Battle of Moscow

The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km sector of the Eastern Front during World War II, between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort thwarted Germany's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union and a primary Axis objective in the invasion of the USSR. The German strategic offensive, named Operation Typhoon, called for pincer offensives north and south of Moscow plus a direct advance from the west; Soviet forces countered by constructing three defensive belts around Moscow.