Any WW2 or WW1 historians, might be interested in Soviet drama documentary about each war

[vinny9698]

I learned that in WWI, the Russia had a large group of Russian soldiers fighting in the Western Front.
In WWI, the battle of Verdun, the Russians on the insistence of the French army started a major offense that they were not prepared to do just to help the French in the battle of Verdun. Germany had to move soldiers from Verdun to the Eastern Front to prevent to hold off the Russians. Plus other interesting facts.
They also have a drama documentary about Soviets fighting the Fascists as the Russians called them, Spies must die.
also with English subtitle similar to the old Combat! TV series but in color.

[Igel]

1. Typically with Russian sources the problem isn't so much with what's said

as with what's not said and the relative importance of Russian whatever.

Thus it's always been. There's the occasional falsehood, but often if you dig you find that the falsehood is itself based on a half-truth that was misinterpreted.

So Russia had troops in the Western front and in Greece. But their casualties (dead + wounded) are typically less than just the deaths for any other country in a given campaign or offensive, and sometimes their casualties are a pittance compared to western allies' casualties. They didn't need to be there, except that they were allies and had large numbers of men and not so much materiel. So they contributed men in exchange for materiel. Both in WWI and in WWII. From the Russian perspective, they just contributed men without compensation--instead, they were met with betrayal. The Russian contribution on the Western front was only huge in Russian estimations. Their contribution on the Eastern front was, of course, huge. But a bloodbath.

Similarly with the USSR and Germany before WWII and with the western Allies during WWII.

[cwydro]

2. Maybe I'm reading your post wrong, but Russian casualties in WWII were much higher.

They far exceeded the other nations'.