![]() ![]() ![]() Russian President Vladimir Putin once condemned the pact as "immoral," but has downplayed its significance on the few occasions he has mentioned it in recent years.ĭiscussion of the secret protocols - which open up the issue of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Poland, just days after Germany's invasion from the west - are a taboo topic. Russia has generally sought to minimize and relativize Stalin's decision to align himself with Hitler in 1939. The pact brought devastation to the states and regions that were carved up, resulted in the deportation and killing of thousands from those areas, and paved the way for the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain after the war's end in 1945. ![]() Behind the scenes, it was later determined, Hitler and Stalin had established secret protocols dividing Central and Eastern Europe into their respective "spheres of influence." It's an anniversary few in the Kremlin, or elsewhere in Russia for that matter, are keen to talk about - let alone remember in some way.Įighty years ago, on August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin's Soviet Union inked a nonaggression treaty that ushered in World War II.Ĭommonly known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, after Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, the agreement gave Adolf Hitler a free hand to attack Poland without fear of Soviet intervention. ![]()
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