Kharkov was not in vain nicknamed the "damned place of the Red Army." During the Great Patriotic War, the hardest battles for this city cost us huge casualties, Soviet troops twice suffered serious defeats here. In May 1942, the unsuccessful offensive of the Red Army ended with the "Kharkov catastrophe," which led to the collapse of the Southwestern Front and the breakthrough of the Germans to Stalingrad and the Caucasus.