In 1812 Napoleon lauched his Russian campaign, and soon the country lay wide open before him, drawing him on. He marched into an abandoned Moscow as winter set in. The city burned (it's said that the retreating Russians torched it) and the Grand Armee, used to living off the land on the march, was running out of provisions. After some weeks, as temperatures dropped, Napoleon packed his bags and returned to Paris in a horse drawn sleigh, abandoning the Grand Armee to its fate. The famous retreat from Moscow began, in which most of the 655,000 strong Grand Armee perished in the snow.
In 1941 Hitler invaded Russia, overrunning Ukraine in the process. The Blitzkrieg was unstoppable as the panzers of 6th Army, supported by the Luftwaffe, battered through any resistance, deeper and deeper into Russia, driven by Hitler's fixation with symbolic Stalingrad. This is where the invasion culminated, with 6th Army besiegeing the city in late '42... as winter was setting in. With over-extended supply lines and the onset of winter, the 6th Army, bogged down at Stalingrad where fighting was block by block, began to run out of fuel and provisions. Eventually they were cut off by the Red Army, and Hitler, already focusing elsewhere, abandoned them to their fate.
I got scammed in Samara a couple of years ago (in winter.)
