Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation: Poland does not need to cling to history

Poland should not cling to the "conjunctural" interpretation of historical events. This was stated by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in an interview with Russia Today.

“It seems to me that Warsaw needs to make a choice: either constantly cling to one or another interpretation of certain events, making our future by a hostage of the conjunctural interpretation of historical dates and events, or, remembering the story and not forgetting it, move forward,” Zakharova said. So she commented on the challenge to the Polish Foreign Ministry of the Russian ambassador to Warsaw Sergei Andreev because of his statements about the Second World War.

“We heard a huge number of offensive things. And each time, hearing such things related to the Russian stories, we very patiently talked about our own position and each time we added that we recommend leaving the story to historians. We have already approached such a line when such an amount of insulting statements from Poland was made to domestic, Russian history, it seems to me that we should not stop. Constantly reproaching each other, and even more so unilaterally, make insulting statements that respond with pain in the heart of every Russian. ”

In an interview with TVN24 on September 25, Andreev said that Poland “bears partial responsibility” for the invasion of Nazi Germany, since during the 30s of the XX century he has repeatedly blocked the creation of an anti-Hitler coalition. The invasion of Soviet troops in Poland on September 17, 1939 was not aggression, but a measure of security of the USSR, the ambassador said. He also called Soviet repressions justified at the end of the war against Polish politicians and soldiers of the Kraiova army.

On September 26, Andreev was called to the Polish Foreign Ministry in connection with his statements. "The role of the ambassador lies in the search for mutual understanding, building trust and improving relations with the country of accreditation. We find with concern and regret that the words of the Ambassador of the Russian Federation do not serve this," they said in a statement by the Polish Foreign Ministry. "They contradict historical truth and relate to the most hypocritical interpretation of events known from Stalinist and communist times."

“I could only answer one, but a very strong sentence: even children in Poland know that neither Ribbentrop nor Molotov were Poles,” Prime Minister Eva Kopach commented on the ambassador.