It's equally wrong to say that the USSR won the war as it is to say the US did, but the USSR unquestionably paid the highest price to ensure the Allies won.
'Only' about half of those were in Russia itself. Breaking things out by Soviet 'provinces', which are now independent countries: Belarus had 2.3M and Ukraine had 6.9M.
Absolute numbers also don't tell the whole story: 25% of Belarus' population was killed, while 'only' 12.7% of Russia's was. Ukraine, 16.3%; Latvia, 13.7%; Armenia, 13.7%; Poland, 17%.
While it's worth noting the individuals nationalities of those that died, you can compare any one of them to the US's .32% of the population killed to see the point I am making.
When a group works well together you can't find any single winner when they succeed. Russia and the rest barely worked together at all, but still worked together well enough that you cannot find a single winner.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
'Only' about half of those were in Russia itself. Breaking things out by Soviet 'provinces', which are now independent countries: Belarus had 2.3M and Ukraine had 6.9M.
Absolute numbers also don't tell the whole story: 25% of Belarus' population was killed, while 'only' 12.7% of Russia's was. Ukraine, 16.3%; Latvia, 13.7%; Armenia, 13.7%; Poland, 17%.