DISINFO: Ukraine and Poland gained the greatest benefits from the results of World War II
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: russian.rt.com (archived)*
  • Date of publication: January 28, 2020
  • Outlet language(s): Russian
  • Reported in: Issue 183
  • Countries / regions discussed: USSR, Poland, Ukraine
Tags:
Historical revisionism Anti-Russian WWII Adolf Hitler

DISINFO: Ukraine and Poland gained the greatest benefits from the results of World War II

SUMMARY

Poland and Ukraine are the two countries that received the greatest benefits from the results of World War II… So it is advantageous for them today to put Russia in the same line as Hitler, to say that it was Russia which started the war.

RESPONSE

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative distorting the events of the Second World War.

In World War II, Ukrainians had more victims than Great Britain, Canada, the United States and France combined. As a result of the war, over 700 cities and towns have been destroyed in Ukraine, with 10 million people left homeless. In addition, after the expulsion of the Nazis, about 500,000 people were repressed in Western Ukraine, and in 1944, 230,000 Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Armenians, and Greeks were deported.

During World War II, Poland incurred the greatest human (for every 1000 inhabitants, it lost 220 people) and material losses. In 1946, during the International Reparations Conference in Paris, Poland's material losses were evaluated to be $16.9 billion.

By signing the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, the Soviet Union became complicit in the breakout of WWII. Following the conclusion of the agreement, the two dictatorships would remain allies for the next 22 months. The deal was accompanied by a secret supplementary protocol on the delimitation of areas of mutual interest in Eastern Europe. In particular, Hitler and Stalin agreed to divide Poland. The agreement also indicated that the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Bessarabia and Finland, also belonged to the respective areas of interest of Germany and the USSR. A mere week after the pact's signing, Germany attacked Poland and started World War II. On 17 September, Soviet troops invaded Polish territory from the east.

Read here an expert commentary on Soviet/Russian myth-making around WWII, including efforts to diminish the geopolitical role and scope of the Nazi-Soviet pact.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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