Vladimir Putin says there was nothing wrong with Soviet Union's pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi German

[Igel]

34. The pact was hushed up in Soviet times.

It was brought out again in the '90s, and then sort of vanished as an embarrassment.

The Chamberlain agreement was very much what Putin is trying to repeat in Ukraine. German population that needs to be protected by the Fatherland (or Russian population protected by Putin's "otechestvo&quot . Right down to the part where the separation of the Germans from the larger mass of Germans was portrayed as a kind of humiliation and undercutting of ethnic-based might and solidarity.

As part of the rehabilitation and glorification of all things that led to Soviet might, Putin wants to rehabilitate the von-Ribbontrop/Molotov pact instead of cover it up. If it's not an embarrassment, then it's a good thing. And vice-versa. And this kind of ethnocentric ethnic-humiliation rhetoric is perfect for it. First, of course, he has to redefine "ethnicity", but that's largely done: For Germans, it was their origin. For Putin, it's a linguistic/cultural thing. It was hard to become a German. For Hitler, it's easy to become an ethnic Russian--learn the language and culture and swear fealty to both.

However, Putin's also into the division of Poland, which had been Russian territory just a few decades before. There's no parallel with Chamberlain. Britain didn't invade and occupy the remaining portion of Czechoslovakia.