I appreciate your information. The truth is difficult for some...hopefully spanalot can get past his personal prejudices and rise to the truth.
The largest number of people killed by the international Soviet Commies were the Russians...peasants, priests, children, men and women.
It's a shame about those prejudices because it clouds judgment.
As an American I would like to see Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, the Stans, the former Warsaw Pact countries all flourish in a free and democratic atmosphere. After all, that's why we waged the Cold War and why were victorious in it. Soviet crimes were shocking and definitely need to be addressed - BUT, the blame Russia first crowd is just making the matters worse. Long ago they all needed to sit down together and come up with some sort of means to address the crimes of the horrible regime.
Unfortunately there is a lot of influence in Ukraine and elsewhere that comes from former Ukrainians, Russians, etc., who haven't recognised that communism is DEAD and that no good can come out of stirring the flames of ethnic hatred. That former citizens of those countries are willing to sit back and watch their former countrymen fight the battles they have instigated from afar disgusts me. Especially because it's a slap in the face of Ronald Reagan's legacy.
you can stop trying to outdo each other.
Your absurd claims about the Ukrainian Freedom Fighter Bandera is so much Kremlin propaganda. He along with his family spent most of the war in Nazi concentration camps.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:QAQwLWnX7osJ:www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/05/b37ae4db-b5bf-43f6-a3e6-147caa57bd20.html+bandera+nazi+concentration+camp&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9&ie=UTF-8
And regarding the Genocide committed by the Russian against the Ukrainians, one look at the map will show you that the Genocide was limited to Ukraine and areas of Russia populated by Ukrainians and other anti Kremlin nationalities.
http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/famine_map.html