Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II

The repatriation of the Cossacks or betrayal of the Cossacks^[1] occurred when Cossacks, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who were opposed to the Soviet Union and fought for Nazi Germany, were handed over by British and American forces to the Soviet Union after the conclusion of World War II. Towards the end of the European theatre of World War II, many Cossacks forces with civilians in tow retreated to Western Europe. Their goal was to avoid capture and imprisonment by the Red Army for treason, and hoped for a better outcome by surrendering to the Western Allies, such as to the British and Americans. However, after being taken prisoner by the Allies, they were packed into small trains. Unbeknownst to them, they were sent east to Soviet territories. Many men, women and children were subsequently sent to the Gulag prison camps, where some were brutally worked to death. The repatriations were agreed upon at the Yalta Conference; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed that the prisoners were Soviet citizens as of 1939, although there were many of them that had left the country before or soon after the end of the Russian Civil War or had been born abroad, hence never holding Soviet citizenship.^[2]

Most of those Cossacks and Russians fought the Allies, specifically the Soviets, committing several atrocities, and in some cases, terrorising Soviet civilians while posing as Red Army advance units in Red Army uniforms in the Eastern Front. However, forced repatriations included non-combatant civilians.^[1][3] Motivations varied, but the primary reasons were the brutal repression of Cossacks by the Soviet government, e.g., the portioning of the lands of the Terek, Ural and Semirechye hosts, forced cultural assimilation and repression of the Russian Orthodox Church, deportation and, ultimately, the Soviet famine of 1930–1933.^[4] General Poliakov and Colonel Chereshneff referred to it as the "massacre of Cossacks at Lienz".^[2][5]