What name is commonly given to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945?

Operation August Storm is a common name for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945.

The campaign began on August 9, 1945, when Soviet forces attacked Japanese-held Manchuria and the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Soviet forces advanced from multiple directions in a large, coordinated offensive against Japan’s Kwantung Army and its allied formations.

The campaign’s formal Soviet designation was the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, also called the Manchurian Operation. “Operation August Storm” became a widely used Western label, especially in later historical writing. The offensive continued through the period in which Japan announced its surrender and ended militarily around the formal surrender on September 2.

The Soviet attack is important to accounts of Japan’s surrender because it removed Japanese hopes that Moscow might mediate a favorable peace. Historians debate the relative weight of the Soviet entry and the atomic bombings, but both events formed part of the crisis leading to Japan’s decision.