№ 863. The 60th anniversary of the Kurskaya battle.

A postage souvenir sheet is being issued to mark the 60th anniversary of the battle of Kursk of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. In the course of the defensive actions in July 1943 the troops of the Central Front and Voronezhsky Front have repulsed an attack of the fascists and disrupted enemy’s attempt to encircle and annihilate the Soviet troops on the Kursk Bulge. The Soviet Army assumed the offensive and smashed 30 hostile divisions and till August 1943 liberated Orel, Belgorod and Kharkov. The stamp features the monument of Victory (The Belfry) in the village Prokhorovka and the Triumphal Arch in Kursk. The margins of the souvenir sheet bear a map of the counter-offensive operations of the Soviet Army.