Posted on 05/06/2005 12:55:17 PM PDT by lizol
Soviets never annexed the Baltic states: Putin
Correspondents in Moscow and Washington
May 07, 2005
RUSSIA has angrily denied that the Soviet Union ever annexed the Baltic states, fuelling a bitter dispute that is threatening to overshadow Victory in Europe Day celebrations in Moscow on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that there was no need to apologise further for the "tragedy" inflicted on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as the Soviet act had already been condemned.
But he kept to the Kremlin line that the Soviet Union took over the three states by agreement rather than force.
"In effect, these Baltic countries were an exchange coin in world politics," Mr Putin said in an interview with a German television network.
The Kremlin's European affairs chief, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said yesterday that "there was no occupation".
"There were agreements at the time with the legitimately elected authorities in the Baltic countries."
But US President George W.Bush, who was due to visit Latvia today before attending the 60th anniversary commemoration in Moscow, has sided with the Baltic states in their demand that Russia acknowledge their annexation.
Mr Bush told Lithuanian state television he would remind Mr Putin about the Soviet occupation when they met on Monday. US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Russia should denounce the secret 1939 pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that preceded the takeover of the Baltic states.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said recent Russian rhetoric was reminiscent of Stalinist times. She thanked Washington for trying to get Moscow to face up to its past.
The dispute between Russia and its Baltic neighbours has simmered for years but now threatens to sour Moscow's relations with Washington and Brussels on the eve of what was supposed to be an international show of respect for Russia's World War II effort.
Russian officials were already fuming over Mr Bush's decision to visit Latvia and Georgia either side of his Moscow trip as a show of support for young democracies in former Soviet states that have turned their backs on Russia.
Soviet troops entered the Baltic states in 1940 after the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Germany invaded the Baltic states in 1941 and held them until 1945, when the victorious Red Army returned, placing them under Moscow's rule until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Last year, all three Baltic republics joined the European Union and NATO, which now has fighter jets stationed in Lithuania.
From wikipedia.org
Estonia:
Forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in June 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and then occupied by the Third Reich from 1941-1944, it was again occupied by the Soviet Union in 1944.
Latvia:
the Soviet Union annexed the country on 17 June 1940 in accordance to the Soviet-Nazi agreement (Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) of 1939.
Except for a brief period of German occupation during World War II, Latvia remained a Soviet territory
Lithuania:
It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 during World War II in line with the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939.
If that isn't annexation, then no country has ever annexed anything, ever.
I'd like to review those "legitimate elections."
Reminds me of the "elections" in Russia in the '20s, '30s, and '40s where the candidates were Stahlin, Stahlin, Stahlin and Stahlin.
Which included deporting a third of the prewar population to Siberia and Central Asia!
ba-dum-bum!
Seriously, folks, you've been a great audience. I'm Vlad, I'll be here all week.
"In effect, these Baltic countries were an exchange coin in world politics," Mr Putin said
Way to go making friends Vlad! If I were a citizen of one of these 3 countries, I'd be thrilled to hear that I was an exchange coin!
ping.
Even for Putin this is ridiculous, does he actually expect people to believe that these people asked to be included in Stalin's genocidal dictatorship.
ASKED? Many of them were DYING to get in at the time!
[/rimshot]
bttt
So, in a way, Poland was paritally annexed.
It is poetic justice that his successor, Khrushchev, gave the Crimea and Donbas to the Ukraine.
Putin is nuttier than Long Island Railway killer Colin Ferguson who killed six, wounded nineteen, and claimed he was innocent and framed.
Maybe Putin is correct. They didn't "annex" the Baltic states, they merely accepted them as a gift/bribe from their Nazi allies.
He doesn't think he has to be believable. He believes he can say whatever he likes without fear of contradiction. Its a power thing, an in your face, I can deny reality if I want to and you will still have to suck up to me, because I'm important. Gushing actresses do it all the time.
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