Some 27 million Russians died during the Second World War, a Russian daily said on Thursday, citing estimates by a Russian interdepartmental commission.

According to Vremya Novostey newspaper, the total fatalities of the Soviet Union, both soldiers and civilians, were 26.6 million people, of those an estimated 8,668,400 soldiers died.

Contrary to conventional claims that Russia simply sacrificed its soldiers, the ratio of combat losses of the Red Army to the Wehrmacht was 1.3:1.

The commission implemented a new method to estimate fatalities based on archives of troop deployment to military offices and arrivals at the front.

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