The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to statements by the Polish leadership that Russian officials allegedly form a “false picture of events” with their statements about the Second World War. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said it was the Polish leadership that over the years undermined relations with Russia and the work of experts on historical justice issues.
“Aggressive rhetoric, the demolition of monuments to the fighters against fascism, the singing role in the adoption of EU anti-Russian sanctions are direct evidence of this,” the Zvezda television channel quotes Zakharova.
The day before, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "concern" with statements by representatives of Russia, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, regarding the causes and progress of World War II.
“We note with concern and distrust statements by representatives of the Russian authorities, including President Vladimir Putin, regarding the outbreak and course of the Second World War, which present a false picture of events,” the statement reads on the website of the Polish Foreign Ministry.
It also emphasizes that in the 1930s, Poland allegedly adhered to a "peaceful policy" and sought to build normal relations with both Germany and the USSR, and therefore concluded a non-aggression pact with both states, but they "violated" it.
"The words of the President of the Russian Federation nullified the joint efforts of Russian and Polish experts, as well as the achievements of his predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, who, despite the difficulties, tried to direct Polish-Russian relations along the path of seeking truth and reconciliation," said Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.
The ministry also pointed out that the “right way” to develop a historical dialogue between Poland and Russia is to resume the work of the Russian-Polish group on complex issues, which “has already achieved significant success, in particular in establishing the role of the USSR in unleashing the Second World War.”
Recall that during a large press conference in December, Vladimir Putin noted that in 1939, Soviet troops entered Poland “after the Polish government lost control of its armed forces and what is happening on the territory of the country.”
According to the Russian leader, at that moment the Polish government “was already somewhere in the region of the Polish-Romanian border,” and therefore “there would be no one to even talk about with this subject.”
- President of Russia Vladimir Putin
- RIA News
- © Sergey Mamontov
After that, the deputy foreign minister, Shimon Shinkovsky, made a statement that Warsaw is analyzing this statement by the Russian president and is exploring the possibility of a diplomatic reaction.
In response to the words of Vladimir Putin, the Institute of National Memory of Poland stated that the Second World War "began with the aggression of Germany and the Soviet Union on Poland in 1939."
A report on the Institute’s website also emphasizes that “the prelude to armed aggression of the Third Reich and the USSR was their mutual agreement of August 23, 1939, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.”
Under a right in international law
Official Warsaw has for many years held the position that the Soviet Union allegedly attacked Poland in 1939, as did Hitler Germany.
The Polish leadership argues this thesis, among other things, with the fact that the USSR signed the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in August 1939.
At the same time, the Russian side has repeatedly stated that Poland and a number of European countries seek to rewrite history, while Moscow advocates the preservation of historical justice.
So, at an informal meeting of CIS heads of state, Vladimir Putin said that he was “surprised and hurt” by a resolution of the European Parliament on the “importance of preserving historical memory for the future of Europe,” which concerns the causes of World War II. As the Russian leader noted, this document states that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact “divided Europe and the territories of independent states between two totalitarian regimes, which paved the way for the outbreak of World War II”.
According to the Russian president, Europe deliberately hides the truth about World War II, trying to shift the blame for its beginning from the Nazis to the Communists. In this way, Putin emphasized, Western states seek to hide uncomfortable moments in their own history.
“Yes, we know who Stalin is. Yes, we gave him our marks. But I think that the fact remains that it was fascist Germany that attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and the Soviet Union on June 22 (1941), ”the Russian president emphasized.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin focused on the fact that the resolution of the European Parliament actually “put the Nazi aggressors on the same level as the Soviet Union,” while the West calls any attempt to challenge these theses “an information war against democratic Europe.”
As Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University recalled, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact "gave the USSR significant advantages in subsequent military operations against fascist Germany." However, to consider the restoration of the Belarusian-Ukrainian border as "a treacherous attack by the USSR on Poland is incorrect," the expert believes.
- Warsaw civilians and Red Army fighters
- RIA News
“This is what the international community has recommended. In addition, this was fair from the point of view of the ethnic resettlement of Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians. In 1939, the USSR restored political and historical justice by returning lands illegally seized by Poland in 1920, ”the analyst explained in a conversation with RT.
In addition, according to Shapovalov, "these measures were aimed at protecting the population of Belarus, Ukraine and the USSR, since they allowed a more successful and efficient reflection of fascist aggression."
“This saved the lives of Belarusians, Ukrainians and Jews after fascist Germany attacked the USSR,” the expert said.
“Forms a distorted picture of the past”
According to analysts, Poland intentionally distorts the historical events of the beginning of World War II, because it wants to assert itself in this way. Experts also pointed out that while in the early 2000s it was still possible to interact with the Polish side on issues of historical justice, then later this became impossible.
Recall that the Polish-Russian group on complex issues was organized in 2002 to clarify the white spots in the bilateral relations between Russia and Poland in the context of historical events without politicizing them. However, the work of the group was actually stopped in 2015, when the head of the group from the Polish side, Professor Adam Daniel Rotfeld resigned.
Two years later, it became known that the Polish Foreign Ministry was planning to resume the work of the group - this was the initiative made by the Polish ambassador to Russia, Włodzimez Marchinyak. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that "in the context of the freezing of the political dialogue between Russia and Poland at the initiative of Warsaw, the question of the advisability of resuming the group’s activities raises serious doubts."
According to Vladimir Shapovalov, the reaction of the Polish Foreign Ministry to the words of the President of Russia was quite expected.
“It corresponds to the policy pursued by the Polish authorities. The basis of this policy is Russophobia and an attempt to rewrite history. It is Warsaw’s actions that destroy the joint work of Russian and Polish historians, complicate the dialogue between countries, since over the past years the Polish authorities have been consistently destroying any possible basis for an objective analysis of historical facts, forming a distorted picture of the past and fighting this past, ”the expert said.
- Polish Foreign Ministry
- © msz.gov.pl
According to Shapovalov, Warsaw "completely rewrote the entire history of the twentieth century, without leaving a single reliable fact in it."
“The Polish side managed to completely pervert everything related to the interaction of Poland and the USSR,” the analyst emphasized, adding that “due to a review of the past, Warsaw is trying to assert itself.”
“So she wants to emphasize her position as a state that is one of the leading in Europe,” he said.
According to political analyst Alexander Asafov, the current statement by Poland is “part of the myth being created that only Americans and their allies won in World War II”.
“Tales that the US defeated the Nazis and the USSR was on the side and tried to enslave neighboring countries began to appear long ago. However, now the Polish leadership, which is very loyal to the United States, is developing this myth, ”said the expert in an interview with RT.
In addition, Asafov called the position of Warsaw an attempt to "get away from unpleasant facts in the history of Poland itself."
“Although, under the Nazi occupation, the Poles lost a huge number of people and many cities, including Warsaw, were completely destroyed,” the analyst recalled.
However, Poland and other Western countries, in spite of everything, will continue to revise the history of World War II.
“And this will continue until the corresponding ideology for the Polish political leadership and the leadership of other states is written in Washington,” the analyst summed up.