First. Arguing that the “two ruthless dictators – Hitler and Stalin divided Europe into regions of influence”, the presidents, the leaders of the Baltic countries refused their peoples in historical subjectivity. The image of the weak “Nations of victims” allows to shut eyes to actions of the Baltic SS volunteers, whose crimes received an unambiguous assessment of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
the Second. to Cover up the shameful acts of collaboration with fascism, national liberation struggle is impossible. Rapprochement with Hitler was a deliberate policy of the Baltic autocracies. Latvia and Estonia became the bridgehead of Nazi Germany, signed the relevant documents in 1939. In February 1940 the Director of the Department of state security of Lithuania A. Povilaitis also visited Berlin, where on behalf of his government probed the question of the German protectorate.
Third. the Entry into the USSR that was not the end of the Second world war, as stated by the presidents of the three Baltic countries, and in 1940, on the basis of the referendum, allowed the people of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to join the fight under the banner of the leader of the anti-Hitler coalition. International recognition of the occurrence of the Baltic republics into the Soviet Union occurred at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and confirmed in 1975 at the end of the Helsinki meeting.
Fourth. it is time to be proud and not gloss over the fact that in various parts of the red army fought tens of thousands of citizens of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It is symbolic that the first national unit, created during the great Patriotic war, was the 201st Latvian rifle division, staffed mainly by volunteers. These people were the obvious alternative – the Germans in the Baltic States carried out a policy of genocide. In Estonia were killed 80 thousand, in Lithuania – 205 thousand, and in Latvia – to 300 thousand civilians.
Five. In the battles for the liberation of the Baltic States lost their lives more than 60 thousand soldiers and officers of the red army. Their sacrifice was the Foundation of subsequent revival of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian statehood. It is impossible to agree that “to replace one totalitarian regime replaced another.” Deep illiteracy to equate the Soviet system, though not without his own shortcomings, to the inhuman Nazi regime, rejecting the basic values of equality, education and development. The promotion of such views is not the first step of the Baltic elites to the “whitewashing” of fascism as the ideas and political practice.
“when we assess the past, you need to rely on the opinion of professional historians and authentic documents, and not on speculative ideological structure. Highly revered feat boyts��in the red army and their allies who save the world from the fascist plague,” said the Chairman of the RIO Sergey Naryshkin and the head of the RVIA Vladimir Medinsky.
