On This Date In 1945, The Soviet Union Declares War On Japan....

Timing is everything, I suppose. Russia declared war on Japan August 8, 1945, two days after the US dropped the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, the day before another nuclear weapon was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki and seven days prior to Japan's surrender. Seems like a low risk strategy or maybe a tipping point or puts them in a better position to take back territory lost to the Japanese 50 years earlier.

The US, after Germany's surrender, had been moving hundreds of thousands of troops into the Pacific theater with the goal of invading the Japanese mainland. The invasion force would have been several times the size of the force deployed during D-Day June 6th, 1944 that totaled 133,000 men and reached 850,000 men by the end of the month.

D-Day saw Allied forces suffering over 10,000 casualties that day and war planners were concerned that the invasion of the Japanese mainland would cause losses of several times that in addition to horrific civilian casualties. It was thought that the Japanese, even civilian woman and children would fight to the death.

Its a good thing that Japan surrendered.