Poland's demands for World War II reparations from Russia look outlandish, given the price the Soviet Union paid for the liberation of the Eastern European country, former President Lech Walesa told RIA Novosti in an interview
WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2020) Poland's demands for World War II reparations from Russia look outlandish, given the price the Soviet Union paid for the liberation of the Eastern European country, former President Lech Walesa told RIA Novosti in an interview.
In late January, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, told Bild that Russia on par with Germany must pay Poland reparations for the damage that the latter had suffered during the WWII. Foreign Undersecretary of State Pawel Jablonski echoed that Warsaw had an "unconditional" right to demand reparations from Russia.
"The point is that if we sit down to count [who owes what to whom], our count will be that no one owes anyone anything. But, since we do not talk [with each other], absurd wishes emerge," Walesa said.
According to him, if this process begins, Warsaw will have to count the number of Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of Poland during the WWII.
"Thus, if we sit down and count, the balance will be zero," he concluded.
Moscow denies that Warsaw has any legitimate right to demand reparations. For some time after the Potsdam conference in 1945, Poland had been getting a portion of reparations that then-Eastern Germany was paying to the Soviet Union. Since 1954, the payments from Germany were discontinued as per a bilateral Soviet-Polish treaty.
About 600,000 Soviet soldiers died while liberating Poland from Nazis.
