MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the resolution recently adopted by the European Parliament alleging that the Soviet Union bears responsibility for the Second World War outbreak as "complete nonsense."
The Russian leader noted at the annual Defense Ministry’s board meeting on Tuesday, "Certain European countries and those from overseas often try to pervert history and come up with some incredible scenarios of events unfolding in the world and Europe on the verge of World War II."
"Recently, our colleagues in Europe, the European Parliament, adopted a resolution that practically lumps together Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union hinting or directly saying that the Soviet Union bears responsibility for the outbreak of World War II. This is complete nonsense, of course," he criticized the resolution.
Putin underlined that the Soviet Union was one of the last countries to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany, "all leading European states did that before the Soviet Union." He conceded, "the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed and it included the so-called secret protocol on dividing spheres of influence."
"But what were European states doing before that? The very same thing! They were doing exactly that since 1938. When Hitler laid his claims to a part of Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France sold their ally out even though they [Czechoslovakia and France] had a treaty of mutual assistance, giving Hitler an opportunity to grab a piece of Czechoslovakia," Putin stressed.
The Russian leader added that Polish leadership at the time "colluded with Hitler, which is clear looking at archive documents." "It is a big question whether there were any secret protocols there. But it is not important. What is important is how they acted — and they definitely acted in cahoots with each other. [That’s what] documents [prove] simply showing how they were negotiating," he said.
The president also emphasized that at the "so-called Munich Conference Hitler directly represented interests of Poland and partially Hungary. He later was telling Poles how difficult it was to defend their interests." "We have all of that documented. Thank God, we have enough archive documents obtained by us as prizes of war from European countries after the Second World War," Putin underscored.