Perhaps it is also because the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz. And made the immense sacrifice to defeat the nazi reich, while Britain and US waited till 1944 to open the second front in Europe.
First, let's remember that russia was an ally of Hitler's at the beginning of the war.
The USA, who apparently didn't help in the war whatsoever, needlessly gave russia the equivalent of $800bn in today's dollars to fight Hitler.
We also needlessly sacrificed 400,000 brave young men, to save Europe for the second time in 20 years.
Stalin made it clear that the USSR would have fallen without Lend-Lease .. until we told him it was time to start paying us back, then the party line changed to America being the western zionist aggressors.
Russia really screwed America as a thank you. They were given a 90% discount on their debt, with zero interest. It took them 70 years to pay it, which means they paid $900,000,000 back on a $250bn loan.
50,000 sailors died at the hands of Hitler's Navy specifically to block that trade. I guess their deaths were in vane? russians will probably say they never died and America never sent aid.
Here's a short list of the aid Americans gifted to Russia, who apparently didn't need any of it:
400,000 jeeps and trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
More than 1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petroleum products (to fuel airplanes, trucks, and tanks)
4.5 million tons of food
Clearly the west didn't do anything. russians fought off Hitler with their bare hands, with no supplies, killing millions of nazis with borscht. Europe and America didn't so much as throw rocks on the western front.
It's also a felony to mention Stalin's purges, the Bolshevik Pogroms in Poland, the Holodomyr where Stalin murdered 5 million Ukrainians,
Read up on Nazinsky Island where Stalin sent 5,000 "Kulaks" (subsistence farmers) who resisted forced collectivism. Over 3,000 died in 6 weeks from disease, starvation, bullets and cannibalism.
Stalin made my people eat each other, and it is illegal to mention this in the free, glorious russian empire.
Why don't you try to read the russian version of the wikipedia article on the Ribbentrop Molotov agreement? It is not as short as the catchy phrase "USSR and Germany were allies before 1941", but I think it gives a fuller picture of the events.
And while we are speaking about nazi allies here is one of the many links about the ties US had with nazi germany:
The way I read it, the Soviet Union partnered with Nazi Germany to invade Poland.
This wasn’t the Soviet Union invading Poland to protect Poland against the Nazi invasion. The Soviet Union attacked Poland and fought the Polish army in order to split Polish territories with Nazi Germany.
Not sure how that compares to Ford/IBM selling equipment to the Nazi regime prior to hostilities.
Don't forget Munich Agreement [1] that had happened a year before the respective strategic move on the part of USSR. There's no moral stance to hold against another nation's attemt to get a favourable position (for themselves) if it happens in a wake of and in accordance to their geo-political opponents' moves. The rest of Europe had been acting the same way whilst being busy preparing for a newly emerging conflict.
well... recently there been serious cleanup of history. this part is neglected and if somebody tries to say opposite they will be charged with glorification of nazism or with "altering historical truth about russia's win in wwII" (or something like this)
> Everyone in Europe knew in 1945 who defeated the nazis. And it was neither US nor Britain.
I mean, by the logic Russia applies in describing Ukraine, the Eastern front was a proxy war between the US and Nazi Germany (heck, the US aid program for Ukraine is literally named after the one for WWII that included Russia), so…
Soviet army was not dividing people by nationality, they were all "soviet people".So why do you choose to do so now? (Actually, a rhetorical question).
I did not do that. But the fact is that Ukraine rehabilitates Bandera and other murderers and nazi collaborationists, has armed forces where people tatoo swastics on their skin, and has been promoting vicious antirussian sentiment well before 2014, ignored by the western media for a well understood reason (if we drop hypocrisy).
All this while for Russia the Second World War was and is one of the defining moments of their history and identity.
So what if there is anti-russian sentiment? russians have earned their reputation with the 10-15 million Ukrainians they have murdered over the past 150 years. We don't need neo-nazis to make us hate russians for what they have done to our families and friends and our country. I don't know anybody who didn't lose grandparents or great grandparents to Stalin's purges.
I have now lost 3 family members and 15 people from my graduating uni class.
Germany has neo-nazis in its military. russia's military is entirely conscripts and track-suit wearing, Neo-soviets covered in anti-Ukrainian tattoos.
America's military is at least 20% neo-nazi/extremist.
There are bad apples in every country.
Just like the USA saved russia and Europe from Hitler, we will save Europe and America from vladolf putler. You can all be cowards and sleep peacefully in your bed while I hear bombshells every night.
Bandera was jailed by Nazi for almost the whole duration of the war (1941-1945). His brother was murdered in German stalag. It doesn't look like collaboration with Nazi.
Soviet Union and Germany attacked Poland together (and started WWII). It's cooperation with Nazi.
If we look at the argument often used by Russians, that X is Nazi because he collaborated with Nazi, and then apply it to Soviet Union instead of Bandera, then Russians found thousands of arguments why this is not true.