DISINFO: European countries downplay USSR's role in WWII
SUMMARY
The desire of the authorities of most European countries is to whitewash themselves and rewrite history through blatant distortions of the facts is clear. These attempts continue to downplay the role of the Soviet Union and to "strike" contemporary Russia, which steadfastly insists on the historical truth of the events of World War II.
RESPONSE
This message contains several well-known pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about historical revisionism in the run up to the 80th Anniversary of VE Day. See our article Putin’s History 3.0 - historical revisionism in Russia ahead of 9 May.
According to the Kremlin’s policy, the official Russian historiography is the only “true” way of interpreting the historical events of WWII. Any disagreement with the Kremlin’s official view on the history of WWII is automatically labelled by Russia as a “falsification of history”.
The European Parliament called the WWII the bloodiest tragedy of the 20th century, which resulted in millions of victims of authoritarian regimes both of Nazi Germany and the USSR. The European Parliament adopted a resolution describing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 23 August 1939 as a key element paving the way for the outbreak of World War II.
At the same time, there is a consensus among Western historians about the role played by the USSR in defeating Nazism. They do not question the Soviet contribution to the victory, or the status of the USSR as one of the countries that had won WWII.
See similar cases that changing the date of Victory Day is an attempt to downplay the USSR's role in WWII, that the West is trying to distort the truth about World War II, that the US and EU re-write WWII history to start a new world war, and that Western historical revisionism is aimed at weakening and destroying Russia.