Italian Militaries in the USSR during the Second World War. Objectives of the Campaign and Negotiations in the Post-War Period
Journal: Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University History
Year: 2021

Italy’s participation in the war against the USSR was dictated by at least three reasons: the common ideology which Mussolini and Hitler shared; Mussolini’s aspiration to revise the European order in the Mediterranean area, to the detriment of France and Great Britain; the goal of supplying Italy with the Russian raw material. The article examines the behavior of the Italian troops towards the Soviet war prisoners and the local population during the occupation from July 1941 to winter 1942–1943,