Thread by @PaulaChertok

Oh look. #Russia is rewriting history w/ #propaganda and calling it #TrueHistory🙄

ACTUAL #FACTUALHISTORY: The #MolotovRibbentrop pact triggered the Nazi invasion of Poland & WWII. Stalin made a cold-blooded calculation to align w/ Hitler & enslave Europe together. #FactsMatter

https://twitter.com/RF_OSCE/status/1163474136125063169

Russia/USSR supplied Nazi Germany w/ grain & oil as Hitler invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg. Soviet supplies made it impossible for Royal Navy to effectively blockade Germany during the Battle of Britain. #FactualHistory #MolotovRibbentropPact

As they jointly occupied Poland in 1939-41, Russia/Soviets & Nazis each sought to destroy national elites & used strikingly similar policies of deportations & executions. Together, they executed 10s of 1000s of Polish civilians. #FactualHistory #MolotovRibbentropPact #FactsMatter

Stalin switched alliances when Germany invaded USSR in 1941—beginning the history most comfortable to remember in Russia…But for the lands & ppl betw Berlin & Moscow, the alliance change meant the accumulation of horrific destructive power. #FactualHistory #MolotovRibbentropPact

When Nazis reoccupied eastern Poland from Soviets, they used Russia/USSR crimes there as a propaganda justification for bloody massacres of Jews. Nazis killed a million Jews in Eastern Europe. Then they turned to the rest of European Jewry. #Facts #History #MolotovRibbentropPact

#Russia wants to forget #WWII began w/ Nazi-Soviet alliance—even tho it’s literally memorialized in the #MolotovRibbentropPact—to diminish its role in the most horrific war in Europe. War’s end brought occupation not closure to places that suffered the most. #History #FactsMatter

Russian propaganda tries to make it confoundingly hard to remember that WWII began w/ Nazi-Soviet alliance, enabling Hitler's crimes. Russia once denounced, now justifies it. @TimothyDSnyder explains #MolotovRibbentropPact's crucial role in 20th C history. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@TimothyDSnyder With authoritarian forces on the rise in 21C, it's crucial to recognize those forces gave us Nazi alliances & crimes. Rewriting WWII's start is perhaps #Russia's greatest gaslighting propaganda feat, b/c Soviets were in fact key knowing Nazi collaborators. #MolotovRibbentropPact

@TimothyDSnyder #Russia rewriting WWII isn't just about the Nazi past. Kremlin propaganda distorts history in order to justify present aggression. This piece I wrote in 2015 is striking today, as far-right nationalism—fascism—marshals #propaganda to drown our democracies. eastwestblog.net/2015/05/18/com…