn with their spinal cord that the Anglo-Saxons are always happy to shoot a friend and ally in the back, especially a Russian. It must always be remembered that in the West they hate the Russian People with fierce zoological hatred - “Russians are worse than the Turks,” as it was said back in the 16th century. For hundreds of years, hordes of murderers have periodically rolled over Russia from the West to put an end to our civilization, and for hundreds of years the beaten crawl back and so on until the next time. It was the same at one time with the Khazars and Tatars, until Svyatoslav made a decision - there will be peace only if the enemy is crushed in his lair and the threat is ended forever. Ivan the Terrible adopted the same program, and as a result, the devastating raids of nomads that had tormented Russia for a thousand years ended forever. Otherwise, the enemy always chooses the time and place of the attack, which is convenient for him. The West is our enemy and will always remain so, no matter how we try to please him and negotiate, no matter what alliances we make.