Soviet war crimes
Katyn 1943 exhumation. Photo by International Red Cross delegation
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War crimes perpetrated by the Soviet Union and its armed forces from 1919 to 1991 include acts committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as the NKVD, including the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these acts were committed upon the orders of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in pursuance of the early Soviet Government's policy of Red Terror, in other instances they were committed without orders by Soviet troops against prisoners of war or civilians of countries that had been in armed conflict with the USSR, or during partisan warfare.
A significant number of these incidents occurred in Northern and Eastern Europe before, during and in the aftermath of World War II, involving summary executions and mass murder of prisoners of war, such as at the Katyn massacre and mass rape by troops of the Red Army in territories they occupied.
When the Allied Powers of World War II founded the post-war International Military Tribunal to examine war crimes committed during the conflict by Nazi Germany, with officials from the Soviet Union taking an active part in the judicial processes, there was no examination of Soviet Forces' actions or charges brought against its troops, also because they were an undefeated power which then held Eastern Europe in military occupation, marring the historical authority of the Tribunal's activity as being, in part, victor's justice.
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