World War II: The Soviet Army enters Lviv, a major city in western Ukraine, capturing it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jews survive out of 160,000 living in Lviv prior to occupation.
The Soviet Ground Forces (Russian: Советские сухопутные войска, romanized: Sovetskiye sukhoputnye voyska, SSV) was the main land warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992.
Until 25 February 1946, it was known as the Red Army, established by decree on 15 (28) January 1918 "to protect the population, territorial integrity and civil liberties in the territory of the Soviet state." In Russian, the term 'armiya,' literally transliterating to 'Army,' was often used to cover the Strategic Rocket Forces first in traditional Soviet order of precedence; the Ground Forces, second; the Air Defence Forces, third, the Air Forces, fourth, and the Soviet Navy, fifth, among the branches of the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole.After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until it was formally abolished on 14 February 1992. The Soviet Army was principally succeeded by the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation in Russian territory along with the rest of the Ground Forces in post-Soviet states.