In June 1940, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the independent countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as foreseen by the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Communist Russia and Nazi Germany.
Blatantly rigged “parliamentary elections” were held in which only Candidates belonging to the Working People’s Union were allowed to run for the seats of the Chamber of Deputies (Riigikogu).
Predictably, the Working People’s Union won all 80 seats, with 92.8% of the votes cast. The remaining 7.2% were declared invalid. Thereafter the “People’s Riigikogu” declared the Estonian SSR on July 21, and requested admission to the Soviet Union. Moscow approved the request on August 6, 1940.
The same scenario was played out in all three Baltic states. The three were then annexed into the Soviet Union as “constituent republics” in August 1940.
Mirroring the events of over 70 years ago, Russia invaded, occupied and annexed the Crimean Peninsula as the world looked on. Initially Russia denied that its troops were involved in the Crimean invasion. But Putin eventually admitted deploying his military to strengthen the Crimean “self-defence” force.
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