'Great Britain provided time, the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood'

So claimed Stalin, and he wasn't wrong. Hitler's betrayal of his erstwhile ally cost the lives of 29 million Russians... but the unforgiving Eastern Front broke Germany's armies - and victory saw the Soviets dominate Europe

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0NE day in early August 1945, my father Richard Dimbleby broadcast a dispatch from the fallen German capital Berlin to the BBC in London. His words caused an uproar: "Somewhere between us and the Russians there's a barrier of suspicion... passing through the Brandenburg Gate, which marks the boundary between the British and Soviet zones of occupation in Berlin, is like crossing a frontier." He had broken a taboo by uttering an unpalatable truth.

Moscow and Washington protested vehemently while British negotiators at the Potsdam Conference - the meeting to decide Germany's post-war fate - not only rejected Dimbleby's assertion but sent a tart message to the BBC's director-general in London, warning him it would be "disastrous if our efforts to build a firm foundation of Allied unity to ensure the peace of the world were impaired by criticism in the BBC".

Yet, as every one of the Allies knew, even if none wanted to admit it openly, Stalin had not only won the war but the peace as well. Half of Europe was now at the mercy of the Soviet Union and the dictator was starting to show his true colours.

As Britain marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, we honour those of our forebears who fought and died to save democracy, freedom and the rule of law from the tyranny of Nazism.

It may seem callous, therefore, to suggest it was not so much those valiant warriors but the men and women of the Soviet Union who broke Hitler's stranglehold on Europe.

Yet however disconcerting it may be - it was indeed the Red Army and not the Western Allies who destroyed the German armies on the battlefield and, in so doing, gave Stalin the whip hand in settling the fate of the continent for generations to come.