How about fighting 70% of the Wehrmacht. Read about the Eastern Front instead of just watching Saving Private Ryan :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
> But what we do know from the historical record -- is that most of these places likely never would have been invaded in the first place, had Stalin not greenlighted Hitler's plans via a certain famous agreement in 1939.
What often doesn't get mentioned in history classes is that before the infamous Stalin-Hitler pact, USSR tried to obtain a military pact with the West and that the West prologned the signing of any such agreements. Some even say that the Western powers (UK especially) hoped that Hitler would only focus his effort to the East and in that way deal with the rise of worldwide communist movement.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...
So Stalin went to Hitler. He was really mad guy, paranoid, former gangster.
Maybe he was just street smart :)
Oh, boo-hoo. And (just as with its successor state today), its feelings were sooo hurt, it just had to steamroll over those decadent neighboring countries (that should have known better than to be situated on its doorstep anyway). And accidentally deport a good chunk of their population to a place with low survival rates. And accidentally dig those holes in the forest that 22,000 civilians and former military personnel just happened to fall into.
USSR was not the same as Russia
In terms of whose overall interests it was serving -- of course it was.
Hmm -- this really is quite a presumptuous (and basically highly obnoxious) attitude to take.
A place that would never have gotten rid of Nazism had it not been for the Soviet Union.
And which likely never would have been invaded in the first place, had Stalin not greenlighted Hitler's plans via a certain famous agreement in 1939.