The 3rd Baltic Front (russian: 3-й Прибалтийский фронт) was a

front Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * '' The Front'', 1976 film Music *The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...

of the Red Army during the Second World War. It was set up on 21 April 1944 and disbanded on 16 October that year after a series of campaigns in the

Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

that culminated with the capture of

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

October 13–15, 1944. During 179 days of existence, the 3rd Baltic Front suffered 43,155 killed and missing in action as well as 153,876 wounded, sick, and frostbitten personnel. The sole commander of the 3rd Baltic Front was

Ivan Maslennikov Ivan Ivanovich Maslennikov (russian: Иван Иванович Масленников; September 16, 1900 – April 16, 1954), General of the Army, was a Soviet military and NKVD commander of Army and Front level during World War II. A career Red ...

. The headquarters of the 3rd Baltic Front was formed from that of the disbanded 20th Army, and the field armies subordinated to the front were taken from the left (south) wing of the

Leningrad Front The Leningrad Front (russian: Ленинградский фронт) was formed during the 1941 German approach on Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) by dividing the Northern Front into the Leningrad Front and Karelian Front The Karelian Front ...

. Operations that the 3rd Baltic Front took part in include the Pskov-Ostrov Operation and the Tartu Operation. Upon the capture of Riga, the Soviet high command disbanded the 3rd Baltic Front as a headquarters and reassigned its component armies.John Erickson, ''The Road to Berlin'', p. 420, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Citations and Sources

Baltic 3 {{Soviet-stub