The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has opened a new multimedia section called "Reviving Ukraine from the ashes."

It presents previously unpublished documents from the funds of the Central Archive of the Military Department, dedicated to the contribution of the Red Army to the restoration of the national economy of the Ukrainian SSR.

“The presented archival documents indicate that the restoration of the national economy of Soviet Ukraine, destroyed to the ground by the German invaders, from its first steps took place with the active help of the Red Army and the peoples of all the fraternal republics of the USSR,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in an explanation.

"Give all possible assistance"

The liberation of Ukraine began in the winter of 1943 from the Donbass and ended in October 1944, when the Red Army ousted the Germans from Transcarpathia.

During the fighting and occupation, the Nazis inflicted colossal material damage on the Ukrainian SSR.

According to the Extraordinary State Commission for Establishing and Investigating the Atrocities of the Nazi Invaders, Ukraine's direct losses amounted to 285 billion rubles in pre-war prices.

This amount is almost five times higher than all capital investments in the national economy of the republic for almost three pre-war five-year plans (from 1928 to 1941).

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the war, Nazi Germany destroyed more than 700 cities, over 28 thousand villages and 16 thousand industrial enterprises of the Ukrainian SSR.

About 10 million residents of the republic were left homeless.

Thus, Ukraine lost its housing stock, the industrial base created by the titanic labor of the Soviet people during the period of industrialization, and suffered enormous losses in the agricultural sector.

The materials published by the Ministry of Defense indicate that the Third Reich treated the Ukrainian SSR as its own colony.

The Nazis mercilessly exploited the people and plundered the economic resources of the republic.

As reported in the decision of the military council of the 4th Ukrainian Front of November 19, 1943, the new owners destroyed almost all collective farms, state farms, industrial enterprises and socially significant objects.

According to the document, during the occupation, the Germans exported to Germany about 12 million tons of agricultural products and millions of livestock.

“Great damage was done to the local Ukrainian population by the German colonists, who stole not only their own cattle, but also the cattle of the local population, destroying their economy.

Many mines, large factories, power plants, urban transport, public utilities, hospitals, schools, residential buildings were blown up, destroyed and burned by the Nazis, ”the decree says.

However, with the expulsion of the Wehrmacht, the USSR managed to restart agriculture, mines and other enterprises in a short time.

As the Red Army advanced, it tried to recapture agricultural machinery and other property from the enemy in order to revive the agrarian complex of Ukraine.

  • Soviet soldiers in a liberated Ukrainian village

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Moreover, in a resolution of the military council of the 4th Ukrainian Front, units of the Red Army were ordered to assist the peasants in harvesting and restoring normal life, but not to the detriment of "military work."

The reference-report of the military council of the 46th Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front on rendering assistance to the population of the regions of Ukraine (for the period May-December 1943) refers to the assistance that Soviet soldiers provided in harvesting and grinding grain crops.

Parts of the 46th Army supplied the peasant farms of the Ukrainian SSR with fuel, horses, and various implements.

Also, Soviet soldiers helped to take out the grown agricultural products from the fields.

The Red Army made a significant contribution to the sowing campaign in Zaporozhye and the Nikolaev region in early 1944.

So, in the resolution of the military council of the 4th Ukrainian Front of March 18, 1944, specific measures were prescribed to mobilize human and material resources to launch the sowing campaign.

  • Decree of the military council of the 4th Ukrainian Front of March 18, 1944

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

The document exempted the entire local civilian population from the construction of roads, airfields and "loading and unloading operations."

At the same time, the military, together with the district executive committees, were ordered to draw up specific plans for sowing campaigns.

Also, the military council of the 4th Ukrainian Front ordered financial support for peasant farms.

“To provide all possible practical assistance to the collective farms in the production of plowing and sowing by allocating horses, bulls, tractors from all units and institutions and labor from the rear units located in the Zaporozhye and Nikolaev regions,” the document says.

The Red Army handed over large livestock to the most affected regions of Ukraine and provided its veterinary treatment.

Information about this is contained in the appeal of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR Nikita Khrushchev to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

In the document, Khrushchev requested that the 2nd Ukrainian Front be allowed to transfer more than 10,000 heads of cattle and over 96,000 sheep to the collective farmers.

  • Appeal of Nikita Khrushchev to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

In addition to supporting agriculture in the Ukrainian SSR, the Red Army helped restore its industrial and energy potential.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation published a Memorandum of the Deputy Commander of the Kharkov Military District dated October 16, 1944, which tells about the transfer of transport, coal, chemicals from the leather and footwear and extract-tanning industries of the Kharkov region.

The rest of the enterprises of the region received raw materials, fuels and lubricants and cars with drivers.

The merit of the Red Army is the restoration of the legendary Dneproges.

Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric power plant named after V.I.

Lenin again earned thanks to the work of a separate engineering and construction battalion.

The Russian Ministry of Defense posted a photo album of this unit, which lists its achievements.

The servicemen worked at the Dneproges from January 1945 to May 1946.

During this time, they laid 30 thousand cubic meters in the body of the dam.

m of concrete and about 40 thousand cubic meters.

m of concrete - in a shield wall.

In addition, the Red Army manufactured and installed more than 30 thousand square meters.

m of formwork and over 1.2 thousand tons of reinforcement.

  • The restored Dneproges dam from the photo album of the engineering and construction battalion

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Also in the multimedia section "Reviving Ukraine from the Ashes" there are numerous letters from workers of enterprises, collective farms and ordinary citizens of the Ukrainian SSR with the support of the mission of the Red Army.

As noted in the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Ukrainian population "was immensely grateful to the Soviet soldiers-liberators and made a significant contribution to the approach of the common Victory."

special mission

According to experts interviewed by RT, documents published by the defense department allow us to conclude that the Red Army and the Soviet government have made great efforts to restore the national economy of Ukraine as soon as possible.

“In the Soviet Union, they were guided by the ideas of helping the peoples of the USSR.

Indeed, a lot of effort was devoted to the restoration of Ukraine, and it was a difficult process, given the atrocities of the Nazis and the scale of the plunder that they perpetrated together with the nationalists, ”Dmitry Surzhik, an associate professor at GAUGN, said in an interview with RT.

According to the expert, the colonization of the Ukrainian SSR, which was carried out by the Third Reich during the years of occupation, in a certain sense resembles the policy of the West towards Ukraine from the 1990s to the present day.

“Ukraine was considered by Nazi Germany as a source of food, cheap labor and raw materials.

It is hard not to notice that the current West, which is indifferent to the development of industry in Ukraine and the standard of living of its population, is experiencing almost the same interest in this country, ”Surzhik said.

According to the analyst, Europe's economic interest in Ukraine comes down to the exploitation of fertile land and the draining of human resources to replenish its own labor market.

Vladimir Olenchenko, an employee of the Center for European Studies at IMEMO RAS, shares the same view on the situation.

According to the expert, the parallels between Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War and the present are quite appropriate.

“This is an absolutely consumerist attitude of the West towards Ukraine, which is trying with all its might to take grain out of its storage facilities.

At the same time, Russia behaves completely differently.

We see that at every opportunity in the liberated territories, the Russian army contributes to the restoration of the economy and normal life, ”Olenchenko emphasized in a RT comment.

As an example, the expert cited large-scale demining of territories, widespread humanitarian assistance to the civilian population, the organization of sowing campaigns in Zaporozhye and the Kherson region, the start of work to restore the housing stock in the destroyed settlements of Donbass.

  • Sowing work in the Kherson region

  • RIA News

  • © Ivan Rodionov

“The documents published by the Ministry of Defense and current events once again testify that the mission of our army in Ukraine has always been of a liberating and creative nature.

After all, only after de-occupation did Ukraine get the opportunity to develop normally,” Olenchenko concluded.