SOVIET STORM

Fascinating Russian series on Operation Barbarossa, how and why it failed, the characters involved and Russia's final retaliation to drive the Nazis out of the Soviet Union and all the way back to Berlin in Operation Bagration.

And if you watch the video on the siege of Leningrad then you can begin to understand why Shostakovich is my favourite composer. He lived in Leningrad and could have fled, but he decided to stay and muck in, becoming a fireman while also writing music, for which the Russian people loved him, and which saved his life in his battle with Stalin.