🎙️ Episode 38 – Lake Khasan: The Traitor Who Sold Out the Red Army

In June 1938, the most powerful secret policeman in the Soviet Far East walked across the border and handed himself to the enemy. General Genrikh Lyushkov had sent thousands to their deaths for Stalin — and when he realized the machine was about to swallow him too, he ran. What he carried with him would invite an invasion. Weeks later, two empires were killing each other over a handful of barren hills above a lake almost no one had ever heard of.

In this episode, you'll discover the forgotten border war that exposed the rot at the heart of Stalin's military machine — an army being butchered by its own leader, officers too terrified to give an order, and a traitor who told Japan exactly where to strike. You'll follow the savage fight for the heights of Changkufeng, and the horrifying reward Moscow handed the marshal who won it.

Inside this episode:

• The stunning defection of NKVD General Genrikh Lyushkov — the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to run
• The secrets he handed Tokyo, and how they became an invitation to attack
• How Stalin's Great Purge gutted the Red Army's officer corps on the eve of battle
• The brutal fight for the disputed heights above Lake Khasan
• Marshal Vasily Blyukher's victory — and the torture chamber that followed it

Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you listen.

This episode covers the Battle of Lake Khasan, the Changkufeng Incident of 1938, the Soviet-Japanese border conflicts, the defector Genrikh Lyushkov, Marshal Vasily Blyukher, Stalin's Great Purge and the destruction of the Red Army officer corps, the Kwantung Army and Manchukuo, and the road to Khalkhin Gol.

World War 2 in Focus: Echoes Through AI

Created by Hector Sanchez, U.S. Navy veteran.

Powered by AI.

Sharpened by history.