Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, has used the 84th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s 1939 invasion of Poland to warn of the modern threat of Russian imperialism.

Sunday marked the anniversary of the day 84 years ago when the Red Army stormed into eastern Poland, as part of a joint Soviet-German invasion plan hatched by Stalin and Hitler and in contravention of a Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact.

The Soviet invasion came not long after Germany had triggered WWII by invading Poland from the west on September 1.

In a letter to participants of an anniversary ceremony in Legnica, southern Poland, Duda wrote that „today a new Russian dictator is trying to resurrect this dark empire,” by trying to „seize territory and subjugate the Ukrainian nation.”

The letter continued that „the historical analogies of these contemporary threats now appear to us particularly vividly.”

„That is why Poland and other countries of our region of Europe, remembering our earlier painful experiences, firmly oppose Russian neo-imperialism,” Duda wrote. „And that is also why, like every year, we remember September 17, 1939, so that it will be a warning to the whole of the free world.” (PAP)

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