Guerrilla war in the Baltic states

The Guerrilla war in the Baltic states or the Forest Brothers resistance movement was the armed struggle against Soviet rule that spanned from 1940 to the mid-1950s.[6] After the occupation of the Baltic territories by the Soviets in 1944, an insurgency started. According to some estimates, 10,000 partisans in Estonia, 10,000 partisans in Latvia and 30,000 partisans in Lithuania and many more supporters were involved. This war continued as an organised struggle until 1956 when the superiority of the Soviet military caused the native population to adopt other forms of resistance. The guerrilla movement in the post-war Baltic states was of a size proportionately similar to that of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.[7]

Guerrilla war in the Baltic states
Part of Occupation of the Baltic states

Mugshot of Ants Kaljurand, a famous Estonian resistance fighter of the Forest Brothers, taken in the Soviet Union some time before his death in 1951.
Date1945–1956
Location
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
Result

Soviet victory

  • Defeat of national partisans
Belligerents

Forest Brothers

Supported by:
 Finland
 Sweden
 United Kingdom		  Soviet Union
Strength
~50,000 partisans (peak) Unknown
Casualties and losses
561 killed, 4,285 injured
1,458 killed, 5,052 injured
21,103 Killed
~20,000 arrested[1][2]		 Soviet armed forces and police:
In Lithuania:
12,921 killed[3]
In Latvia:
1,562 killed, 560 wounded[4]
In Estonia:
unknown
4,000 pro-Soviet civilians killed by Forest Brothers[5]

See also

References
  1. Lietuvos istorijos atlasas. Compiled by Arūnas Latišenka. Briedis. 2001. p. 25
  2. Clodfelter, p. 538
  3. Clodfelter, p. 538
  4. Plakans, Andrejs. The Latvians: A Short History, 155. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 1995.
  5. Clodfelter, p. 538
  6. Statiev, Alexander (2010). The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands. Cambridge University Press.
  7. Ziemele, Ineta (2005). State Continuity and Nationality: The Baltic States and Russia. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 25. ISBN 90-04-14295-9.
  • Tauras, KV (1962). Guerrilla Warfare on the Amber Coast. New York: Voyages Press.
  • Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492-2015 (4th ed.). McFarland.
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