If the Soviet Union seized Constantinople in 1945

Would the Soviet Union retain Constantinople if it captured the city at the end of the Second World War?

Moscow would retain the city in this counterfactual, with its Soviet status disputed and the wider effects dependent on the invasion's cause.

In this counterfactual, Soviet forces seize Constantinople at the end of the Second World War. A comparison with Kaliningrad introduces the expectation that Moscow would retain the city as Russian territory. Soviet hostility to the Orthodox Church prompts a competing suggestion that the city might receive a separate Soviet status. Alex Clarke argues that Stalin could instead claim to have achieved the imperial ambition that had eluded the tsars. Forced population transfers are also envisaged as part of imposing control. Attacking neutral Turkey could undermine confidence in neutrality in Sweden and Finland, and a similarly aggressive response to Tito could leave Moscow facing a difficult Yugoslav conflict. The Soviet Union could become more isolated, although these consequences depend on why the invasion occurred.