>>64436863
because they lost the war. even so called invasion of SU as gigantic mistake is from know it alls with 20/20 hindsight. At the time, pre invasion what was known were two facts
>winter war performance of vatniks
>german own experience decimating vatniks just 20 years earlier in WW1. this gets also memory holed hard but eastern front collapsed completely and germans were free to ride all the way to kharkiv unopposed

it was not unreasonable to presume vatnik union would not last alone against germany long. Given the amount of foreign interference they got with US/UK coming in to save SU, its actually believable. For comparison without food aid alone famine would have ravaged across all fronts and imperial colonies by 1942/43. As Ukraine made up to close to 1/3 of pre war agricultural output. And they were borderline starving before that even outside the deliberate famines caused by Stalin to kill ukranians in holodomor