WARSAW, July 24. /TASS/. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will arrive in Poland to attend events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII to be marked on September 1, 2019, Polish Presidential Spokesman Blazej Spychalski told the Polsat TV channel on Wednesday.
"Mrs. Chancellor said she would come," he said, stressing that "confirmations were received from various countries, including from the Eastern Partnership countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine)."
"For us, it is important to ensure that as many representatives of other countries, our close allies at the moment - the EU and NATO leaders - take part in events on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II," the spokesman noted.
When asked why Poland did not invite Russia to take part in events commemorating the beginning of WWII, Spychalski emphasized that Russia was not a member of the aforementioned international organizations. "Those countries were invited by Poland, and in this case the invitation has not been sent," he said.
Referring to the details of US President Donald Trump’s visit to attend the September 1 events, the spokesman noted that they would be announced by the Americans.
No invitation
The Polish president’s press service earlier reported that invitations to attend events dedicated to the outbreak of WWII had been sent only member-countries. It also stressed that the decision on who should be invited stemmed from present-day rather than historical realities.
For his part, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that "any memorial events in any countries dedicated to the anniversaries of the Great Patriotic War or the Second World War cannot be considered full-fledged without Russia's participation," because Russia’s role in the Victory over Nazism cannot be overestimated.
Attitude towards liberation
A total of 600,000 Soviet soldiers lost their lives while liberating Poland from the Nazis who invaded the country in 1939. More than one half of 55 million people who perished in WWII were Soviet citizens. In spite of that, a campaign to falsify history has been underway in Poland over the past few years. Those who liberated the country are called occupiers, and monuments dedicated to Red Army soldiers, which allegedly symbolize the Communist system, are being demolished.
Moscow has repeatedly voiced protest over Poland’s actions related to historical memory, stressing that rewriting history is inadmissible.