Poland accuses Putin of whitewashing Soviet role in start of World War II
This isn't the first time Putin has voiced blame for World War II in the direction of Poland.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, REUTERSRUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladmir Putin: About three years after his country hacked the US presidential 2016 elections, there are still cyber vulnerabilities at the highest levels for countries like Israel, the US and within the EU.(photo credit: TNS)
The government of Poland is claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to rewrite the history of World War II by downplaying Soviet war crimes in an op-ed he submitted to The National Interest, in which he examined the events of World War Two ahead of a Red Square parade next week to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.In the article titled "The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II" Putin stated that "the Soviet Union... claimed an epic, crushing victory over Nazism and saved the entire world" while adding that Poland alongside the United States and the United Kingdom among other countries involved in the Treaty of Versailles were to share partial blame in the start of World War II.According to the Associated Press, a spokesperson for the head of Polish security services Stanislaw Zaryn noted Putin's op-ed as being “an element of an ongoing, persistent information war Russia wages against the West.”"If Putin were a historian, this paper would never have passed the peer review. But he is not," Sergey Radchenko, a Cold War historian at Cardiff University, said on Twitter. "He is just writing up historical narrative that would support his shallow claims to greatness as he seeks to perpetuate his rule. So, thumbs down from me, alas."He added, "the overall conclusion is of course it's a piece of crude propaganda."This isn't the first time Putin has voiced blame for World War II in the direction of Poland.In January of this year, the European Commission said it would not tolerate distortion of historic facts after Russia suggested Poland was partly responsible for starting World War Two and said it would challenge disinformation wherever it occurred.Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested last month that Poland shared responsibility for the war because it connived in Nazi German plans in 1938 to dismember Czechoslovakia - which he again, revisited in The National Interest op-ed earlier this week. The speaker of the Russian parliament also called on Poland to apologize for starting the war.“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. The Commission’s role here is to talk about facts,” EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova told the European Parliament.“The European Commission fully rejects any false claims that attempt to distort the history of the Second World War or paint the victims, like Poland, as perpetrators,” she said.Jourova said it was the pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov on Aug. 23, 1939, that paved the way for war.“The Nazi-Soviet alliance enabled the attack on Poland by Nazi Germany on 1 September, 1939, and subsequently Soviet troops on 17 September. These events marked the beginning of the Second World War – these are the facts,” she said.“Distortion of historical facts is a threat to our democratic societies and must be challenged wherever possible,” she said.“Organized and targeted dissemination of distortions and disinformation is something we have to oppose and reject.”Reuters contributed to this report.
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