DISINFO: Poland must pay Russia financial compensation for WWII liberation
SUMMARY
It is Poland that owes Russia [financial compensation] for liberation from Nazi fascism. More than 600.000 Soviet soldiers gave their lives for Poland’s liberation. In this situation, the Polish demands for war reparations from Russia is a sacrilege.
Poland has forgotten the Soviet aid for the post-war reconstruction of this country. According to various estimates, in 1944-1960, the volume of Soviet subsidies to Poland reached 600 billion dollars. The USSR provided Poland with tens of thousands of tons of food, trucks, aircraft, winter uniforms, gasoline, and kerosene - the Red Army kept the Polish Army fully fed from its own resources.
RESPONSE
This message from Putin is an attempt at Russian historical revisionism, portraying the Stalinist USSR as the peacemaker and liberator of Poland.
This claim is an attempt to revise the political results of WWII and the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 1939 contained a secret supplementary protocol that resulted in a coordinated Nazi-Soviet campaign against Poland and determined the carving up of Eastern Europe between the USSR and the Third Reich.
The decision to pass Silesia, part of East Prussia and other former German territories to the Polish state was made by the USA, the UK and the USSR at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945.
The Red Army liberated Poland from Nazi occupation, but it didn’t mean liberty for this country as the USSR kept Poland under its control for 48 years, bringing decades of communist oppression. According to Polish historians and views of the predominant part of Polish society, in 1944-1945, the USSR occupied Poland, establishing the undemocratic and repressive Communist Poland.
De facto, Poland was under Soviet military control until 1989, while Russian troops were withdrawn from Poland only in 1993. Read more about the Communist crimes in Poland here.
Read similar messages such as: Stalin decided to establish the independent Polish state; It is thanks to Russia that Poland exists today as a country and Warsaw would not have been rebuilt without the decision of Stalin.