[Jukka Juutinen]

John, I am not Russian, but some comments anyway. As I have exchanged e-mails with David more than a few times, I have to a bit careful not to reveal anything that is to remain private. Anyway, David is a quite sober minded author who does have some weaknesses as well and that is the relatively poorish use of German sources. I.e. he sometimes takes e.g. German strength and casualty figures from Soviet accounts though German sources would be quite easily available.

His actual access to Russian archives is perhaps less good than sometimes advertized. And he readily admits that. Nevertheless, he presents lots of material not available in English elsewhere. E.g. the current Stalingrad trilogy shows how poor author A. Beevor actually is. In fact, so poor that Beevor should not be even honoured with the title MILITARY historian.