Voice of Russia: Battle of Moscow

Every once in a while my googling lands some very 'special' stories in my lap. Not necessarily bad, but obviously slanted into one direction. If it's coming from a public broadcaster, that's all the more jarring. As such, I wish I could have started my recognition of my Russian readership with something more uplifting and recognizing of the great sacrifices their country and forefathers made in WW2. The way it is, I'm left with nitpicking instead.

From the Voice of Russia webpage (Voice of Russia is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service owned by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company).

The Battle of Moscow marked a turning point in the course of the Second World War.

True enough.

The Nazi army sustained irreparable damage.

Wrong. Stalingrad and the 6th Army, that was irreparable because it was total loss. This? Not so much.

Never had it suffered such losses before, in Western Europe or on the Eastern front.

Hardly a groundbreaking observation. Of course a campaign across half a continent and taking half a year incurs greater losses by far than three limited campaigns between 5 and 6 weeks with ample time to regroup between them.

A number of top Nazi generals said after the Battle of Moscow that a defeat of the Soviet Union was beyond their means and the military conflict had to be settled through negotiations.

Imminently possible. Still, "citatition need". Names, ranks, occasions.

Enraged Hitler sacked many of his generals following the battle, which put an end to a string of spectacular Nazi victories in Europe. The advance of the Nazis came to an abrupt halt and the Nazi army had to turn back.

Uhm, cause and effect. The advance of the Wehrmacht came to a halt because of the counterattack (and because of way overstretched supply lines). Several army commanders argued for a withdrawal, Hitler argued against it, which ultimately seems to have saved the front, but planted the idea in Hitler's head that every counterattack could be dealt with simply by denying the option of even a tactical retreat. Also, as far as my knowledge goes, Hitler sacked Guderian, von Brauchitsch, and others because of their opposition to his "Hold the line" orders while the operations were still going on.

During their counteroffensive on December 5th and 6th the Soviet troops commanded by General Georgy Zhukov liberated more than 11,000 towns and villages. The Nazis lost about 500,000 men, 1,300 tanks, 2,500 guns and over 15,000 vehicles and other pieces of military hardware.

Yeah, about that. You see, that's a bit of a blatant lie. Even the high end estimates for the whole Battle of Moscow, that is, until early January 1942, place German casualties between 248,000 and 400,000. And that includes the battle to reach Moscow, which began already on November 1st, 1941. That's a wee bit different from claiming the counteroffensive on two days cost the Germans half a million men!

By the way, do you know the similarly high-end casualty estimate for the Red Army for the same phase of operations? It's 1,280,000. Yeah, almost 1.3 million killed, wounded or missing. For a front the Germans would ultimately be able to hold on to for the better part of the next year. That tidbit of info is kinda missing.

Objective reporting looks different. I just don't see why you guys need resort to such cheap tactics. You fought a damn good war; you were tenacious and intelligent. Operation Bagration pretty much makes that obvious to even the deaf and blind!