Russia denies illegally annexing Baltic states
Russia today denied it illegally annexed the Baltic nations in 1940, rejecting demands from the three former Soviet republics that it admit having illegally occupied them during the Second World War.
Russia’s point man on relations with the European Union, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said the Baltic governments of the time had willingly invited Soviet troops into their countries and agreed to join the Soviet Union.
“One cannot use the term ‘occupation’ to describe those historical events,” Yastrzhembsky told a news conference. “At that time, the troop deployment took place on an agreed basis and with the clearly expressed agreement of the existing authorities in the Baltic republics.”
“There was no occupation of foreign territory seized by military means,” he said.
Moscow faces growing pressure – including from Washington – to make a historical redress and apologise for the annexation of the Baltic nations.
On Monday, Moscow is to host dozens of world leaders – including US President George Bush, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac – for celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in Europe in the Second World War.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga is the only Baltic leader to have accepted the invitation to attend the event. Lithuania and Estonia are boycotting the festivities, saying the Kremlin has refused to acknowledge its role in five decades of Soviet occupation.
Bush said today he would remind Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Soviet occupation of the Baltics when they meet in Moscow.
In excerpts of an interview to be broadcast today, Bush told Lithuanian state television that he will stress to the Russian leader that the end of the war did not bring freedom for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“Yes, of course I’ll remind him of that,” Bush said, adding he had told Putin during their last meeting in Slovakia that the end of the Second World War was not a day of celebration for the Baltics.
Russia says the demands are an insult to the 27 million Soviet citizens, soldiers and civilians, who died to liberate Europe from fascism.
Moscow also insists the three Baltic states willingly joined the Soviet Union, instead of being annexed by Josef Stalin under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 with Nazi Germany – as the Baltic states see it.
Yastrzhembsky blamed the Baltic states, who were among 10 mainly former Communist nations to join the European Union last year, for worsening ties between Moscow and the EU.
He accused “certain members of the EU” of nursing “historical phobias and prejudices” that were endangering efforts to develop ties between Russia and its largest trading partner.
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 incorporated them into the Soviet Union. The republics regained their independence in 1991.
While traditional EU powers Germany and France stress the importance of good relations with the EU’s giant eastern neighbour, Russia, the Baltic states and other ex-Communist nations such as Poland are pressuring the EU to confront Moscow over its current backsliding on democracy.
