Having endured more than four decades of authoritarian rule behind the former Soviet Union’s “Iron Curtain,” Poland was not happy to learn that Russia practiced invading its country during a recent war games exercise. The mock attack was carried out in neighboring Belarus, which has strained relations with Warsaw because of its minority Polish population, and reportedly involved the theoretical use of nuclear weapons by the Russian air force.
Poland was invaded by Russia in 1791 and occupied by Russians for more than a century. The Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939 as part of the USSR’s agreement with
Germany. The Soviet occupation included the massacre of 26,000 Polish officers and cultural elite, an atrocity that was denied by the Kremlin for 59 years.
-Noel Brinkerhoff