And then there's the Holodomor, the deliberate famine which Stalin imposed on Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians.
When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainians initially treated them as liberators. If Hitler had been less stupid, and treated the Ukrainians as potential allies, he might have won on the Eastern Front.
>When the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainians initially treated them as liberators. If Hitler had been less stupid, and treated the Ukrainians as potential allies, he might have won on the Eastern Front.
They actually were treated like allies for a time. Lots SS unit recutitment in the Ukraine. Eventually the Germans starved the population mostly because socialism was proving ineffective at distributing enough food so they stole the harvest to feed Germans. Hitler didn’t socialize too many things but food production and distribution was the step that probably cost him the war.