Posted on 01/23/2005 4:22:43 PM PST by wagglebee
The notorious 1939 pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that divided up much of eastern Europe is open only to historical re-evaluation, a Kremlin spokesman said Saturday, suggesting that Moscow isn't prepared to support a legally binding renouncement of the agreement.
"At present, only the historical evaluation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is possible," Dmitry Peskov, deputy press secretary to President Vladimir Putin, told reporters. "There is no possibility of its juridical evaluation due to current realities." He did not elaborate, but the statement appears to dampen expectations, created this week by Estonian President Arnold Ruutel, that the Kremlin was ready to disown the pact during the May celebrations in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II.
Putin, Ruutel told Estonian national broadcaster Eesti Raadio that Putin had told him that Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, supported annulling the pact "and considers this the right thing to do."
The Kremlin's statement after the meeting, however, didn't mention the pact, and Kremlin spokespeople initially refused to comment.
Signed in Secret
The 1939 nonaggression pact named for Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov was signed in secret and carved much of Eastern Europe up between the two countries, including the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were placed under the Soviet sphere of control.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944 and the three countries were reincorporated back into the Soviet Union. They became independent in the Soviet breakup of 1991, and all three joined the European Union last year.
Peskov said that "from the Russian point of view, the best step in the development of Russian-Estonian relations would be the signing of a political declaration on the fundamentals of relations and a border delineation treaty" during the 60th anniversary celebrations.
Russia has tense relations with the Baltic nations and has ratified a border agreement only with Lithuania. The Baltic nations often accuse Russia of bullying and of failing to adequately acknowledge the Soviet occupation. They have asserted their ethnic and linguistic identities, upsetting their significant ethnic Russian minorities and prompting accusations of unfair treatment from Moscow.
Russia has invited the three leaders to Moscow on May 9 for the World War II anniversary celebrations, but only one, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, has agreed to participate and she has called on Russia to denounce the pact.
This wasn't just a border realignment. Thousands of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuantians were killed, or shipped in boxcars to Siberia.
L
I think the Hitler-Stalin pact was one-sidedly cancelled by Hitler on june 22nd 1941, I don't see the problem here.
Surely that deal, conducted between two mass murdering dictators, has no legal standing in the modern day.
Guess they think so...
I don't hear much about Eisenhower's deals with stalin being brought to light...such as the May 10,1945 "repatriation" ordered by ol'Ike to turn over 25,000 Russian solidiers who had fought for the Allies to stalin, who then executed them...all.
There's lots of history about all sides many people don't know. Really. You'd be surprised.
FMCDH(BITS)
Frankly GW should sign a similar such agreement with em and carve up the middle east.
Two problems with your statement. First, it suggest a sequential extermination. The Reds started killing folks as soon as the Nazis did. Second, it understates the number killed by the Communists. It should read 'millions' rather than 'thousands'.
There were about 5.5 to 6 million Polish Civilians killed in World War II. About half were Jewish, most of whom were killed by the Germans. Of the remaining 2.5 - 3 million, about half were killed by the Russians, and half by the Germans, as I recall, although the half and half split might include military folks as well.
So what would be the practical effect, if any, if the Russians did renounce the PAct?
Something seems implied other than mere symbology.
Does anyone actually *know* whatthe practical effect would be?
Operation Keelhaul was the "repatriation" of Russian, Ukrainian, and other peoples who had escaped Stalin's hell on earth behind the retreating German armies. Around five million were sent bak to Uncle Joe with the knowledge they would be exterminated.
FDR and Eisenhower's little gift to Stalin.
And, yes, "thousands" does understate the murders of Poles by the Communists. In November, last year, I visited the new museum in Warsaw dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, a moving experience. The murder of Polish patriots by the Red Army and political police kept on long after the official end of WWII as did Polish resistance against Communist domination.
My basic point was that while the Baltic republics were victims of the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Poles were its first victims.
"The Politician" is an eye-opener, no?
FMCDH(BITS)
Hitler already renounced it June 22, 1941 upon the invasion of Eastern Poland and the Soviet Union.
The russians executed russian POWs in german POW camps too. In the russian army, surrendering was punishable by death.
In fact, they didn't just execute the freed POW, they executed the POWs family living in russia too.
I always thought it was FDR, not Eisenhower who sent the Russian soldiers to their deaths. I don't remember any book or professor saying that the president fully knew what was going to happen. Possibly he was too worn out to dwell on it. FDR was half dead for most of his fouth term.
I think Eisenhower was a general in Europe at the time and it was Roosevelts deal with "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
I also think FDR agreed to honor the Molotov / Ribbentrop agreement.
The practical effect would be the basis of Polands eastern
border. Stalin seized Galacia and Western Ukraine in concert with German occupation.
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