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| 1944 |
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| In January Novgorod in the north fell to the Russians (Jan. 20), and by February they had penetrated Estonia and were on the borders of prewar Poland. | 1 |
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| Feb. 17 |
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| Ten German divisions, trapped in a pocket near Cherkassy, were largely destroyed, and the survivors made prisoner. | 2 |
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| March 26 |
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| The Ukrainian drives carried the Russians to the Romanian border. Odessa fell to them on April 10 and Tarnopol on April 15. By May 9 they had taken Sevastopol, and the Crimea, like Ukraine, was cleared of invading forces. | 3 |
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| June 20 |
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| An offensive against the Finns delivered Vyborg into Soviet hands. Farther south Vitebsk fell to them (June 26) and Minsk (July 3). The opening of an Allied front in the west, following the invasion of Normandy (June 6), prevented the Germans from strengthening the eastern front, and July and August brought an almost unbroken series of Soviet triumphs. By the end of August they had reached the borders of East Prussia and were invading Poland and Romania. | 4 |
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| Aug. 24 |
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| The ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT SURRENDERED when Soviet troops reached the mouth of the Danube and captured Jassy and Kishinev. The capitulation of Romania trapped major units of the German Black Sea naval forces, although some of the smaller craft escaped up the Danube before the Russian advance closed that route. Soviet domination of the Black Sea opened a new and important supply route whereby cargoes could reach the Soviet Union. | 5 |
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| Sept. 5 |
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| The Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria. Three days later the Bulgarian government asked for an armistice (Sept. 8), and Soviet columns moved into Sofia (Sept. 16). | 6 |
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| Oct. 20 |
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| German forces of occupation in Yugoslavia were harassed increasingly by the partisans and failed to halt the advance of the Russians, who entered Belgrade (Oct. 20). Two weeks later they were at the gates of Budapest, but the Hungarian capital resisted savagely for over two months and was not conquered until Feb. 18, 1945. | 7 |
| Victorious in the Balkans, with their central armies pressing into Poland, and their northern (right) end of the line anchored on the Baltic after the capture of Tallinn (Sept. 22) and Riga (Oct. 13), the Russians opened their final drives into Germany (Jan. 1945). These maneuvers, synchronized with the Allied drives across the Rhine, merged into the Battle of Germany (See The Battle of Germany, 1945). | 8 |
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