Leonid Alekseevich Belov

Senior Lieutenant Leonid Alekseevich Belov was a T-34 tank commander who fought from the Battle of Kursk to the fall of Berlin. At Prokhorovka during the Battle of Kursk — the largest tank battle in history — his T-34 engaged and destroyed three German Panzer IVs before being knocked out himself. Wounded and burned, he returned to action within weeks. By war's end, he had been through five tanks, each destroyed in combat, earning him the nickname "Cat with Nine Lives" among his crew. He survived to write a memoir that became an important primary source for understanding tank warfare on the Eastern Front. Glasgow's Russian community invited his grandson to speak at a 2019 commemoration.