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Soviet sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe with border changes resulting from invasion and military operations of World War II. During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.
The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. [1] [2] The three independent Baltic countries were annexed as constituent Republics of the Soviet Union in August 1940.
On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which included a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. [2] Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II.
Final positions of the Western Allied and Soviet armies, May 1945 Allied occupied areas, 15 May 1945, with territory under Allied control on 1 May 1945 in pink and later Allied gain in red The Line of Contact marked the farthest advance of American, British, French, and Soviet armies into German controlled territory at the end of World War II ...
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 Polish–Soviet border, as of 1939, had been determined in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga peace talks, which followed the Polish–Soviet War. [7] Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, the Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.
Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe preserved; 1945 Soviet–Japanese War (Part of World War II) Soviet Union Mongolia Japan Manchukuo. Victory Karafuto Prefecture annexed into the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian SFSR; The Kuril Islands annexed into the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Russian SFSR
The Soviet Union appended the annexed territories to the Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics. [19] After the end of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union signed the Polish–Soviet border agreement of August 1945 with the new, internationally recognized Polish Provisional Government of National Unity on