Sixty nine years earlier 23 degrees colder

Ireland is experiencing the coldest weather in decades. Last night a temperature of minus 17 Celsius was recorded in the west.

This blog is read in the Russian cities of Moscow and Saratov.

In December 1941 the Soviet Army was fighting the Germans in temperatures of minus 40 Celsius.

In that weather and ill-prepared, the men and women of Stalingrad, now Volgograd, helped save the world from the barbarism of Nazi Germany.

A German infantryman wrote to his family, "Animals flee this burning hell of a city...the hardest stones do not last for long. Only men endure."

Chuikov sought to minimise the German advantage in firepower by instructing his men to close with the enemy and seek hand to hand combat at every opportunity. The Wehrmacht would then be unable to call in airstrikes or artillery without hitting their own men. The Blitzkrieg tactics which had enabled them to conquer much of Europe were useless, and the battle for the city was now reduced to hundreds of small unit actions.

Stalingrad and Kursk were defining moments in the defeat of Germany.