Russian state TV claims Poland was WW II aggressor

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Russian TV claims Poland was WW II aggressor - 24.08.2009 03:35

On the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939, the Russian state-controlled Rossiya TV channel broadcast a documentary claiming Poland was planning an invasion with Nazi Germany of the Soviet Union.

The documentary claims that the government in Warsaw was in a secret alliance from 1933 with Nazi Germany and Japan in plans to invade the Soviet Union. The deal was struck within the, as yet, unpublished part of a non-aggression treaty between Poland and Germany signed in January 1934.

Hitler’s portrait in the cabinet of Poland’s pre-war Foreign Minister Jozef Beck proves the thesis, claims Russian TV journalists.

In June, after part of the documentary was broadcast, the Polish embassy in Moscow strongly protested.

“The report is deceitful and unreliable. It is a striking example of the falsification of history,” read the official statement by the embassy. “

Russia’s Foreign Ministry retaliated saying that the Kremlin is not responsible for the content of programmes aired on state TV. “Opinions voiced on TV channels should not come under the consideration of state agencies. What times, exactly, is it being suggested we return to?”

Foreign Ministry – no comment

Poland’s Foreign Ministry in Warsaw has yet to make a formal response, a stance approved of by former head of Polish diplomacy Adam Rotfeld. He argues that the Polish government should only react to statements made by state authorities rather than to claims made in TV programmes.

But the Kremlin appears to back the claims made in the documentary. In a bulletin published by the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, President Dmitri Medvedev is on record as saying: “The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was a reaction to the efforts of western states at directing German expansion eastwards.”

Another former foreign minister, Dariusz Rosati, however, stated that Poland should take a firm stand on the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the reasons behind the outbreak of World War II.

[link to www.polskieradio.pl]