DISINFO: Poland and Baltic states distort the truth about WWII
SUMMARY
Warsaw declared the USSR responsible for starting WWII together with Hitler’s Germany, while the Baltic states constantly remind the public that the USSR allegedly occupied their territories instead of liberating them. These statements have no historical basis and are made only out of political ambition.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the WWII and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. See other disinformation cases of historical revisionism.
On the 23rd of August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression (Molotov-Ribbentrop) pact, whose secret protocols divided the territories belonging to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Romania into Soviet and Nazi spheres of influence.
Shortly after the pact was signed, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September and by the Soviets on 17 September in 1939, followed by the Soviet aggression against Finland, and in June 1940, the occupation of the Baltic States and part of Romania. After Germany attacked the USSR in June 1941, the Baltic States were occupied by Nazi Germany until 1944 when the region reverted to Soviet control.
Read a statement from the Polish MFA on false narratives on World War II presented by the Russian Federation here and a similar case here.
In September 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the importance of European remembrance and expressed deep concern regarding the efforts of the current Russian leadership to distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime.