European Commission Vice-President Guenter Verheugen urged Moscow earlier this week to admit the illegality of Soviet rule in the Baltics but Russia has denied it illegally annexed the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in 1940. It has also rejected demands to admit illegally occupying the three countries at the end of World War II.
A Kremlin spokesman said Soviet troops were deployed with the agreement of the Baltic governments of the time. Soviet authority was established in the Baltics in 1940.
What I want to know is, can you apportion blame on the current administration for something that happened 60 years ago? The Soviet Union is a different entity to Russia. Russia in theory is a democratically elected country whereas the Soviet Union was by de facto a communist dictatorship.
Stalin was a nasty person who I for one would not wanted to accept an invite to a dinner party from. Vladimir Putin on the other hand is hardly a Stalinist supporter.
Russia has enough problems of its own without dredging up the past. Even now there's a mess with the Ukraine over delimitation of the border between the two nations. I'm sure Putin and Yushchenko will come to some arrangement eventually but this is surely more important than what the EU wants.
I don't understand the affair actually. What if anything is Verheugen trying or hoping to achieve by getting the Kremlin to admit illegality? What points can be won from this in the first place?
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