Alexey Nikolayevich Krutikov (; 20 July 1895 - 23 April 1949) was a Soviet military leader.
A veteran of the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War, Alexey Krutikov graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1931 and General Staff Academy in 1938. He was appointed 7th Army chief of staff in November 1940 and served as the commander of the 7th Army between January 1943 and August 1944.
He closely collaborated with Marshal Kirill Meretskov while chief of staff for the Karelian Front (September - November 1944), chief of staff for the Maritime Group of Forces (April - August 1945), and chief of staff for the 1st Far Eastern Front (August - October 1945).
Biography
Early career
Alexey Nikolayevich Krutikov was born in Kineshma, Kostroma Governorate on 20 July 1895. Conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he fought at the front as a junior officer (poruchik) after an accelerated junior officers' training course. He joined the newly formed Red Army of Soviet Russia in 1918 and joined the Bolshevik Party in 1919 during the Russian Civil War.
Advancing through the Red Army ranks in the interwar period, he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1931 and the General Staff Academy in 1938. He was promoted to kombrig in 1939 and made a major-general when the traditional general officer ranks were first introduced into the Red Army in June 1940.
Appointed a senior instructor at the General Staff Academy in August 1940, he then took up the position of chief of staff for the 7th Army of the Leningrad Military District in November 1940.
World War II
Following Finland's entry into war with the Soviet Union on the side of Germany after the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the 7th Army temporarily formed part of the Northern and Karelian Fronts until autumn 1941, but remained in eastern Karelia as the 7th Independent Army afterward. Succeeded as its chief of staff by Colonel M. I. Peshekhontsev, Major-General Krutikov was named 7th Independent Army commanding officer in January 1943 and promoted to lieutenant-general in April 1943. The 7th Independent Army rejoined the Karelian Front (now under Army General Meretskov) in the spring of 1944.
In June 1944, the Karelian Front turned to offensive operations. Destruction of enemy forces between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega fell to Lieutenant-General Krutikov's 7th Army, tasked with attacking in the Olonets-Pitkyaranta-Sortavala direction after forcing the Svir River. One rifle corps with a tank brigade was detached to clear the western shore of Lake Onega with Filip D. Gorelenko 's 32nd Army, which received orders to destroy the concentration of enemy troops around Medvezhyegorsk and cooperate with the 7th Army in liberating the city of Petrozavodsk before moving onward.
Expecting a Soviet offensive, the Finns withdrew from the Svir and their forward positions in the Medvezhyegorsk area, permitting the 7th Army to quickly reach the Svir on the evening of 20 June. The following morning, the 7th Army commenced a full offensive forward and reached the opposite side of the Svir within twenty-four hours, its advance preceded by three-and-a-half hours of artillery bombardment from 1,500 guns and bombing by over 3,000 aircraft from Lieutenant-General Ivan Sokolov's 7th Air Army. Though slowed down as a result of the slow movement of supplies across the Svir, the 7th Army took Olonets and closed in on Pitkyaranta with the support of Naval Infantry from the Lake Ladoga Flotilla within a week. Compelled to withdraw again, the Finns now abandoned Petrozavodsk to the Soviets on 27 June 1944.
Though successful in eliminating the first two of three Finnish defensive lines between Loymola and Koyrinoya in July after being reinforced by a new corps and tank brigade, Krutikov's 7th Army did not manage to break through the final defense at the Battle of Nietjärvi and the front stabilized. Despite this last-ditch success, the Soviet attacks had virtually exhausted the Finnish reserves.