Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Baltic states regained de facto independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics starting with Lithuania in August 1993. However, it was a violent process and Soviet forces killed several Latvians and Lithuanians. [20]
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.
Territorial changes of the Baltic states refers to the redrawing of borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after 1940. The three republics, formerly autonomous regions within the former Russian Empire and before that of former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and as provinces of the Swedish Empire, gained independence in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
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.
Large numbers of the inhabitants of the Baltic countries fled westwards before the Red Army arrived in 1944. After the war, the Soviets established new borders for the Baltic republics, adding the regions of Vilnius and Klaipėda to Lithuania and transferring 5 percent of Estonian territory and 2 percent of Latvian territory to the Russian SFSR ...
With the advent of Foreningen Norden (the Nordic Associations), the term Baltic countries was no longer used for Sweden and Denmark. [4] [5] After the First World War (1914–1918) the term "Baltic states" came to refer to the countries by the Baltic Sea that had gained independence from the former Russian Empire.
The last Russian troops withdrew from the Baltic States in August 1994. [45] Russia officially ended its military presence in the Baltics in August 1998 following the decommissioning of the Skrunda-1 radar station in Latvia, which was the last active Russian military radar in the Baltics. The last Russian troops withdrew from the station the ...
The Sovietization of the Baltic states is the sovietization of all spheres of life in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania when they were under control of the Soviet Union. The first period deals with the occupation from June 1940 to July 1941 , followed by the German occupation during World War II .