Putin: Nazi-Soviet Pact Not Responsible for World War II

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (R) and Russian Premier Vladimir Putin (L) at a press conferenmce after their talks in Sopot, Poland, 01 September 2009.

Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, declared Tuesday in Poland's city of Gdansk that the Ribentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939 was not responsible for the outbreak of World War II.

Putin is in Gdansk together with 19 other state leaders, including Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, for the remembrance ceremonies on the 70th year since the beginning of World War II.

"We are witnessing constant attempts to suggest that the outbreak of World War II became possible explicitly because of the Ribentrop-Molotov Pact," Putin said at a joint press conference with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk, as quoted by BGNES.

The Russian leader said the worst thing would be to spread incorrect theses about World War II in order to pursue domestic political objectives. In his words, everything that had led to the tragic events after September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, must be studied thoroughly in order to be prevented for good.

According to Putin, the Nazi-Soviet Pact "was the last of a series of documents in which all had made mistakes". He enumerated a number of international agreements preceding the Ribentrop-Molotov Pact such as the Munich Agreement that led to the outbreak of World War II.

He also reminded of Poland's participation in the dismembering of Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the Polish-German Non-Aggression Pact of 1934.

"Only the search for truth can allow us to build trust," Poland's PM Tusk said in turn adding that "two totalitarian systems decided the fate of this war, first as allies, and then as enemies".

"We cannot forget the huge contribution through the spilled blood of the Soviet soldiers. Nothing that happened after 1945 can change that," Tusk said.

 

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