Andrei Yeryomenko was one of the most outstanding military commanders of the Great Patriotic War. He commanded the troops at the Smolensk Direction during the defense of Moscow and through to the Great Victory. During the first two years of the war, he alternately commanded the Western Front, the Bryansk Front, the North-Western Front, and the Southwestern (Stalingrad) Front. In April 1943, comrade Yeryomenko was commissioned as Commander of the Kaliningrad Front that remained relatively stable and peaceful until September, when Andrei conducted a small, but successful offensive operation near the town of Nevel.

During the 1944 summer strategic offensive of the Red Army, Yeryomenko’s troops conducted a successful Rezhitsk-Dvina offensive operation, effectuating a major attack of the soviets in the north of Belarus. The enemy suffered heavy losses amounting to thirty thousand KIAs and POWs. Comrade Yeryomenko was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for this mission. In autumn 1944, during the Baltic operation the troops of the Second Baltic Front under his command approached Riga giving tough battles on every enemy defense line and suffering heavy losses. Only with the help of General Bagramyan in charge of a neighbouring front, who managed to break through to the Baltic Sea and to block thirty Nazi divisions, could Yeryomenko liberate Riga.

On March 26th, 1945, Andrei Yeryomenko was reassigned to command the Fourth Ukrainian Front to hold the position till the very end of the war. The front operated in eastern Czechoslovakia. Commander Yeryomenko conducted the Moravia-Ostrava operation liberating Slovakia and eastern regions of the Czech Republic. He met the Great Victory at the eastern avenues of approach to Prague. Today some of the Czech streets still bear his name. After the war, on March 11th, 1955, Andrei Yeryomenko was appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union.

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