Putin Defends Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in Press Conference with Merkel

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Putins history with germany revolves around being stationed in E. Germany as a kgb agent.

Ribbentrop was instructed by the british royals and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands on how to lure the russians into a fair pact of non-aggression to help the nazi regime

originally posted by: Flanker86
Ribbentrop was instructed by the british royals and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands on how to lure the russians into a fair pact of non-aggression to help the nazi regime

You're being very silly. Stop it, you'll sprain your brain.

originally posted by: Flanker86
Ribbentrop was instructed by the british royals and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands on how to lure the russians into a fair pact of non-aggression to help the nazi regime

Another shining example of why the USSR collapsed and lost the cold war.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Putin is in a morally questionable territory in defending the Stalin era.


Will he defend the partition of Poland and all the people Stalin murdered?

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: Xcathdra

Putin is in a morally questionable territory in defending the Stalin era.


Will he defend the partition of Poland and all the people Stalin murdered?

Putin has already started rewriting history, especially with regards to their alliance with Nazi Germany until 1941. He also claims NATO promised not to expand East, which again is a lie. It is up there with people who claim the USSR could have won the war without western support.

Given Putin spent the bulk of his life under Communist USSR and was a KGB officer during the same time his perception of the USSR's history is skewed. Especially when you are part of the system Stalin created and currently use that system to remain in power.

a reply to: Xcathdra

He also claims NATO promised not to expand East, which again is a lie. It is up there with people who claim the USSR could have won the war without western support.

This is not a lie. link

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University

a reply to: C84K2

There was no treaty, concord, or written agreement for NATO not to take on new members in eastern Europe once the Soviet Union fell to pieces and Russia was left alone. In deed, most eastern European nations were so terrified of Russia's repeated occupation that they jumped straight into NATO and the EU.

Poor Russia. No one wants to be their friend.

a reply to: paraphi

Correct, there was no treaty, written agreement, etc, but to say they did not make assurances nato would not expand east is false. They were made many, and by many different nato country leaders.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Ho,ho,ho...not so fast pelgrim..

Who says Putin is re-writing history. It will not surprise me if what we are taught in school are lies... Hopefully not all of it but we all know that the winner writes the history. Not that Russia was the loser..well..maybe in a way. They lost millions of citizens and soldiers in WW2. Anyways, the west is famous for pressing their vision onto the world..

It must be a wonderful feeling for Putin to slam the west with the truth...and believe me.. some in the west know damn well what the truth is.

a reply to: C84K2

Gorbachev disagrees. He stated during an interview the only agreement with NATO regarding expansion dealt solely with E. Germany. NATO agreed not to deploy NATO assets in the old E. German territory and as Gorbachev noted NATO complied with that agreement.

He stated no agreement was ever made where NATO said they would not expand the alliance into former warsaw pact countries.

Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says “No”

All talk about eastward expansion applied ONLY to E. Germany.

Western leaders never pledged not to enlarge NATO, a point that several analysts have demonstrated. Mark Kramer explored the question in detail in a 2009 article in The Washington Quarterly. He drew on declassified American, German and Soviet records to make his case and noted that, in discussions on German reunification in the two-plus-four format (the two Germanys plus the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France), the Soviets never raised the question of NATO enlargement other than how it might apply in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Gorbachev stated -

We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an
interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

and

Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.

soo... yeah.

originally posted by: zatara
a reply to: Xcathdra

Ho,ho,ho...not so fast pelgrim..

Who says Putin is re-writing history. It will not surprise me if what we are taught in school are lies... Hopefully not all of it but we all know that the winner writes the history. Not that Russia was the loser..well..maybe in a way. They lost millions of citizens and soldiers in WW2. Anyways, the west is famous for pressing their vision onto the world..

It must be a wonderful feeling for Putin to slam the west with the truth...and believe me.. some in the west know damn well what the truth is.

Except he didnt tell the truth. He did, however, get caught lying about it.

Putin took Gorbachevs agreement and failed to put it into proper context when he gave his speech and talked about NATO expansion. Putin intentionally omitted key information to make it sound like NATO promised not to exp[and NATO. The parts he left out intentionally is the info that places the agreement with NATO into proper context, which was no NATO forces / weapons / structures are to be built on former E. German soil. Only German armed forces would be allowed to be deployed and based there. The interview I cited with Gorbachev confirms that.

Putin lied.

Why did he lie? He desperately needed an external threat to justify the Russia invasion and illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory, namely Crimea and the 2 eastern provinces of Ukraine. He chose to blame NATO. Every time Putin or his trolls make this false idiotic argument about NATO expansion I am more and more in favor of immediately letting Ukraine and Georgia in as members.


Read my post above this one for all links and the Gorbachev interview.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Pavel Palazhchenko says that here, Taubman asks him around the 1h 32m mark, and he specifically talks about this, and that he (Gorbachev) thinks it violated the "spirit of the agreement." During those days the Warsaw Pact was still around so they wernt thinking in the terms that nato would expand in that way.

Palazchenko Taubman

So now a question is--where is all this coming from? Declassified documents (and not just US, but French, British, German, and Soviet) national security archives. Declassified documents means they are official yes?

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University 

The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)

Interesting, in talking about the the fact the Russians conspired with Nazi Germany to calve up eastern Europe and in so doing lead to the brutal repression, murder, deportation and inhumanity against millions of people, (a situation that persisted for 50 years after WW2), we end up talking about verbal assurances with Russia about NATO expansion.

When will the world learn that sovereign nations must be allowed to resolve their own future. Russia wants a buffer and a sphere of influence. Sod that, countries on Russia's border must be allowed to decide their own fate. The fact that this meant these nations turned their back on their old repressor and refused to be part of their "sphere" is just the way it is.

The problem with Russia is that they have failed to realise that countries don't want them telling them what to do. The problem with making assurances that countries will be disallowed to do X, is that if they want to do X, and are free to do so, then they will.

NATO expanded because countries that had been under the jackboot of Russia for so long wanted to be released from that perpetual threat.

a reply to: paraphi

Arguably

Arguably the cause of WW2 was the Treaty of Versailles of WW1 forcing Germany to pay reparations.

Simple History in context 101


wiki

The last condition has been considered historically the most controversial condition of the Treaty of Versailles. The Allies declared that Germany was responsible for the war and therefore had to pay reparations (compensation for damages).

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
Arguably the cause of WW2 was the Treaty of Versailles of WW1 forcing Germany to pay reparations.

How far back do you want to go? Germany had choices and they chose the path of war under Hitler.

The actual cause of WW2 is well documented, and I accept Versailles paid a part, but it should not be an excuse.

What people tend to forget is that Russia also participated in the invasion and occupation of territory prior to their deal with the Nazi's going sour in 1941. For example, Poland was split in half, Finland attacked, the Baltic states over-run and occupied, Romania invaded, and so on. As soon as the Russia army entered any new country the brutality started... Look at the Katyn Massacre as a case in point.

a reply to: C84K2

You need to read all those documents. People are cherry picking segments to support the fallacy that NATO said it would not expand east. Putin did the same thing.

The info I posted actually comes from those classified documents.

As for authenticity sure, why not.

As for the "spirit" mentioned that came from Gorbachev and as I pointed out in my post he says there was no agreement with NATO that the alliance would not grow. It only referenced E. Germany and that was it.

As for documents I am more inclined to trust Gorbachev since he was there and was involved in all of this. Why would Gorbachev lie?

As for WWI and the treaty of Versailles the French Supreme Allied Commander said it best -

"This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years".

Foch strongly advocated a harder line on Germany to ensure they would go back to war. The treaty got watered down as we saw.

a reply to: Xcathdra

This may give a bit of context around that Foch quote...

Foch quote

Basically Foch wanted Germany dismantled so they could never wage war again. He was right.