it was handed to a sniper, his name was gardienko, afanasy emelyanovich, a famous sniper, he was awarded orders of the red star and a medal for the defense of stalingrad and he was a friend of nikolai ilyin. with this rifle, afanasy gordienko reached kharkov, where on august 18. died in a battle for the city from a shell fragment, the same fragments mutilated his personal rifle. it was no longer possible to fight with this rifle. political department division decided to send the weapons to the central museum of the red army for eternal burial in memory of the three famous heroic snipers. on august 23, kharkov was liberated. as a result of the kurdish battle , the soviet union inflicted a crushing defeat. from their rear on the mius front, together with parts of malinovsky’s southwestern front, to prevent the transfer of german troops to the kursk area. when it came to planning the summer campaign, the priority task was precisely the liberation of donbass, the entire donbass. in august 1943 mius-front consisted of three lines of german defense with a depth of up to... the bank of the mius