Nikolai Vatutin was born on December 16, 1901 in the village of Chepukhino, Voronezh province (nowadays, the village of Vatutino, Belgorod region) into a poor peasant family.
Since childhood, showing a craving for knowledge, he became the best student at the local parish school and graduated with honors from the zemstvo school in the city of Valuyki.
As one of the most talented students in the Valuisky district, Nikolai received a scholarship to study at a commercial school, but he could not graduate.
Due to the events of 1917, the payment of scholarships was stopped, and Vatutin returned home.
He helped his family in the field and worked as a censor in the volost government.
From soldiers to generals
In 1920, Nikolai Vatutin was mobilized into the Red Army, in the ranks of which he fought with the detachments of Nestor Makhno and the gangs operating on the territory of Ukraine.
Vatutin asked to send him to the war with Poland, but the command decided otherwise.
Instead of the front, the young, but already well shown in battles, the Red Army soldier went to study at the infantry courses, which were soon reorganized into the Poltava infantry school.
During his studies, Nikolai was appointed squad leader, and then - assistant platoon commander.
In 1922, the Vatutins' family suffered a misfortune.
Father, grandfather and one of Nikolai's brothers died of hunger.
According to those who knew Vatutin personally, since then he could not bear the sight of the bread thrown away, and, having become the commander, paid special attention to the nutrition of the personnel.
Komroty Nikolay Vatutin in 1926
© Wikimedia commons
After graduating from the infantry school, Vatutin served in command positions in the 23rd Kharkov Infantry Division.
In parallel, he continued his military education at the Kiev Higher Joint Military School and the Frunze Military Academy.
According to the recollections of acquaintances, Vatutin was serious and very modest, and he often attributed his own successes to his subordinates.
As Alexander Mikhailov, a specialist historian of the Victory Museum, noted in a conversation with RT, in the 1930s, Vatutin was appointed mainly to staff work.
In just a few years, he managed to serve in different parts of the Soviet Union: from Ukraine and the Caucasus to Siberia.
In 1936-1937, he completed a crash course at the Military Academy of the General Staff, after which he was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Kiev Special Military District, and a year later he headed the KOVO headquarters.
According to experts, such a career growth suggests that Vatutin had great military abilities.
In the fall of 1939, the troops of the Kiev Special Military District took part in the Polish campaign of the Red Army, and in the summer of 1940 - in the Prut campaign, as a result of which the Romanian occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina was lifted.
"He possesses good military and operational-tactical training, is well-developed, with a wide outlook ... He worked excellently in managing headquarters departments and showed great efficiency and ability to lead large military formations ... How the chief of staff of the district showed the ability, endurance and ability to lead an operation," it was said in the performance appraisal for Vatutin.
Brigade Commander Nikolai Vatutin in 1937
© Wikimedia commons
In 1940, Nikolai Vatutin was appointed chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff and promoted to lieutenant general.
Less than a year later, he was promoted to first deputy chief of the General Staff.
A few hours before the start of World War II, Vatutin, together with Georgy Zhukov, wrote the text of a directive on a possible attack by Nazi Germany, which was immediately sent to the military districts.
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War
According to experts, in the early days of the war, while Zhukov was on the Southwestern Front, Vatutin actually supervised the work of the General Staff.
On June 30, 1941, he was appointed chief of staff of the North-Western Front.
Due to the constant change of command of the front, he also directly led the troops.
It was at this time that the Nazis' attempt to break through to Novgorod was suppressed.
Vatutin managed to slow down the enemy's advance in the area of the Baltic Sea coast, which, according to historians, played an important role in disrupting German plans to capture Leningrad.
In May 1942, Vatutin was returned to serve in the General Staff, but he did not stay in Moscow for long.
“The Voronezh Front was formed, and Vatutin himself at a meeting of the Headquarters proposed to Stalin his candidacy for the post of commander.
Stalin was surprised, but this idea was supported by Alexander Vasilevsky, whom the Soviet leader trusted very much, and the appointment took place, "military historian Sergei Perelygin said in a conversation with RT.
Commander of the Voronezh Front, General of the Army Nikolai Vatutin
RIA News
© Israel Ozersky
According to historians, Vatutin managed to stabilize the front in the Voronezh region and deprive the Nazis of the opportunity to transfer troops from this sector to the Caucasus and near Stalingrad.
In October 1942, the commander was appointed commander of the Southwestern Front.
“It was largely thanks to the skillful actions of Vatutin in cooperation with the command of the Stalingrad Front that it was possible to encircle a large German group of Friedrich Paulus in the Stalingrad region and disrupt the attempt of Army Group Don Erich von Manstein to unblock the encircled,” stressed Alexander Mikhailov.
At the end of 1942, Vatutin was promoted to colonel-general, and at the beginning of 1943, he became one of the first holders of the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree.
“Nikolai Vatutin's star of command rose in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Here he fully showed his brilliant organizational skills, "said Mikhail Myagkov, director of the Russian Military Historical Society, to RT.
In the spring of 1943, Vatutin returned to the post of commander of the Voronezh Front, which, as historians note, testified to the highest confidence of the Soviet authorities in the commander.
Subsequently, he played one of the key roles in repelling the Nazi offensive on the Kursk Bulge.
Battle of the Kursk Bulge
RIA News
© Mikhail Melnik
The Soviet general predicted exactly the enemy's plan and proposed to wear down the Nazis with a well-thought-out defense.
Vatutin personally supervised the construction of fortifications and preparations for the battle of artillery, and also interrogated the prisoners, trying to find out the details of the upcoming German offensive.
The use of tank formations in defense, initiated by Vatutin, became a new word in the art of war.
Hitler's strategic offensive on the Kursk Bulge was eventually disrupted, and in August 1943, the troops of the Voronezh and Steppe fronts conducted the Belgorod-Kharkov operation, defeating 15 enemy divisions and opening the way for the Red Army to Ukraine.
In October of the same year, the Voronezh Front was renamed the 1st Ukrainian.
"With regard to the personal abilities in operational and strategic issues of the commander of the Voronezh Front, NF Vatutin must declare with all objectivity: he was a highly erudite and courageous military leader," Georgy Zhukov wrote in his memoirs.
Commander of the Voronezh Front Nikolai Vatutin and member of the Military Council of the Voronezh Front Nikita Khrushchev at the Kursk Bulge
RIA News
© Israel Ozersky
According to Mikhail Myagkov, the peak of Nikolai Vatutin's military leadership career was the liberation of Kiev.
He secretly and in a short time carried out a regrouping of troops, concentrating the main forces at Lyutezh.
At the same time, the Nazis considered the Bukrinsky bridgehead to be the main for the offensive: the Hitlerite command did not notice the movement of Soviet troops, which ensured the surprise of the strike.
At the decisive moment, the Soviet tankers, overtaking the infantry, carried out the now legendary night attack to the sound of sirens with the lights on.
According to experts, the psychological effect of this action exceeded all expectations.
In early November, the Nazis were driven out of Kiev, and a strategic foothold arose on the right bank of the Dnieper for the complete liberation of Ukraine from enemy forces.
Liberation of Kiev from the fascist invaders.
Khreshchatyk, November 1943
RIA News
© Arkady Shaikhet
“General Vatutin has earned himself general recognition and national love according to his merits.
His name - the name of an outstanding master of military leadership, an ardent patriot of the Fatherland, a communist, a favorite of soldiers - is forever associated with our victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, during the crossing of the Dnieper and the liberation of Kiev, in the Right-Bank Ukraine, "said Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky.
At the end of 1943, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front thwarted an attempt at Hitler's counteroffensive against Kiev, and then dealt a powerful blow to the Nazis in the northern regions of Ukraine.
In February 1944, Vatutin, who had been promoted to general of the army by that time, worked on plans for the complete expulsion of German troops from Ukraine, but did not have time to implement them.
On February 29, Vatutin, as part of a small group of generals and officers, was heading to the location of the 60th Army.
Turning onto a country road, the convoy was ambushed by the UPA * bandits.
Historians have not reconstructed this battle in detail until now.
During a shootout, Vatutin was seriously wounded in the thigh.
The general was transported to Rivne, and then to Kiev, where the best military doctors of the country arrived.
At first it seemed that Vatutin was on the mend, but after a while the commander developed gangrene, and on April 15, 1944, he died of blood poisoning.
Monument to General Nikolai Vatutin in Kiev
RIA News
© R. Yakimenko
Nikolai Vatutin was buried in the Mariinsky Park in Kiev.
According to experts, the Soviet leadership, trying to reduce the tension in society caused by hatred of Hitler's collaborators, for some time avoided public mention of the fact that the general was killed at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists.
A number of settlements of the USSR were named after Vatutin.
Monuments to the commander were erected in various cities, and in 1965 the commander was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, after the events of 2014 in Ukraine, attempts began to eliminate the memory of the commander.
Monuments to him were desecrated, and Vatutin Avenue in Kiev was renamed in honor of the Nazi auxiliary police officer and UPA leader Roman Shukhevych.
“Despite the fact that Vatutin did not live to see the victorious May 1945, his colossal role in the defeat of Nazism is beyond doubt.
His name is on a par with the names of Zhukov, Rokossovsky and other marshals of Victory, "summed up Myagkov.
* "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA) - an organization recognized as extremist and banned on the territory of Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 11/17/2014).