The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign between Russian forces and those of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II. The battle is infamous as one of the largest, longest and bloodiest engagements in modern warfare: From August 1942 through February 1943, more than two million troops fought in close quarters – and nearly two million people were killed or injured in the fighting, including tens of thousands of Russian civilians. But the Battle of Stalingrad (one of Russia’s important industrial cities) ultimately turned the tide of World War II in favor of the Allied forces. In the middle of World War II – having captured territory in much of present-day Ukraine and Belarus in the spring on 1942 – Germany’s Wehrmacht forces decided to mount an offensive on southern Russia in the summer of that year. Under the leadership of ruthless head of state Joseph Stalin, Russian forces had already successfully rebuffed a German attack on the western part of the country – one that had the ultimate goal of taking Moscow – during the winter of 1941-42. However, Stalin’s Red Army had suffered significant losses in the fighting, both in terms of manpower and weaponry.