Strategically, he said, Ukraine’s generals most directly drew on World War II history in devising a defense of the capital, Kyiv, last year.
“Historical parallels, unfortunately or happily, keep coming to the surface,” said Vasyl Pavlov, an adviser to Ukraine’s general headquarters who has closely studied the similarities of the two wars. Ukraine is now echoing that World War II offensive, fighting at sites southeast of Zaporizhzhia in what the Ukrainian military calls the “Melitopol direction.” The strategic goal is the same as it was eight decades ago - to isolate enemy soldiers in the Kherson region and threaten Crimea - but Ukrainian troops are moving far more slowly, having gained only a few miles in more than a month. Over the course of three weeks, Nazi forces covered this ground to move into position to attack Crimea and surround Red Army soldiers in the Kherson region. One of Germany’s successes early on came in the Battle of the Azov Sea in 1941, when its troops advanced from Zaporizhzhia to Melitopol. The tide of war changed in 1943 with the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Red Army then fought the Nazis in Ukraine moving westward. As the invasion began, factions of pro-independence Ukrainians fought with the Germans, while other Ukrainians fought with the Red Army against the Nazis.
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