Poland Foreign Minister Zbignene Rau responded to the article by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the German newspaper Die Zeit his own publication in another German edition – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. According to him, the Russian leader has shown the one-sided history of the Second World War.
Publication of RAU is connected with the current political topic – the construction of the North Stream-2 gas pipeline. According to the Minister, the international position of the Russian state on this and other issues “is rooted in Putin’s story about the second world war, which has a positive look at the Hitler and Stalin Pact.”
Rau believes that a positive attitude towards the occupation by the Soviet Union of Eastern European countries in the military and post-war time is a factor that allows the current Russian state to behave in a similar way now. He also noted that Putin’s article the USSR appears the victim of the third Reich attack, and then the Savior of Europe. The diplomat stressed that Putin is headed by a state that glorifies its “imperial traditions”.
Putin’s article under the title “To be open, despite the past” was published in the German edition of Die Zeit on June 22. In it, he, in particular, was submitted to the expansion of NATO to the East and noted that Europe’s prosperity is possible with joint efforts of all countries, including Russia.