[af78]

This spacecraft was part of the Soviet space exploration program, designed to consolidate USSR's World Power status.

The Moscow military parade is meant to demonstrate the neo-imperial Russian military might, on the 80th anniversary of the USSR conquering half of Europe. That's the way it is presented, with slogans like «Можем повторить» i.e. “We can repeat it”.

The former striking the latter would be a bit like a terrorist accidentally blowing up on a bomb of their own making.

[egorfine]

> 80th anniversary of the USSR conquering half of Europe

Is this a correct description of the end of WWII?

[mapt]

Yes?

You could mention something about "Losing 80% of their population of fighting-age men and nearly losing their capital city to German aggression before turning the tide" and something about the race against the other Allies, but that is what happened.

Victory Day is basically the largest holiday in Russia.

[eitland]

Sadly, in many ways, that’s true.

They entered the Second World War as allies of Nazi Germany. When Germany inevitably turned on them, it was we—the collective West, with my own country playing a significant and costly role—who helped drag them out of the mess they’d enabled.

And yet, not long after, they turned on us. They occupied Eastern Europe, ruled it with an iron grip, and spent the next 80 years constructing a narrative in which they were the heroes—and that they’d done it all on their own.

[egorfine]

I have to agree, it's technically true. And tbh even more than technically.

Still, it's as correct to speak about the end of WWII in that terms as it is to describe love as four letter word.

[hedora]

Saying they turned on us is misleading. They were never on our side, but Hitler was the bigger threat.

The US nuked Japan post surrender (go look it up - the documents were declassified a decade ago) as a bluff to convince the Russians that they could not win a war where they attempted to take all of Europe.

[boulos]

"Post surrender" is misleading. https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2022/05/06/did-the-japanese-... has good coverage of what's known here. There were definitely factions within Japan that wanted to surrender, but there doesn't appear to have been a formal attempt.

As is, there was an attempted coup to overthrow the government due to the first (conditional) surrender.

[hedora]

That's only citing evidence that's been public since the 40's (which was inconclusive, but suggestive). The author apparently didn't hear about the recently declassified stuff, which says the offer came through diplomatic channels (which typically happens before public, formal surrenders), and the White House knew, but ignored the message.

The thing you linked cites a source that had access to the actual message and published it in August 1945. Then it tries to debunk its now-verified authenticity.

[MSFT_Edging]

> on the 80th anniversary of the USSR conquering half of Europe.

Weird way to say defeating the Nazis despite millions in losses.

[af78]

Ukraine and Belarus suffered the highest losses in proportion of their population. Weird that contemporary Russia tries to take credit for results obtained with the blood of others.

[meindnoch]

They overstayed a tiny bit.

[mcv]

They did both. They defeated the Nazis, but they didn't exactly "liberate" eastern Europe. They just replaced one occupier with another.

[EasyMark]

They helped* defeat the Nazis

[mcv]

The Soviets did do by far the majority of the fighting. And dying. Of course that was also a symptom of the brutal and inhuman regime: soldiers were sent into battle in suicidal human wave attacks, sometimes even without a weapon, because Stalin didn't care about their lives.

But they were fighting the brunt of the German military machine, and they did defeat them. It wasn't North Africa or Normandy that broke the Nazis, it was Russia.

[EasyMark]

Then abusing the big win by attempting to absorb all the Eastern European companies as puppet provinces. Let's not act like they weren't doing it for their own ambitions, just like Hitler. A lot of those millions could have been preventable because Stalin had zero concern for the lives of citizens or his military

[EndsOfnversion]

You mean former-Nazi allies the Soviet Union?

[Mountain_Skies]

Yes, the former Nazi allies that the Allies gleefully partnered with as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Of course that was just a one time thing and the West would never again ally itself it forces that openly call themselves Nazis. Oh wait, the West is currently doing that today. Relative moralism is something the West specializes in doing.

[EndsOfnversion]

Just to clarify further, we are talking about the Katyn massacre Soviet Union?

[EasyMark]

There was no glee, it was simply a partnership of convenience to defeat the much worse enemy. The west didn't starve and murder their own people to the tune of 10 million+ like the Soviets did, outside of the losses in fighting the Nazis

[hedora]

They starved about 10 million and they murdered another 10 million:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_t...

Their total losses were about 26.6M. For comparison, German concentration camps killed about 6M, but Russia was on our side, so we don’t like to compare these two numbers.

[ponector]

Don't forget they started world war together with Nazis.