At the G20 summit in Osaka, the Russian president invited the U.S. and French leaders to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism in Moscow. "Our country remembers the role of its allies and will be happy if our invitation is accepted. If not, it is not critical," Putin noted. Meanwhile, on September 1, the victims of the World War II, which began in 1939, will be remembered all over the world this year.
On the eve of this event, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Military-Historical Society Sergey Ivanov held a press conference at which he said: "As September 1 approaches, there will be a lot of publications, falsifications and fakes accusing the Soviet Union of unleashing the World War II. Partially Hitler, of course, but basically the Soviet Union, which made an agreement with fascist Germany, divided Europe, which was the reason for the start of the World War II. If there was no August 23, 1939 agreement, then there would be no war at all. This is nonsense, but it is drummed into head, especially as time goes on, the number of living people and witnesses declines. Although there's a huge number of historical documents irrefutably testifying to the real facts that preceded the beginning of the World War II, exposing the Soviet Union and Stalin is becoming fashionable. This is followed by appeals to the Russian people to repent, admit their guilt, and some countries ask to repair the damage done."
Commenting on the 1939 German–Soviet Frontier Treaty, Ivanov noted: "This treaty was largely the result of the Munich Agreement. The Soviet Union was not invited to the Munich conference, everything was done behind its back. Prior to this, the Soviet Union had repeatedly offered to provide military assistance to Czechoslovakia. Only one circumstance had to be taken into account - the passage of the Soviet Union armed groups through the territory of Poland, because we had no direct border with Czechoslovakia. Poland had refused. But Poland took part in the division of Czechoslovakia. Under these conditions, the Soviet Union had no choice but to sign a non-aggression treaty with Germany, because it was easy to assume that Germany's next attack could be on Poland. In order to delay Germany's aggression against the Soviet Union, this treaty and its secret annexes were concluded, which, in fact, have not been secret for a long time already."
According to Ivanov, if the Soviet-German treaty had not been signed, "we would have seen the start of aggression against the Soviet Union not from the lines where it happened, but well to the east; we would not have saw two or three months of the Red Army's heroic resistance, which made it possible to evacuate defense enterprises to the east, to bring the Siberian divisions closer, to defend Moscow, to defend Leningrad at the cost of enormous, terrible sacrifices."
