Today at the Holocaust ceremony in Russia, Putin decided to promote the old Stalinist lie:
Of course, the main burden of the fight with Nazism was carried by the Russian people, 70% of all fighters of the Red army, officers - they were Russian people. And the main sacrifices to the altar of Victory came from the Russian people.This statement almost word for word repeats what Stalin's propagandist Shcherbakov said in January 1942: "The Russian people-the first among equals in the USSR's family of peoples - are bearing the main burden of the struggle with the German occupiers".
Here is why this is a lie:
- In terms of contribution to the victory, Putin's claim altogether ignored the role of the allies. Because the Red Army took horrible losses in the theatres of fighting, its ranks were filled by local Belorussian and Ukrainian conscripts both in the beginning and at the end of war. The deported people of Caucasus and Crimea had seen a higher percentage die in the Red Army than had the Russians. Jewish soldiers had been more likely to be decorated for valor than Russian soldiers.
- In terms of "burden" and "victims" even if we take only Soviet Union, more Jewish civilians were murdered by the Germans than Russian civilians, even though Jews represented only 2% of the population. For that matter, Poles, Ukrainians and Belorussians suffered more than Russians.
