Explanation
The losses of Germany on the eastern front are widely believed to be the most significant factor in defeating Nazi Germany and the USSR won the battle of Berlin, the final battle before the German capitulation. Thus Europe widely believed (for a good reason) that the USSR was the main contributor in defeating Germany. With the cold war the perception of the USSR became a lot worse in western countries like France and with increasing anti-USSR sentiment the view flipped to viewing the USA as the deciding factor. The USSR (and the Russian Federation today, even if its government is very anti USSR) viewed itself as the most important force in defeating Germany, especially because the USSR had the biggest amount of deaths. It is worth noting that the USSR was at least commercially allied with Nazi Germany until June 22, 1941 and there was an agreement between the nations on which parts of Europe each could invade and which where reserved for the other.
25 million Soviets died during the war. Is the 8.7 just soldiers?
Yeah. The picture in the US is the Soviets just buried the Germans with dead, but military losses weren't that uneven. What was is civilian deaths, since the Nazis were just massacring everyone.
Not just massacring, also because the massive relocations during invasion, the immense focus in industry, huge recruitment of working force, and loss of agricultural land in the south, there were big famines in WW2 USSR. It's the main reason behind the million deaths in prisons during WW2 USSR.
Yeah, you see an ugly pattern in lots of propaganda talking points against Russia, from WWI through now. "Russians are savage (Asiatic) orcs who don't respect human life. So it's good to kill them indiscriminately"
The hypocrisy there never seems to matter
tsk you aren't counting the ones stalin purged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_under_Joseph_Stalin
I know you won't lol, I've never seen someone simp harder for stalin rofls
Not significant tbh, its not as bad as libshits make it to be. And stalin gets vindicated even today after we see war mongering racist pedophiles ruling the west
sure thing rofls. daddy stalin didn't do nothing wrong jfc
libshits uh huh sure thing tankie boi
millions of people liquidated or just shot and left in a ditch, not significant tbh ROFLS