Deaths of Soviet POWs and Forced Laborers

Soviet Prisoners of War in German Custody

G.F. Krivosheyev reports that official records list 3.4 million Red Army personnel as missing. He himself calculates an additional 1.16 million missing personnel from units that were encircled and could not send out reports to the center. This nets a total of 4.56 million missing, but Krivosheyev estimates 500,000 of these never entered into captivity, but were killed beforehand. He therefore allows for 4.06 million Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans. Another Russian scholar, M.V. Filimoshin, builds on Krivosheyev's work and estimates that an additional 500,000 conscripts were called up, but were lost as missing before they were integrated into their units.[13] This allows for a higher number of up to 4.56 million Soviet prisoners of war.

German estimates of Soviet prisoners taken, however, run up to 5.7 million. The huge discrepancy may be partially explained by German double counting and partially the fact the Germans took captive thousands of militiamen and police not counted on Red Army rolls, and even more crucially — rounded up numerous civilians on the presumption some could be encircled Soviet troops attempting to avoid capture by shedding their uniforms, or else mobilized conscripts on their way to their units. For example, in the Kiev encirclement the Germans reported capturing 665 thousand prisoners of war. However, the entire Southwestern Front defending Kiev had only 627 thousand men on its rolls, of whom tens of thousands had successfully slipped out of the cauldron and therefore avoided capture, as well as another 150 thousand who had never been encircled by the German pincers in the first place. The 5.7 million figure of Soviet POWs is without a doubt an overestimate of actual captured Soviet soldiers and almost certainly still an overestimate of Soviet citizens captured by the German armed forces and treated as POWs.

In any case, the number of Soviet citizens who the Germans considered to be captured combatants (by no means had all actually been combatants, nor were they actually afforded the protections of a POW status) and who perished in German custody is most often given as 3.3 million. The figure stems from a German historian Christian Streit who arrived at the figure by taking the estimated 5.7 million captured as his starting point and then subtracted from it the number of those who were known to be still alive in German custody in January 1945 (930,000) and those who may have been released (1 million) or liberated (0.5 million).[14]

Streit's figure is problematic because he uses the inflated 5.7 million figure as his starting point. Starting instead with a different contemporary German estimate of 5.2 million total captives his method could result in a much smaller estimate of 2.8 million deaths of Soviet POWs in German custody. However, in the same way that Streit inputs an overestimate of total captives he could be using too high figures for those released and those liberated. Indeed he states that "at most" 1 million were released implying the number is easily smaller. Additionally the estimate of those liberated or escaped is from the Army High Command, which is the same body that produced the inflated 5.7 million estimate of the total. Using 5.2 million as a starting point and lowering the release and liberated figures by 20% Streit's method would result in a point estimate of some 3.1 million deaths among Soviet POWs in German hands, which is easier to defend.  

Ukraine: Pro-Government Civilians Killed, West Blames All Violence on Yanukovich

It has been reported that 26 people have been killed in the recent outbreak of violence in Ukraine. 10 of those killed so far have been policemen. Majority of these have been riot police killed in violent clashes with the protesters, but at least two of these deaths occurred when a traffic police unit, which was not involved in suppressing the protests, was attacked by assailants.

"The Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported that seven police officers died of gunshot wounds during the clashes. Two additional officers were later killed and another was critically injured as a traffic police unit was attacked in Kiev. The police officers died while in pursuit of the offenders."

The majority of non-police deaths are presumably of protesters killed in the violent clashes with the police. However, at least two of civilian deaths were of non-protesters. A journalist of a Russian-language daily was beaten with iron rods, then shot by masked assailants:

"A Ukrainian reporter has died of a gunshot wound after masked men attacked him on the way home in central Kiev. His colleagues suspect the attack was not accidental.

The journalist, Vyacheslav Veremyi, of the local “Vremya” (“Time”) pro-government newspaper died early on Wednesday morning of a gunshot to the chest while doctors were trying to save him."

Additionally, an office worker perished in a fire when the protesters stormed and set fire to the building of the Party of the Regions in Kyiv:

"Protesters also attacked the headquarters of President Yanukovych's Party of the Regions, temporarily smashing their way in and setting it on fire before being forced out by police. One person - believed to be an employee - was found dead inside."

Meanwhile the Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has reacted to the violence by stating:

"We must be clear: Ultimate responsibility for deaths and violence is with president Yanukovich. He has blood on his hands."

American Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt sung from the same song sheet:

"From this moment on, the USA holds Yanukovich responsible for everything that happens in Ukraine."

It is enormously curious the West would choose to blame all the violence on the government of Ukraine. Even though the most radical elements of the protest movement in Ukraine have taken to torching office workers, attacking traffic police, and possibly murdering journalists this is all ultimately the fault of Yanukovich.

What is being communicated by the Western officials is that the Ukrainians squaring off against the current government may do no wrong even when they are engaged in the killing of defenseless civilians. That means that if more journalists or office workers are murdered by extremists, it is the Western officialdom — not the Ukrainian government — that will be in large measure responsible for their deaths.

Non-Repression Deaths of Combatants

Soviet Regulars

G.V. Krivosheyev established Soviet records indicate the "deadweight" losses of the Soviet military in the Soviet-German war amount to 8.69 million dead. It would be erroneous, however, to take the figures indicated by these incomplete records at face value, as synonymous with actual deaths among Soviet military personnel.

To highlight just one problem. Krivosheyev suggests the Germans took 4.06 million Soviet military personnel prisoner of whom 2.96 million survived their ordeal, while the other 1.1 million perished in German custody. In fact, we know that more than 3 million Soviet citizens the Germans had designated prisoners of war died. Even allowing for the fact many of them were not military personnel, but instead civilians and partisans, the number of Soviet Red Army men who perished after they fell into German hands must have been far greater than 1.1 million.

Ellman suggests there are other factors Krivosheyev's figures do not take into account. One is the fact that given peacetime mortality rates among the age groups making up the Red Army personnel there would have been 400,000 deaths among their number even in peacetime. Another that there would have been Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans who were subsequently released or escaped, but who were not reinstated into the Soviet military due to their disability, avoidance of conscription, or age. He estimates their number may have been 300,000.

The first of these points by Ellman is less valuable than the second, particularly as it pertains to the projected 100,000 "natural deaths" among Soviet POWs. If we know the life expectancy of a Soviet prisoner of war taken by the Germans was usually extremely low (in 1941-42 when most were taken it was only a few months) it is the case they simply would not have had the time to die a natural death in captivity, before they died of other causes. It is irrelevant if thousands of Soviet soldiers taken POW would have died anyway in 1941-1945 of other causes, if their life was cut short when they were left to starve in Wehrmacht's POW camps in 1941/42. Ellman's other point is pertinent. The number of POWs who survived captivity must be greater than the sum of POWs who were reinstated into the Red Army before the end of the war, of those who were returned to the Soviet Union at the end of the war, and of those who emigrated.

Krivosheyev figures, however, are nonetheless the best starting point in determining the extent of non-repression deaths among Soviet regulars — that is excluding deaths of Red Army men in German POW camps and at the hands of Soviet military tribunals. According to their records the Red Army and the NKVD sustained 5.23 million killed in action, 1.1 million died of wounds, 270 thousand died of disease, 290 thousand died in accidents or shot. Since we know from other sources that around 160,000 Red Army men were shot it follows 130,000 of the latter died in accidents.[8] Additionally there were 500 thousand Soviet soldiers who went missing, but who Krivosheyev suggests were killed in fighting. Altogether this gives a figure of 7.39 million Red Army and NKDV non-POW dead, and the figure of 7.23 million non-repression dead for these two forces.

Croatian Skier on Sochi: Great Nation, Friendly People, Successful Games

Croatian alpine skier Ivica Kostelić, who has captured a medal on each of the last three Winter Olympics, in talk with USA today on his impression of Russia and the games in Sochi:

"Since I am Slavic, I understand parts of Russian language and maybe this whole culture is a little closer to me. Maybe this sounds crazy, but Russia is a great nation. I know there is a lot of criticism over some stuff. But sometimes we shouldn't compare the western way of thinking and the Russian way of thinking. Besides that, these Olympic Games are very good. We heard a lot about security is going to be very tough. But actually I hardly notice that it is tougher than Vancouver or Torino. The people are very friendly, and I think these Games so far have been good, a success."

Another in a line of participants of the Olympics who feels they games and the host nation are alright and the "Sochi haters" (or is it Russia haters?) don't have a leg to stand on.

Mark Adomanis Doesn't Understand Property Rights

The Cathedral Church of Episcopalians in Washington ("The National Cathedral")

Mark Adomanis, the popular Russia blogger over at Forbes writes:

"I personally think that Pussy Riot should have gotten off  without any punishment whatsoever because their actions didn’t harm anyone and because there is no “right” for religious observers not to be offended. The idea that churches should somehow be excluded from free speech protections seems to be a very dangerous one, and so Pussy Riot should have faced the same “consequences” they would have had they given their performance on a street corner (i.e. nothing)."

Adomanis gives this in a post commentating on the "hilarity" that ensued when Samantha Power, the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, misunderstood the challenge of her Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin and tweeted she would be proud to go on tour with Pussy Riot, presumably taking her from the National Cathedral in Washington, to St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem as suggested by Churkin. Indeed it is hilarious what an airhead Power revealed herself to be in totally missing Churkin's point.

At the same time, however, Adomanis reveals himself to lack a comprehension of something very basic himself, namely of property rights. Independent of any right for religious observers not to be offended, there exists a basic right of property. A church is not un-owned public space. A church (the building) is property that belongs to its church (the organisation) and its congregationn and is made open to the public for certain purposes. Eg, anyone who wants to offer a prayer or admire the architecture is usually welcome by the owners to come in and do so. However, if one enters instead with the intent to steal, or to hurl insult at the religious sentiment of its congregation then such a visitor is an unwelcome intruder — a trespasser knowingly trampling upon the property rights of its victim.

There is in fact a world of difference between shouting obscenities on a street corner and in a church. To guarantee the "right" to insult religious observers from within a church there would have to exist an intuitively indefensible situation where the law enforcement would actually have to attack the right of religious organizations to manage access to their property including being able to revoke welcome. Taken to its logical conclusions it leads to justification of utterly bizarre scenarios, such as of armor-clad riot police clearing a path through lines of religious observers at a church, so as to enable fringe professional provocateurs access to the altar, so that they may exercise their "right" to better make themselves offensive to believers by purposefully insulting religious sentiment from within the house of god.

The Total Population Losses of the Soviet Union in WWII

The most widely used figure of Soviet losses in the Soviet-Geman war is 26.6 million. This number actually stems from the report of an expert commission set up under Gorbachev which found that 26-27 million was the most accurate estimate of Soviet wartime losses, with 26.6 million being a good possible point estimate.[1]

The figure has its detractors, including those who posit the actual number of losses is significantly greater, as well as those who assert the real figure is lower. Perhaps the most well known personality to posit higher figures is Boris Sokolov who asserts that a more sensational figure of 43.4 million dead is the true cost of the war for the Soviet Union.[2] Perhaps the most noteable critic of the semi-official 26.6 million figure is Viktor Zemskov who comes on the other side of the debate, and maintains the lower, pre-Gorbachev figure of 20 million dead is the most accurate estimate to date.[3]

Even so, the 26-27 million figure is cited extensively, ad verbatim, or with minor reservations and adjustments both in the former Soviet space and in the West. A similar estimate is even accepted by western scholars, such as Norman Davies and Steven Rosefielde, who are known for contesting the output of non-sensationalist Russian historians on most other topics related to the Soviet Union. It is then mostly accepted that Gorbachev's commission had done a conscientious and generally capable job in establishing the 26.6 million figure as the best estimate of Soviet wartime losses.

Nontheless there is one, very pertinent question regarding this figure that was raised by Dutch and Russian demographers Michael Ellman and Sergey Maksudov. They have suggested the Soviet experts commisioned by Gorbachev erronously ommited to take into account the full extent of emigration from the Soviet Union and threfore overestimated the number of actual excess deaths. The issue is if 26.6 million represent an estimate of excess deaths in the period as is usually taken to be the case, or an estimate of total population loss.[4]

It is likely the latter is the case, simply because Grigoryiy Krivosheyev et al in explaining how the 26.6 million figure was arrived at nowhere mention emigration as a factor that would influence this figure.[5] In fact the Russian historian L.L. Rybakovskij confirms it did not, but simultaneusly posits Ellman and Maksudov overstate the impact of migration. Rybakovskij himself takes into account a net emigration balance of 1 million, positing that about 1.5 million people emigrated to Poland and 0.5 million from Poland to the USSR. This would seem to gloss over some migration currents given by Ellman and Maksudov such as of 0.4 million Germans to Germany, 0.3 million Jews to Israel, and 0.5 million all-union migration to the West.[6] Provided the 2.7 million estimate of net emigration balance is the better of the two, then the best point estimate of Soviet wartime excess deaths is not 26.6 million, but instead 23.9 million.

Breaking down Soviet WWII Losses

To my knowledge no historian, amateur enthusiast or professional, has ever attempted to meaningfully break down the number of Soviet wartime deaths in WWII by their causes. Interested in the subject last year I had decided to look for myself, which has so far resulted in a half-done report collecting dust on my hard drive for many months now. Rather than risk never finishing the research and the write up, I will share what I have learned from the works examined in thematic parts as I polish them up.

This post will serve as the table of content, providing access to all the individual parts from one point and linking them all together as they are added.


Breaking down Soviet WWII Losses:

1. The Total Population Losses of the Soviet Union in WWII

2. Non-Repression Deaths of Combatants

3. Deaths of Soviet POWs and Forced Laborers

Ukrainians Are Right to Suspect EU Deal Would Be Harmful

Research of public opinion in Ukraine suggests a plurality of 39% of Ukrainians believes signing the EU Association Agreement would have a net negative impact on Ukraine. Only 30% of Ukrainians believe it would be beneficial to sign it. The Ukrainian public is right to doubt the usefulness of the deal.

The nine hundred pages long deal envisions a near-complete, mutual elimination of tariffs, This dramatic relaxation of trade between the Ukraine and the EU, however, is only to take place once Ukraine copies a variety of EU regulations. In other words, albeit free-flowing trade between EU and the Ukraine would just by itself be beneficial to both, it is Ukraine alone that must pay for it with a committal to "approximate EU legislation, norms and standards". Ukrainian goods can have free access to the EU market but only once Kyiv introduces more regulation that will make production costlier and products more expensive, and therefore less likely to actually benefit from the theoretical access to the EU markets.

Ukrainian goods will be cheaper for the EU customer on the account of not being subject to a customs duty, but more expensive on the account of Ukrainian producers having to comply with EU regulation. It is anyone's guess if the former positive effect would make up for the latter negative one. What is more, since the deal introduces the concept of "dynamic approximation" Ukraine would actually commit to copying, not just existing EU regulations, but any EU regulations full stop, including those the EU shall pass in the future.

Economic "regulations" (actually restrictions) have the effect of suppressing productivity from where it would otherwise be. Highly advanced economies like Germany can "afford" placing restrictions on economic activity at the cost of a large cut in the, still high, standard of living. But for Ukraine, with its out-of-date industries, to commit to forever labor under the weight of the same economic restrictions that highly modern Germany can endure somewhat painlessly, could mean putting the breaks on its ability to ever catch up with the West and sentencing itself to a permanent state of poverty vis-a-vis Western Europe.

Moreover hand in hand with signing the EU Association Agreement Kyiv would have to seek loan from the IMF. The supposedly "neo-liberal" IMF, however, had demanded Kyiv commits to gradually raising import tariffs so as to increase government revenue and assure the IMF of repayment. In other words the result of Kyiv opting for the EU-IMF route would be a decrease to barriers to trade with the European Economic Area in the long term, under the condition that Ukraine copies EU economic regulations, but an actual increase to barriers to trade with the entire world in the short term to please the IMF.

The EU-IMF route combines gains to trade that are quite uncertain and very much in the future with losses that would be immediate and assured. The Brussels deal is not an appealing bargain and would not actually boost trade.

EU to Ukraine: I Want You to Want Me

The EU wants Ukraine to want the EU, but does not particularly want the Ukraine itself

The eruption of pro-EU, anti-government demonstrations in Kyiv has seen an interesting phenomena — a variety of acting Western officials have rushed to take part in one way or another. Carl Bildt, Guido Westerwelle, John Baird and Catherine Ashton, the chief foreign policy makers of Sweden, German, Canada and the EU respectively, as well as the American assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, and American senators John McCain and Chris Murphy have all touched ground in Kyiv and met with the Ukrainian opposition and the demonstrators, and in some instances even took the stage to address the participants of mass rallies. In unprecedented breach of diplomatic they largely traveled to Ukraine without meeting with representatives of the government. Additionally the media in the West has been heavily invested in covering the events in Ukraine, and rooting for its favored side — the demonstrators and the opposition.

It is easy to see what has got the Western elites so animated about the Ukraine. In a deep moral and economic crisis, which particularly the Europeans are finding themselves in domestically, they are finding it heartening and soothing to see huge crowds taking to the streets to try to move closer to their club. In the wake of the post-2008 economic crisis 'the European project' might have turned sour for the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and others, but at least deep in the Eastern European wilderness there are masses clamoring to come under the benevolent grip of the Brussels.

The parade of European officials in Kyiv has been so long and so well covered, because it represent a relief for the Western elites from the dreary and terrifying proposal of dealing with the crisis of economic growth across the EU. It also offers up the comfort and the validation of knowing that with all its gargantuan problems their system still represents a model to aspire to for others — if only just for the extremely downtrodden Ukrainians and then only at a 46% plurality.

The truth that most everyone is aware of, however, is that if immersing themselves with enthusiastic crowds waving EU flags in downtown Kyiv can represent an escape from the reality of the EU crisis, footing the bill for Ukraine's actual EU integration would only deepen its cause. Actually if the EU had really wanted the Ukraine it could have had it. Yanukovich had clearly favored a deal with Brussels and had invested significant effort as well as political capital in it. The stumbling blocks to concluding such a deal proved to be the EU's insistence on retracting the sentence against his political rival Timoshenko and the refusal to cough up the cash the Ukraine would need to begin the transition.

Yanukovich had asked for a similar loan that he has since got from Moscow from the EU, but the latter would not lend the money, suggesting instead that Kyiv looks to the IMF. The IMF was willing to provide the loan, but characteristically demanded the government in Kyiv committed to introducing a series of unpopular economic policies as a precondition.

Thoughts on Ukraine

Ukrainians are right to not want to join the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan

According to research conducted in November by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology only 37% of Ukrainians support the idea of Ukraine joining the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.* A more recent poll from December has the figure of 36%. Ukrainians are right in being unenthusiastic about joining this arrangement.

The Russian-led Customs Union is as much a protectionist bloc as it is a free-trade zone. It abolishes custom fees between member-states, but also maintains hefty tariffs for imports originating in third countries. The Custom Union import tariffs are only slightly lower than the Russian tariffs they replaced and much higher than the tariffs Ukraine collects now.

By joining the Customs Union Ukraine would eliminate artificial, state-imposed barriers to trade with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. However it would simultaneously have to accept additional, Customs Union-imposed barriers to trade with third states. It is doubtful the elimination of tariffs and customs checks on the border toward Russia and Belarus could offset the loss of trade with the rest of the world with which the Ukraine currently conducts 65% of its trade.

Even if it could, however, it simply does not make long-term sense for Kyiv to place itself in a position where it may not set custom duties by itself, but where it is tied to more protectionist-minded Moscow, Astana and Minsk instead. That said the Customs Union could become more appealing in the future if it were to dramatically reduce tariffs.

Popular support for EU membership in Ukraine is actually rather weak

Media coverage has focused on the pro-EU protesters in Kyiv, but in reality these speak for fewer than one half of all Ukrainians.

45% of Ukrainians support the recently-negotiated EU Association Agreement. The support for the eventual (and at this point very much hypothetical) EU membership is at a similar level. A November poll has it at 39%, while a more recent research suggests the figure of 46%. In either case this actually represents a very low level of support for EU integration