** ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, AUG. 15, 2010 AND THEREAFTER ** FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 23, 1945 picture, a Soviet Red Army soldier peers over the edge of a Japanese fort, at an unknown location in China. On Aug. 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria in northeastern China. In recent years some historians have argued that a Soviet surprise attack on the Japanese army occupying eastern Asia served as effectively as _ or possibly more than _ the atomic bombs in ending the war. (AP Photo)