The Russian parliament's initiative to reverse the 1989 condemnation of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact is an “attempt to falsify history”, says Lithuania's foreign minister.
Linas Linkevičius discussed Russia's shifting rhetoric on the 1939 Soviet–Nazi agreement which precipitated World War Two with his Baltic and Polish counterparts on Tuesday.
Read more: Washington and nine European countries denounce Russia's effort to ‘falsify history’
“It's, unfortunately, one of the many and probably not the last attempt to falsify history. We regularly see those examples, including the registered bill in the Duma [Russian parliament],” the minister told BNS.
The Lithuanian foreign minister said he agreed with the Latvian, Estonian and Polish counterparts “to closely monitor the situation”.
The issue was also briefly raised during the UN Security Council meeting, chaired by Estonia, almost a month ago.
“If that continues, we will strongly respond by coordinating our actions, as we have done so far,” Linkevičius said.
In 1989, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution on “the political and legal assessment” of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, condemning the document and declaring it null and void.
Last month, however, member of the Russian Duma Aleksey Zhuravlyov, leader of the Rodina party, registered a proposal to revoke the resolution, saying it “doesn’t match the principles of historic justice” and was adopted in a period of “growing political instability, accompanied by pressure from external forces”.
Read more: LRT FACTS. Why is Lithuania criticising Russia's interpretation of history?
Signed in August 1939, the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, also known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, contained secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. It soon led to the invasion of Poland and the Soviet occupation of the Baltic nations in 1940.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has on numerous occasions stated that Poland was responsible for the outbreak of World War Two. He also claimed that the Soviet Union had no choice but to sign the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
Read more: Poland and Putin in war over World War Two
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