Nearly two-thirds of Russians believe that the Soviet Union could have defeated Nazi Germany without the help of its wartime allies, a new survey has revealed.
Some 63 percent of Russians said that the Soviet Union would have triumphed without aid from abroad, a new poll by independent pollster the Levada Center found.
Twenty-eight percent said that the Soviets needed Allied help to secure victory over Berlin, while 9 percent could not answer.
An estimated 27 million Soviet soldiers died fighting Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945.
Some 36 percent of respondents blamed the Soviet Union’s devastating wartime losses on Germany’s sudden attack, while 24 percent said that the Nazis simply had “military superiority.”
Another 12 percent blamed wartime leaders who were content to sacrifice troops to the cause, while ten percent blamed the incompetence of the Soviet command. One in ten blamed the “brutality” of Nazi forces, while eight percent struggled to answer.
The survey was carried out among 1,600 people in 137 cities and towns in 48 Russian regions.
