Poland adopts resolution slamming Moscow

Polish lawmakers approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland 70 years ago - a move that could test efforts by Moscow and Warsaw to improve chilly relations.

The lower house of Poland's Parliament, the Sejm, unanimously backed the declaration criticising Moscow's actions before and after the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and urged Russians to cooperate in helping to reveal what really happened.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin clinched a non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler in August 1939, paving the way for Nazi Germany's invasion on September 1. Stalin then sent Soviet troops into eastern Poland on September 17.

"In this way, a fourth partition of Poland was accomplished. Poland became the victim of two totalitarian regimes: Nazism and Communism," the text of the resolution said.

It cited the mass executions and deportations carried out on Polish territory by the invading Soviets as well as the murder of 20,000 Polish officers in Katyn forest in 1940.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centre-right government dominates the Sejm, though he also wants improved ties with Russia. Opposition conservatives had pushed for tougher language in the resolution.

Poles have been exasperated by what they see as Russian attempts to rewrite history. For example, a Russian military academic recently suggested Poland was to blame for the outbreak of war by refusing to accept Hitler's "modest" demands, which included annexing the free city of Gdansk, or Danzig.

At ceremonies this month in Gdansk marking the anniversary of World War II, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made no apology for Soviet actions.

He said the Stalin-Hitler pact was "immoral" but said other countries, including Poland and Britain, had also tried to accommodate Hitler before the war.

Moscow bristles at claims by Poles and others that Stalin was no better than Hitler and that the Soviet Union, invaded by the Germans in 1941, can be compared to Nazi Germany.

Russians are deeply proud of their country's victory over Hitler in 1945 after a titanic struggle in which up to 27 million Soviet citizens perished. Poland lost about a fifth of its own population, or six million people, during the war.

In Gdansk, Putin urged Poles to set the past aside and to focus on building a new partnership based on economic interests.

Relations received an indirect boost last week when the United States decided to shelve plans to build a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Analysts say that move should help reduce tensions between Poland and Russia, which had strongly opposed the shield as a threat to its own security.