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Soviet expansion in 1939–1940. After the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet forces were given freedom over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, an important aspect of the agreement to the Soviet government as they were afraid of Germany using the three states as a corridor to get close to Leningrad.
The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union from 1940 until its dissolution in 1991.For a period of several years during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were part of the Russian Empire during the 19th century, achieving independence in the aftermath of World War I.The rise of Nazi Germany during the 1930s created Soviet fears of a German invasion, [3] further aggravated by German expansion to the East, such as the ultimatum to Lithuania in March 1939, as a result of which the nation was ...
A Lithuanian government official claimed to have seen a Soviet document suggesting that 700,000 deportations were envisaged from Lithuania alone. [ 13 ] : 48 According to historian Robert Conquest , the selective deportations from the Baltic States represented the policy of " decapitation " of the nation by removing its political and social ...
Lithuania contended that it did not need to follow the process of secession because the entire process by which Lithuania joined the Soviet Union violated both Lithuanian and international law. Specifically, it contended that Smetona never resigned, making Merkys' takeover of the presidency illegal and unconstitutional.
The Soviet Union (USSR) occupied most of the territory of the Baltic states in its 1944 Baltic Offensive during World War II. [1] The Red Army regained control over the three Baltic capitals and encircled retreating Wehrmacht and Latvian forces in the Courland Pocket where they held out until the final German surrender at the end of the war.
The Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia (SSR LiB), [note 1] alternatively referred to as the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and White Russia or simply Litbel, was a Soviet republic that existed within the parts of the territories of modern Belarus and Lithuania for approximately five months during the Lithuanian–Soviet War and the Polish–Soviet War in 1919.
The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR even referred to Lithuania's independent past and its illegal annexation into the Soviet Union in 1940. The Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR was more cautious. The presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union condemned the Estonian legislation as "unconstitutional". [23]