SOCHI. Oct 22 (Interfax) - The attempts to put the Soviet Union on par with Nazi Germany in the question of who started the Second World War are unacceptable, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"We have many grievances to the country's leaders from 1917 until 1990s - these are obvious things. But putting Nazis and the Communists on the same bar in the build-up to the Second World War and dividing the responsibility 50/50 is absolutely unacceptable. This is a lie!" Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday.
He said he was speaking so "not only because a Russian person happens to be the Russian head of state but Russia is a successor to the Soviet Union. In this particular instance, I am speaking partly as a researcher, I read the documents. I simply unearthed these documents from the archive," Putin said.
"When reading I even started picturing this differently. One may, and has something to remember Stalin for: his camps, his repressions. But I've seen documents, his resolutions. Really, the Soviet government was fighting to avert a second world war," Putin said.
The then Soviet government had been "fighting to preserve Czechoslovakia, its sovereignty," he said.
Putin also said that he was understanding of the Polish government's current position on the events preceding WWII, "but you were involved with Germany in the carve-up of Czechoslovakia. And then blamed the Soviet Union for everything. But this is simply inconsistent with reality and actuality. What, was it the Soviet Union who attacked Germany? No! True, there were these secret agreements between Germany and the USSR. But when the Soviet troops entered Brest, the German troops were already there. The Germans simply moved up a bit, and the Red Army went in," Putin said.
"There is nothing to politicize here. Let us read the documents calmly, at the expert level and clarify everything. After all, no one is accusing the then Polish leadership. But we will not allow Russia, the Soviet Union to be accused of what they are being accused of," Putin said.
In 1945, Berlin was taken by the Red Army, not by Americans or the English or the French, he said. "Did they forget this for a second? It is easy to recall," Putin said.