A NATO tweet celebrating the story of former Baltic partisans who resisted Soviet occupation during World War II has sparked a feud with the Russian government.
This is the story of the Forest Brothers who fought the Soviet army for their homelands after WWII pic.twitter.com/4JcfuJPmeO
— NATO (@NATO) July 11, 2017
The partisans are a contentious group in Russia for allegedly being pro-Nazi. The tweet drew immediate condemnation from Russia’s permanent mission to NATO, which called the video a “shame attempt to rewrite history.”
The permanent mission followed up saying the video’s distribution was “intolerance and war-mongering at its best.”
Condemnation then spiraled to the highest levels of the Russian government.
“Don’t remain indifferent, this is a perversion of history that NATO knowingly spreads in order to undermine the outcome of the Nuremberg Tribunal and it must be cut short!” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharovasaid said, alleging the Nazi ties of the partisan group.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin followed suit saying there are “Nazi remnants in NATO.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is intensely sensitive over its legacy as the former Soviet Union. Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union one of the greatest political tragedies of all time and frequently derides NATO as an attempt by the West to contain Russia’s legitimate ambitions.
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