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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 brief period, 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 ...
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 Soviet Union recognised the Baltic independence on 6 September 1991. The Russian troops stayed for an additional three years, as Boris Yeltsin linked the issue of Russian minorities with troop withdrawals. Lithuania was the first to have the Russian troops withdrawn from its territory in August 1993.
15 June 1940 Soviet Union occupies Lithuania. President Smetona flees through Germany first to Switzerland then to USA, 1941, where he dies on 9 January 1944, in Cleveland. Prime minister Antanas Merkys yields to Soviet demands, attempts to catch Smetona. Vladimir Dekanozov lands in Kaunas to supervise annexation of Lithuania.
Lithuania accounted for 0.3 percent of the Soviet Union's territory and 1.3 percent of its population, but it generated a significant amount of the Soviet Union's industrial and agricultural output: 22 percent of its electric welding apparatus, 11.1 percent of its metal-cutting lathes, 2.3 percent of its mineral fertilizers, 4.8 percent of its ...
In addition, Lithuania received only a fragment of territory that had been recognized by Soviet Russia as part of Lithuania under the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty of July 12, 1920. [6] Lithuania annexed most of Wilno-Troki County with Vilnius, half of Święciany County, and parts of Grodno, Lida, Oszmiany and Brasław counties. [6]
The four countries on the Baltic Sea that were formerly parts of the Russian Empire – Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – consolidated their borders and independence after the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independence wars following the end of World War I by 1920 (see Treaty of Tartu, Latvian-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty and Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920).