Bob Beck's Foreign Policy Blog

Lost in the glow of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy, the 83rd commemoration on 22 June of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, codename Operation Barbarossa, went virtually unnoticed in the United States. While much credit for defeating the Nazi war machine is understandably given to the American, British, and Canadian forces, Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation,” that stormed the French beaches in June of 1944, a strong case can be made that the Red Army deserves much of the credit for the allied victory in Europe.

Let’s look at the numbers. The three German army groups that attacked the open, western approaches to the Soviet Union in late June of 1941 included, per statistics from Britannica.com, almost 150 divisions with approximately three million men, 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. As it was the largest invasion force in human history, it is fair to say that the Soviet Union took the German’s best punch. Eventually, Soviet defenses, strategic errors by the Nazi high command, and the great equalizer of Russian geography turned the tide on the German assault. The war in the east, however, exacted a terrible price on the Soviet Union.

According to data from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, the United States suffered just over 400,000 deaths in the conflict, of which roughly half were lost in the European theater. Conversely, approximately ten million Soviet soldiers lost their lives in the existential struggle against Hitler’s forces. Equally appalling, upwards of ten to fifteen million Soviet civilians died in the conflict.

So why should we care about these morbid statistics today? When one considers why Vladimir Putin is waging war against his slav neighbor to Russia’s west, it is critical to be cognizant of the historical context that colors the Kremlin’s view of geopolitics. The Nazi invasion, operation Barbarossa, of the then Soviet Union eighty three years ago, continues to provide the strategic prism with which Russia views perceived threats.

Furthermore, because of the monumental losses, the cataclysm of WWII caused an enduring and deep-seated societal scar on the Russian psyche, much more so than in the United States. Consequently, when Putin conflates the “special military operation” in Ukraine with Nazis, the charge resonates amongst a citizenry raised on stories of the atrocities of the German invasion.

Yes, there are certainly many reasons that Russia decided to attack Ukraine in February of 2022. Putin clearly has a massive chip on his shoulder over the Soviet’s ignominious defeat in the Cold War and is attempting to regain some of the Kremlin’s previous sovereignty over buffer states, particularly to the west. Additionally, Putin assuredly has a Tsar complex, hoping to use his military conquests to secure his legacy in Russian lore alongside Peter the Great and Stalin. Equally important, the Russian autocrat fears the gravitational pull on his population of an open, vibrant democracy in Kyiv.

Nevertheless, the critical, strategic imperative of protecting the western approaches to the Russian heartland, the regime’s sustaining internal organs – Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the fertile agricultural belt in the south, must be recognized when analyzing Russian behavior. While we in the west, in good faith, believe the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to be a defensive alliance, leaders in the Kremlin, obsessed with a visceral sense of insecurity, rightly or wrongly assess a growing threat. This fear is particularly palpable given Ukraine’s stated goal of alliance membership, potentially putting NATO forces a mere 500 kilometers from the gates of the Kremlin. These perceptions are driven by the searing tragedies of Russian history, marked by scorched earth invasions of the empire by the Mongols, Napoleonic France, and Hitler’s Wehrmacht.

The point of this commentary is not to defend or justify what is clearly a defenseless and unjustified assault on a sovereign, peaceful nation by a revanchist Moscow. Rather, the goal is to explain the historical backdrop against which Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies are operating. When attempting to understand what drives Moscow’s actions, one must focus on what the Russians believe, not what we believe.

Note: This article has been submitted to the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript (published on 5 July 24) and the Brattleboro Reformer for possible publication.