To condemn (hukkamõistmine), renounce (loobuma) or repeal (tühistamine) have vastly different meanings. Condemnation denotes extreme disapproval. Renounciation connotes repudiation. Repeal implies rescinding.

On January 21st Russia announced that according to Estonia’s president Arnold Rüütel, Vladimir Putin is ready to renounce the 1939 secret agreement that divided up Eastern Europe between Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany.

The Associated Press quotes Rüütel: “He [Putin] said that Russia as the legal successor of the Soviet Union supports annulling (repealing) the pact and considers this the right thing to do. I believe it’s very important for us and Russian society to note that Russia has done this.” The Kremlin in an official statement on the meeting between the two presidents made no mention of the pact.

In a later explanation Rüütel indicated he had made two quick interviews alternatively in Russian and Estonian. “If I have used a somewhat different wording in some of them, please take this with some understanding. The general meaning [of what I said] has remained the same. After all, [the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact] and any acts proceeding from it have to be denounced,” he said.

The AP added that “Rüütel told Eesti Raadio that Putin told him that Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, supported annulling the pact and considers this the right thing to do”.

On February 1st the AP reported that the Kremlin isn’t prepared to support a legally binding renouncement of the pact, that Moscow is only open to “historical re-evaluation”. A Putin spokesman stressed that “There is no possibility of its juridical evaluation due to current realities.”

This obviously dashes expectations, that the Kremlin is ready to condemn the pact during the May celebrations in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II.

When the terms are used interchangeably in reference to the lingering consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact it not only causes confusion but also consternation.

The pact was signed on August 21, 1939. A week later Hitler attacked Poland from the west. A week after that Stalin finished Poland off from the east. In the next few months the Soviet Union took Bessarabia (currently Moldova) from Romania, then occupied the Baltic States (annexed them in 1940) and invaded Finland – a scenario secretly arranged between Moscow and Berlin.

All of the occupied territories suffered killings, terror, deportations.

One part of this conspiracy has been condemned – Nazism. Germany has publicly apologized for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the consequent destruction and genocide.

The other side of the bargain has yet to be dealt with. During most of its existence the Soviet Union even denied the existence of the secret protocols of the Pact, not to mention the crimes against humanity attributable to it.

Russia still staunchly adheres to the lie that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were never occupied by the Soviet Union, that it was in active collusion with Nazi Germany. In joining the May celebrations in Moscow of the defeat of Nazism, world leaders, through their possible acquiescence, will give silent approval.
ESTONIAN CENTRAL COUNCIL - LL

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