Aleksey Isaev dedicates his new book to operations in the Berlin direction in January - March 1945 and the battle for Berlin, starting with the Vistula-Oder operation. As a result of the rapid advance to the west, Soviet troops found themselves 60–70 km from Berlin. However, the rapid thrust forward was followed by a chain of battles on the flanks of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts. Only in mid-April 1945 were Soviet troops able to begin the Berlin operation. So why was Berlin not taken in February 1945 and what happened in Germany in February and March 1945? Here is a new look at the Berlin operation as an encirclement battle in which the fate of the German capital was decided by the defeat of the German 9th Army in forests southeast of Berlin. Alexey Isaev also examines the myths about the competition between the two front commanders - Zhukov and Konev. Who was the initiator of this “competition”? How did it go and who was the winner?