Smolensk has a war history that is far more significant than its size would suggest. In September 1943, it was a key to Soviet Red Army strategy, and for the German defence.

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Map 1: Battle of Smolensk, 1943

Map 2: Operation Suvorov 

Map 2: Smolensk region 

This gives you an idea of where the smaller towns are in relation to Smolensk.

Photo 1: Gen. Yeremenko (right) with Nikita Khrushchev (left) during the Battle of Stalingrad.

 Photo 2: Yeremenko in about 1970

Photo 3: Gen. Vasily Sokolovsky in 1946

Sources:

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012. 

Robert Forczyk, Smolensk 1943: The Red Army's Relentless Advance. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_operation.