Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a non-aggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Moscow on 23 August 1939. It is also known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact or the Nazi–Soviet Pact.

The pact remained in force until the German government broke it by launching an attack on the Soviet positions in eastern Poland on 22 June 1941 contrary to the supplementary protocol of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty dictating the new European spheres of interest.

The stated clauses of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact were a perceived guarantee of non-belligerence by each party towards the other, and a written commitment that neither party would ally itself to, or aid, an enemy of the other party. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet–Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September. Part of southeastern (Karelia) and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region). Concern about ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians had been proffered as justification for the Soviet invasion of Poland.