A lot of the stricter regulations were either later relaxed, or deliberately ignored by prison staff. The directors and guards of the Western powers (France, Britain, and the United States), often complained about many of the stricter measures. The complaints were often vetoed by the Soviet Union, because it thought the rules should be stricter. The Soviet Union suffered 19 million civilian deaths during the war, and wanted the death penalty for all of the prisoners at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Western commentators accused the Russians of keeping Spandau prison in operation chiefly as a centre for Soviet spying, as they had an excuse to drive into western Berlin, and the soldiers often looked out over the city instead of into the prison grounds.