You see, even a sentence like "The Russians liked to send humans into the meat grinder" to me seems SO unfair and driven by a deeply conditioned mentality - ple

You see, even a sentence like "The Russians liked to send humans into the meat grinder" to me seems SO unfair and driven by a deeply conditioned mentality - please, don't take this personally and I don't really mean to offend -. While lack of organisation and proper equipment was a fact, they also were fighting a war in their own country. Which is quite a different story than just sending people abroad having an entire nation supporting you. This is something nor the US nor the UK has ever faced during their whole "modern" history. Those two soldiers sharing a rifle in the US would have been called heroes and would have had tens of movies covering their stories. But as they were Russians, they were just two poor unlucky men sent against their will to the meat grinder while probably they were soldiers well aware of giving their lives -trying to- protect their people. It's this basic lack of respect which is hurting me and that just confirms how history is the result of books written and approved by the current political power. To me, casualties say it all as they are the only real indicator of the suffering of a country (which goes well beyond propaganda). Also consider in such situations the line between official soldiers, unofficial militias and lone fighters is just a matter of definitions and asking "it was winter or a bullet?" is just the wrong question.