Vasily Nikolayevich Fedotov (; 22 December 1915 – 9 January 1997) was a major general of the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

, who was awarded the title

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...

for his actions in battle in the Second World War while he was a Lieutenant Colonel.

Biography

Vasily Fedotov was born on 22 December 1915 in

Kamen Kamen () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the district Unna. Geography Kamen is situated at the east end of the Ruhr area, approximately 10 km south-west of Hamm and 25 km north-east of Dortmund. Neighbouring citie ...

Tomsk Governorate Tomsk Governorate () was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, the Russian Republic, and the Russian SFSR, which existed from 1804 to 1925 as part of Siberian Governorate-General (1804–1822) and West Siberian ...

to a working-class Russian family. After finishing seven grades of school he worked as a driver. In 1935, Fedotov was drafted into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. In 1938, he graduated from the Omsk Infantry School, after which he fought in the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

and was wounded. Immediately after the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...

, in July 1941, he was sent into combat in the Second World War. In 1942, Fedotov graduated from a course for regimental commanders. By September 1943, Fedotov, then a Lieutenant Colonel, commanded the 569th Rifle Regiment of the 161st Rifle Division in the 40th Army on the

Voronezh Front The 1st Ukrainian Front (), previously the Voronezh Front (), was a major formation of the Red Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. They took part in the capture of Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Wartime ...

. During the

Battle of the Dnieper The Battle of the Dnieper was a military campaign that took place in 1943 on the Eastern Front of World War II. Being one of the largest operations of the war, it involved almost four million troops at one point and stretched over a front. Ov ...

on 23 September 1943, Fedotov's regiment moved across the Dnieper in the area of the village of Zarubintsy,

Kaniv Raion Kaniv Raion () was a raion (district) of Cherkasy Oblast, central Ukraine. Its administrative centre was located at the town of Kaniv which was incorporated separately as a city of oblast significance and did not belong to the raion. The raion ...

(currently

Cherkasy Raion Cherkasy Raion () is a Raions of Ukraine, raion (district) of Cherkasy Oblast. It is located in the central part of Cherkasy oblast, and the center of the raion is the city of Cherkasy. The population is On 18 July 2020, as part of the administr ...

) of

Cherkasy Oblast Cherkasy Oblast (, ), also referred to as Cherkashchyna (, ) is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in central Ukraine located along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. The Capital city, administrative center of the oblast is the cit ...

of the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

, he seized a bridgehead on the west bank and repelled four German counterattacks. During the attack from the bridgehead the next day, Fedotov's regiment moved forward and expelled German forces from the village of Trakhtemyriv. He was wounded twice, but remained on active duty. By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 23 October 1943 he was awarded the title

for "courage, and heroism shown in the fight against the German invaders". Later in the war, he was seriously wounded and did not return to the front. After the end of the war he served in various military schools. In 1952, he graduated from the

Frunze Military Academy The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (), was a military academy of the Soviet and later the Russian Armed Forces ...

, and from 1953 to 1960 he commanded the Lviv Military School; 1960 to 1965 the Baku Higher Military Command School; and from 1965 to 1973 the Moscow Suvorov Military School. In 1973 he retired with the rank of major general and lived in Moscow until he died on 9 January 1997; his ashes were placed in the

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria), also called a cinerarium, is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns holding cremated remains of the dead. The term comes from the Latin ''columba'' (dove) and originally solel ...

of the Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Fedotov was an honorary citizen of

Ivano-Frankivsk Ivano-Frankivsk (, ), formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislav and Stanisławów, is a city in western Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast as well as Ivano-Frankivsk Raion within the oblast. Ivano-Frankivsk also host ...

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fedotov, Vasily 1915 births 1997 deaths Soviet major generals Soviet military personnel of World War II Heroes of the Soviet Union Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner People from Altai Krai People from Tomsk Governorate