They "chose" to abandon it? Weren't they forced to retreat by the german army who encircled it and chose to starve out the population rather than directly attack the city?
> The article mentions it below even:
That reads like ww2 german propaganda. What did you expect. People in moscow to starve also? "Lashings of caviar"? Give me a break.
Also, once the soviets repelled the german attack on moscow, didn't the soviets liberate leningrad? If the soviets were as cruel as you claim, why would they even bother? Not only that, it's known the soviets tried to get food into the city even before they liberated the city.
> Nor did the Soviets acknowledge the extent of the suffering.
Is this a joke? The soviets took every opportunity to paint the germans as barbaric. The starvation of leningrad isn't some secret nobody knew about.
The easiest way to tell if some historical anecdote is true or not is how cartoonish the caricature becomes. Both on the positive/heroic and negative/villain side of the history.