DISINFO: UK and US did not support USSR in WWII until 1945
SUMMARY
The Anglo-Americans opened a second front on June 6, 1944. At this time, the war had been going on for almost 4 years. But they did this in order to seize part of Europe themselves so that the USSR army did not reach the English Channel. They had not been helping the Soviets until 1945. Only then did the American troops begin fighting, and only because they wanted to take Berlin for their own selfish purposes.
RESPONSE
A recurring deceptive narrative on WWII that tries to diminish or deny the role of the Western Allies and the financial and material support to the Soviet Union.
The Western states provided help to the USSR from the very beginning. For instance, in 1941, Britain and the United States established the movement of Arctic convoys; the first of them, known under the code name "Dervish", departed from Iceland on August 21 and arrived in Arkhangelsk without loss on August 31. A total of 7 convoys were conducted in 1941, and 78 throughout the entire war. In 1941, the Arctic convoys delivered 484 British Hurricane fighters to the USSR, among other strategic cargoes. Other types of essential equipment supplied by the UK and US to the Soviet Union under the was the US Studebaker truck which was delivered under the Lend-lease program in numbers up to 200,000 and was crucial for Red Army mobility.
Winston Churchill announced the need for military assistance to the USSR on June 22, 1941:
"Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. This applies not only to organised States but to all representatives of that vile race of Quislings who make themselves the tools and agents of the Nazi regime against their fellow-countrymen and against the lands of their births. These Quislings, like the Nazi leaders themselves, if not disposed of by their fellow-countrymen, which would save trouble, will be delivered by us on the morrow of victory to the justice of the Allied tribunals. That is our policy and that is our declaration".
In total, during the war, the Soviet Union received 4174 aircraft from Great Britain as assistance (Hawker Hurricane fighters, and since 1943 - more modern Supermarine Spitfires), 1084 heavy tanks Mk II Matilda (the first - already with the second Arctic convoy in October 1941), 3782 light tank Mk I Valentine, 301 heavy tank Mk IV Churchill. On August 16, 1941, Great Britain provided the USSR with a £10 million loan for the purchase of weapons; later the amount of the loan was increased to £60 million.
The UK had been in a state of war with Nazi Germany since September 1939 after Germany launched a war against Poland. France joined the UK. The USSR, on the contrary, signed a non-aggression pact with Germany that defined both countries' spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.
See similar disinformation denigrating the role of the UK and US in WWII in our database: in the summer of 1941 Britain deliberately did not rush to help the USSR; Poland and Western democracies cooperated with Hitler; the UK pushed Hitler to invade Eastern Europe.