Putin rejects European criticism of 1939 Soviet pact with Nazi Germany

President Vladimir Putin has hit back at claims that Russia was largely to blame for the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany, claiming European nations “want to shift the blame” for the cause of the Second World War.

The Russian leader strongly criticised a recent resolution by the European Parliament which blamed the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for the outbreak of war in Europe, during a meeting of ex-Soviet nation leaders called the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council.

Mr Putin argued that the Soviet Union’s pact followed a string of agreements Germany had made with Britain, France and Poland, as part of their policy of appeasement towards Hitler through the 1930s.

He insisted that those deals, including the 1938 Munich pact that allowed for the annexation of Czechoslovakia, emboldened the Nazis.