Zhukov and the Russians — as opposed to Stalin, the communist party, and the USSR — merit appreciation for their extraordinary effort toward defeating Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, even a generous view of the Russian Army in WW II should not ignore its trail of brutality, rapine, and pillage across Eastern Europe. No mere incidents of war, they were matters of policy that helped to render illegitimate the regimes set up by the USSR.
The real shame was the treatment of ex-Soviet POWs upon their return to the Soviet Union after the war, most were sent directly to Siberia, if not killed on the spot.