Russia's ambassador to Poland sparked outrage at the highest levels of the Polish government when he suggested that the Russian invasion of Poland in World War II was "self defense."

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 while the Russians invaded 16 days later. The twin invasions were the result of a secret protocol in the Nazi Soviet Pact signed August 25, 1939 where the two powers agreed to divide Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

At the time of the Russian invasion, Stalin claimed that Poland had ceased to exist as a state and Soviet troops were moving in to restore order.

Now, we have an entirely different explanation.

Washington Post:

Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev on Friday described the Soviet’s 1939 invasion of Poland as an act of self-defense, not aggression. The comment prompted Poland’s Foreign Ministry to declare Saturday that the ambassador “undermines historical truth” and seems to be trying to justify Stalinist crimes.

World War II began after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sealed a pact in 1939 that included a secret provision to carve up Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. Germany soon invaded Poland from the West, followed by a Soviet invasion from the east 16 days later. Millions of Poles were killed in the war.

In an interview broadcast on the private TVN station, Andreev also said: “Polish policy led to the disaster in September 1939, because during the 1930s Poland repeatedly blocked the formation of a coalition against Hitler’s Germany. Poland was therefore partly responsible for the disaster which then took place.”

Poland’s Foreign Ministry expressed “surprise and alarm” at those comments, and Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna summoned Andreev for a meeting Monday on the matter.

“The narrative presented by the highest official representative of the Russian state in Poland undermines the historical truth and reflects the most hypocritical interpretation of the events known from the Stalinist and communist years,” the ministry said in a statement.

Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz also expressed displeasure with the ambassador.

“The role of an ambassador accredited in a country should be to build to build harmony and friendly relations between countries,” Kopacz said.

While Putin has been busy in Ukraine, his provocations against former satellites of the Soviet Union in eastern Europe have continued. Would NATO go to war against Russia to save Poland? That's a question Vladimir Putin is giving a lot of thought to. Putin's game in Europe is to destroy NATO - without bloodshed if possible. With NATO out of the picture, it makes the task of reintegrating the former Soviet satellite nations into Russia's sphere of influence a lot less complicated. 

Many Russians will probably buy the ambassador's revisionist history lesson. They have already absolved themselves of responsibility for helping to start the war so why not go the full monte and blame the war's biggest victim? Hitler couldn't have done it any better.