Talk:World War II casualties of the Soviet Union

15-17 million civilians killed by the Nazis ?
Including millions died in regions not even reached by the Nazis (see table for Soviet republics in article). Including victims of war between local collaborators and partisans/Soviet authorities, as one can guess. Including victims of war between Poles & Ukrainians, as one can guess. Including victims of deportations of whole "collaborator nationalities" by Soviet authorities, as one can guess. Including etc. - Sounds somewhat overstated, superficial and inappropriate. Melthyukov's blanket statement. --129.187.244.19 (talk) 12:03, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Most of them died under seige, when the soviets didn't let them evacuate.

"died under siege warfare,"67.80.64.41 (talk) 18:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

How 56,9 percent Mortality Rate in Red Army Became Known
“You are not supposed to know these figures”, said in a live talk show of Vladimir Pozner “Времена” ("Times") President of the Academy of Military Sciences General of the Army M.A. Gareev, defending Krivosheev’s casualties figures. That means, dear EnWiki readers, that you are also being deprived of true figures as those of the present Russian military losses in the Ukraine. After destruction of personal files of soldiers and warent officers in 1953 all military losses became mere assumptions, except those of Communist Party and Komsomol members. Their files are still intact in The Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). Also undisputable is the total death toll of 26.6 million. As for the full strength of the Red Army in WWII, the new number of conscripts has been revealed by Igor Ivlev. It is 40,656,993. This enables us to learn total military losses almost exactly.

Abbreviations: ЭВОВ — энциклопедия "Великая Отечественная война 1941-45 гг.", М.: Советская энциклопедия, 1985 г.; ИВОВ - "История Великой Отечественной войны Советского Союза. 1941-1945", М.: Воениздат, 1961-65 гг.; СОВОВ — "Стратегический очерк Великой Отечественной войны 1941-1945 гг.", М.: Воениздат, 1961.

This mortality rate makes the total Soviet military losses 23,133,829 under Ivlev's recent calculations of all conscripts of 40,656,993 after investigating all the Memory Books. All figures are from the most reliable Soviet sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.252.188.39 (talk • contribs) in March 2022

Citation styling
There are some messy citations, mixing named references, short citations with harvnb or sfn, or combinations of them. I started on a fix of one aspect of it, starting with a full citation for the "Filomishin-1995" reference in the Russian "Sources" section, but it may just be the tip of the iceberg. Mathglot (talk) 08:43, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Put hyperlink
Please put hyperlink on the "missing in action" phrase to ("missing in action") one that has.

From: He added that more than 2.4 million people are still officially considered missing in action, of the 9.5 million persons buried in mass graves, six million are unidentified.

To: He added that more than 2.4 million people are still officially considered missing in action, of the 9.5 million persons buried in mass graves, six million are unidentified. Nag-Eedit si Mang Robert (talk) 13:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia promote the Russian historian who's estimates are the lowest?
How did it come about that Wikipedia picked Krivosheev's estimate of 8.668.400? In this article alone, you can also find these estimates:

''S. N. Mikhalev 10,922 million (combat deaths alone) 

Viktor Zemskov: 11.5 million

Christian Hartmann: 11.4 million

Some researchers in Russia put the total demographic losses of the military at nearly 14.0 million.

S. N. Mikahlev 13.7 million

Mark Solonin: 12,88 Million

Soviet Gosplan (Soviet State Planning Comitee) 19 million (mentioned in state Duma, 2017)

Igor Ivlev: 19.4 million military, according an analysis of data of the Soviet State Planning Committee,

Also Ivlev: 17,8 million based on the number of Soviet Communist party and Komsomol members conscripted

Boris Sokolov: 26,4 million

V. E. Korol: 23 million

General I. A. Gerasimov (according to information from the Russian Military Archives database): 17,4 million

Historian-archivist Iu. Geller: 23 million

A compilation made in March 2008 of the individuals listed in the card files: 14,241,000 

These are all military deaths! And:

Andreev, Darski and Karkova (ADK) : total population loss 20 million males and 6,6 million females. ''

The highest is 26,4 million, 3 times the number of Krivosheev. And numbers like 19 million, 17,8 million, 17,4 million don't come from some fringe historians who make bold claims. These are directly from Soviet institutions.

Here is one calculation I made that you should consider when judging Krivosheev's number.

So according to the Wikipedia-page about the Red Army, 34,476,700 people served WW2, including 800,000 women. 8.668.400 dead would mean 25,14% killed. But according to the wikipedia page about equipment losses, the Red Army lost 134.100 armoured vehicles from a total 203,900, so 65,77%. These vehicles were "irrecoverable losses", so somebody on the other side shot a round, or dropped a bomb at the Red Army-infantry and archived a kill. So the armoured vehicle losses are 3 times higher than the overall personell losses, including Navy and Air Force. This is unrealistic.

65,77% from the Red Army number would be 22.674.475 infantrists as "irrecoverable personnel losses". Of course, armoured vehicles are used on the frontlines, and not all soldiers were in frontline units, so of course it has to be way lower, maybe 50%. But this would not even include people who died in other branches like the air force (92,528 aircrew & 46,100 aircraft lost in combat, but 60,300 aircraft lost in accidents - according to Krivosheev), the navy (154,771 according to the Russian Wikipedia-page about the Soviet Navy in WW2) partisans (the number of soviet partisans exceeded one million, according to mainstream Russian sources), paramilitarys, foreigners, people who were executed for desertion or criminal offences, people who died of diseases, accidents, suicide, POWs that died, and Soviet citizens who fought or worked for the German side (like Vlassovites) and were either killed on the battlefield, executed by the Soviets like after the Prague Uprising (see Wikipedia-article), or disappeared in Gulags.

You have to consider: the national identity in Putin's Russia is founded on the narrative of Russian heroism and military strength. We have all found out that Putin's propaganda machine instrumentalizes history and spuns the myth of the invincible Russian army out of it. Everybody who cares about this topic has heard or read from Russians or pro-Russians that Russia allegedly has never been defeated, that Russia won WW2 all by itself - and we all found out that Russian military strength is primarily make-believe. The Russian military currently confirms a lot of what in recent years has been defamed as "western myths".

But overall, the question that I would like to have an answer to:

Why does Wikipedia promote the historian who's estimates are the lowest? Why does Wikipedia completely disregard numbers that are twice or even three times higher?

And since we all know that Putin's Russia employs a large number of "social media propagandists": Is it possible that Krivosheev's numbers are on top of every Wikipedia-article about the Red Army in WW2 because it fits Putin's narrative of Russian military strength and heroism better? 91.49.25.91 (talk) 11:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC) 91.49.25.91 (talk) 11:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)