Ülemaailmne Eesti Kesknõukogu 

Estonian World Council 

8 July 2020 

Russian Fabrications and Distortions of History Hinder Mutual Understanding and the Pursuit of Truth
The Estonian World Council joins with the foreign ministries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in protesting
the most recent Russian attempts to revise history.
A recent legislative initiative in Russia’s State Duma would revoke the December 24, 1989 declaration of
the Soviet Union’s Supreme Council that condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact
between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. This pact divided Central and Eastern Europe into Soviet
and Nazi German spheres of influence, one result of which was the 1940 Soviet occupation and
annexation of the three Baltic countries. For them, World War II ended in 1991, with the collapse of the
Soviet Union and their regaining of independence. The Estonian World Council applauds the actions of
the three foreign ministers in summoning their respective Russian ambassadors on June 18 to voice
their concerns over this move and Russian attempts to whitewash history.
In addition, the recent article, “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II”, published in
the National Interest by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is an affront to the victims of Soviet
totalitarianism as well as another example of Russia’s continuous attempt to falsify and distort historical
facts.
The article asserts that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was unavoidable and signed under the duress of
precarious geopolitical circumstances, and that the illegal annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
was concluded after the latter gave due parliamentary assent. These are egregious claims which the
Estonian World Council categorically refutes. The governments of the Baltic states were not sustained
intact after the Soviet occupation, and the Soviet military forces that defeated Germany were used to
enforce the political repression in these captives nations following World War II. The 1944 Soviet
occupation resulted in the executions of thousands of innocent citizens and mass deportations in freight
trains of men, women and children to harsh work camps throughout Siberia. Many perished in those
inhumane conditions.
Russia’s rehabilitation of the repressive Soviet period and rationalization of the appalling crimes of
Joseph Stalin and other totalitarian Soviet rulers is part of Vladimir Putin’s message in the National
Interest, which he uses to help legitimize his increasingly authoritarian domestic rule and vindicate
Russia’s aggressive foreign policy. To dismiss the Russian distortions of historical facts as simply a
different interpretation of past reality is to absolve the Soviet Union of the suppression of the Russians
themselves and of numerous other nations, and of the loss of millions of victims of Soviet crimes. There
is only one true interpretation of past reality, and it is not the one put forth by Russia.

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* The member organization countries of the Estonian World Council are: Australia, United States, Great Britain, Canada, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia.