Known as the 900-day siege, the siege of Leningrad by axis forces in world war II is widely held as one of the longest and most destructive blockades in World War history, with some historians even classifying it as a genocide.
In total, roughly 1.5 million militiamen and civilians were killed during the siege of Leningrad, despite some 1.4 million having been evacuated. On Hitler's orders, the Soviet city was barricaded and suffered a daily barrage of artillery attacks from the German and Finnish forces that encircled it. The city's water and food supply were cut off and extreme famine soon became the norm.
