Mark Solonin (born May 29, 1958, in Kuybyshev, USSR) is a Russian historian[citation needed] of World War II. Solonin's first two books(June 22. The Casks and The Hoops and At The Airfields That Seemed to be Asleep as named on the author's website) focus on the opening weeks of The Great Patriotic War with the goal of finding a reason why the numerically and technologically superior Red Army couldn't even slow down the Wehrmacht's advance into Soviet Union. Solonin ultimately attributes the defeats to complete lack of fighting spirit of the Red Army caused by almost twenty years of Stalinist terror regime.