Moscow dossier embarrasses US and Britain ahead of Riga summit

[DoYouEverWonder]

November 24, 2006

In a move likely to inflame tensions ahead of next week's Nato summit in Latvia, Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, yesterday declassified documents claiming that Britain and the US had approved of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states a year before Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union.

Received wisdom has it that the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, was deeply ambivalent about Moscow taking control of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940. But the editor of the 400-page dossier, Major General Lev Sotskov, told the Guardian it demonstrated that the UK and US "perfectly understood" that the region was needed as a buffer zone for the inevitable moment when Nazi Germany would break its non-aggression pact with Moscow and attack the Soviet Union.

Gen Sotskov said the documents proved that American and British leaders were often divided over their position on Soviet troop movements and their "public declarations clashed with internal assessments". But Soviet intelligence showed that Churchill decided it was a pragmatic move not to confront Moscow's occupation of neighbouring territory, which ended with the Nazi invasion of the Baltics in 1941. "Churchill realised this was the only way," he said. "He saw it as a not very pleasant but necessary step to prevent Germany from further intrigues and advance."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1955807,00.html

I hope the Russians continue to declassify 'damaging' documents.

[rockymountaindem]

1. Outside of the Baltic States, this won't be damaging

Although it is an interesting read.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. It makes those countries

sound like nothing more then pawns in a chess game. Makes you wonder what they really think about the rest of us?

[rockymountaindem]

3. Well, the WWII history of the Baltic States isn't exactly blemish-free

If I were them I wouldn't rush to draw attention to the years 1940-1945.

[goforit]

4. It shows how Britain and US continue to make the decisions for the world

Imperialism to the max!

[Igel]

5. I don't think Churchill and FDR made the decision

and ordered Uncle Joe to implement it. There's an ocean of difference between thinking something was a good idea, deciding to go with it, and implementing it.

Sounds like FDR merely thought it was a strategically sound plan. It was. Militarily, at least. Brutal, but sound, in a limited, politically self-defeating sort of way.

What the Soviets did *after* occupation, well, that's another story.