Although the Soviet Union was victorious in World War II , the war resulted in around 26 – 27 million Soviet deaths ( estimates vary ) and had devastated the Soviet economy in the struggle . Some 1,710 towns and 70,000 settlements were destroyed . The occupied territories suffered from the ravages of German occupation and deportations of slave labor by Germany . Thirteen million Soviet citizens became victims of the repressive policies of Germany and its allies in occupied territories , where people died because of mass murders , famine , absence of elementary medical aid and slave labor . The Nazi Genocide of the Jews , carried out by German '' Einsatzgruppen '' along with local collaborators , resulted in almost complete annihilation of the Jewish population over the entire territory temporarily occupied by Germany and its allies . During the occupation , the Leningrad region lost around a quarter of its population , Soviet Belarus lost from a quarter to a third of its population , and 3.6 million Soviet prisoners of war ( of 5.5 million ) died in German camps
Genocide of the Jews
The Holocaust
History of Russia