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Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin listens - Source: Reuters -
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Russia said Polish lawmakers had dealt a blow to efforts to
improve relations by adopting a resolution condemning the Soviet
invasion of eastern Poland 70 years ago.
Poland's lower house, the Sejm, on Wednesday unanimously backed a
declaration criticising Moscow's actions before and after the
outbreak of World War Two in 1939 and urged Russians to cooperate
in helping to reveal what really happened.
"The Polish Sejm's adoption of the resolution seriously harms
efforts to develop normal good-neighbourly relations between our
two countries," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement.
It accused the Polish parliament of trying to politicise a delicate
issue, concerning the feelings of not just Poles and Russians, but
Ukrainians and Belarussians as well.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin clinched a non-aggression pact with
Adolf Hitler in August 1939, paving the way for Nazi Germany's
invasion on September 1 Stalin then sent Soviet troops into eastern
Poland on September 17.
"In this way, a fourth partition of Poland was accomplished," the
text of the resolution said. "Poland became the victim of two
totalitarian regimes: Nazism and Communism."
It cited the mass executions and deportations carried out on Polish
territory by the invading Soviets as well as the killing of 20,000
Poles in Katyn forest in 1940.
Russians are deeply proud of their country's victory over Hitler in
1945 after a titanic struggle in which up to 27 million Soviet
citizens perished.
Poland lost about a fifth of its own population, or six million people, during the war.
