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Regurgitating hearsay: Ukraine’s ex-leader recants remarks about Hitler-Stalin ‘meeting’

Leonid Kravchuk pinned the responsibility for reliability of his words on journalists

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk Pyotr Sivkov/TASS

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk

© Pyotr Sivkov/TASS

KIEV, January 29. /TASS/. Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk has backpedaled, admitting that he is unaware of any records that can lend any credence to his previous statement that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had met with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler prior to the onset of the Second World War.

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Earlier, Kravchuk said on Russia’s Rossiya-1 television channel, "Hitler and Stalin met in Lvov. There is a document and that is not a secret. They were trying to strike a deal."

Nevertheless, later in an interview with Russia’s Radio KP radio station, he publicly recanted.

"I read about that [Stalin-Hitler meeting in the city of Lvov, located in today’s western Ukraine — TASS] in the mass media. And I stated that. I have not seen any archival record, which can substantiate that. That is all I know. I have not investigated the matter in detail. I have not researched it. I communicated what media outlets write," Kravchuk explained, adding that he could not verify the reliability of the information published by the media.

Moreover, Kravchuk pinned the responsibility for reliability of his words on journalists.

"It is a journalistic matter and the matter of those people who publish newspapers and run television channels. Those who write should bear certain responsibility, shouldn’t they?" Kravchuk assumes.

Russia said in response that Kravchuk’s words about Stalin’s meeting with Hitler were inaccurate. According to Vladimir Djabarov, the first deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, it is another attempt to rewrite history.

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