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Originally Posted by ThaVirus
A bit off topic, how did Russia become a superpower and maintain such prominence throughout the bloodshed?
It's a large country but seems a vast portion of it is a barren wasteland. What isn't a wasteland suffers some of the harshest winters known to man. They've been involved in some of the bloodiest wars. They've lost a shit ton of working age men.
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Quantity over quality has always been a Russian thing. While Siberia has harsh winters, western and southern Russia where the vast majority of the population lives has no more harsher winters than say Poland and less harsh winters than Finland. That area is also bigger than most European countries.
Western Russia is also extremely fertile and able to support a huge population. Remember also that the German invasion of Russia was put on hold as the army had to swing south to assist the Italians in capturing Greece, as the Greeks had completely pushed the Italians out of Greece and were marching up the Adriatic coast looking to completely destroy the Italian army.