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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_... has military deaths for the Soviet Union at between 8 and 11M - bad but some way short of 20M.

For soldiers, that’s correct. However, if you include civilian deaths you do hit the 20 million number. And that’s the lower estimate.

Yes, but the original statement specifically said 20M soldiers, not "soldiers and civilians".

Who are you going to believe? An anonymous poster on Wikipedia or an anonymous poster on HN?

The anonymous poster(s) on Wikipedia do include links to sources, including, e.g., http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/SovietLosses.pd... which has the 11M estimate and seems reasonably well researched.