Surely the Soviets deserve some credit for never designing and continuing to fly something as hysterically unreliable and dangerous as the Shuttle?
Although you do have to wonder how the Buran would have fared if it has survived the Soviet collapse.
That’s skewed though because the US craft had more people on board. The two shuttle accidents killed 14 astronauts while the two Soyuz accidents killed 4.
In terms of number of fatal incidents they are even if you discount the X-15, or pretty close if you don’t.