I dont know why .
I know that relations are strained but the Soviets were our allies and we would not have won without them.
It seems very petty.
I agree that ultimately it was petty and a bit of an insult to russia (at a time when we need cooler political heads to prevail)....
However.....
it seems to me russia wants too much credit for helping to beat germany while ignoring the fact that they HELPED Germany at the beginning of the war and actually profited (land grabbing) by Germanys aggression;
"The
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was a
non-aggression agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret
protocol aiming to return
Central Europe to the pre–World War I
status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to the Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided.[
citation needed] The Eastern Front was also made possible by the
German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement in which the Soviet Union gave Germany the resources necessary to launch military operations in Eastern Europe.
[12]
On 1 September 1939
Germany invaded Poland, starting
World War II. On 17 September, the
Soviet Union invaded Eastern Poland, and, as a result,
Poland was partitioned among Germany, the Soviet Union and Lithuania. Soon after that, the Soviet Union demanded significant territorial concessions from Finland, and after Finland rejected Soviet demands, the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 in what became known as the
Winter War – a bitter conflict that resulted in a peace treaty on 13 March 1940, with Finland maintaining its independence but losing its eastern parts in
Karelia.
[13]
In June 1940 the Soviet Union
occupied and illegally annexed the three
Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
[13] The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ostensibly provided security to the Soviets in the occupation both of the Baltics and of
the north and northeastern regions of Romania (Northern
Bukovina and
Bessarabia, June–July 1940), although Hitler, in announcing the invasion of the Soviet Union, cited the Soviet annexations of Baltic and Romanian territory as having violated Germany's understanding of the Pact. Moscow partitioned the annexed Romanian territory between the
Ukrainian and
Moldavian Soviet republics."
So...yes....hitler made a big mistake in attacking russia....
and if hitler had NOT attacked russia then russia would NEVER HAVE BEEN INVOLVED in the defeat of germany.
They would merely have picked up more territory and slaughtered more people..
