I sometimes hear that from Russians and i am and everyone around me quite baffled by that claim . It ' s almost like they think they were the good guys in WW 2 and whole war was about stopping Germans . Soviet Union was as bad as Germany and for whole eastern Europe atleast , it was just one invasion force taking place of another one . I can maybe understand Rusians not wanting to admit they were bad guys , and westerners , never learning what it is like to face red army invasion could think that WW 2 was about only Germany , because that ' s who they were fighting against . But the historical truth is that thanking Russia for their sacrifice against Germany doesn ' t have more merit than , let ' s say , thanking Hitler for crippling Soviet economy , so they were a bit weaker at the end and havent invaded rest of Europe . The were just two imperialistic and cruel countries that invaded and occupied a number of independent states . So , nope , none of the countries that suffered Soviet occupation would ever thank Russia for their sacrifice against Germany . Fun fact during WW 2 people actually run away from soviet occupated lands to German ones , prefering German occupation than soviet savagery .