This time we heard a lot more, beginning with what seemed like a rebuke from the president that the Kerch bridge should have been hit for a second time, and ending with a threat to Ukraine that there would be a response.

Generally the Kremlin broadcasts the first couple of minutes or so where the president tends to say something bland like 'there is much to talk about' and the rest is discussed behind closed doors.

In the beginning of August, the Soviets began a major offensive around the Kursk salient, and within a few weeks the Germans were in retreat all along the eastern front.It is not often the public get to see much of Vladimir Putin’s security council meetings. After six days of warfare concentrated near Prokhorovka, south of Kursk, the German Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge called off the offensive, and by July 23 the Soviets had forced the Germans back to their original positions. However, the Soviets had better tanks and air support than in previous battles, and in bitter fighting Soviet antitank artillery destroyed as much as 40 percent of the German armor, which included their new Mark VI Tiger tanks. The German attack began on July 5, and 38 divisions, nearly half of which were armored, began moving from the south and the north.

In early July, Germany and the USSR concentrated their forces near the city of Kursk in western Russia, site of a 150-mile-wide Soviet pocket that jutted 100 miles into the German lines. The Battle of Kursk, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft, ends with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets at heavy cost.

Largest tank battle ever