The Kremlin has lashed out at Warsaw over plans for a meeting in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will host foreign guests for Victory Day celebrations on May 9, when Moscow marks what it depicts as the liberation of European nations by the Soviet Army.
But Polish President Bronislaw Komarowski said this week that the Nazi defeat "did not bring freedom to all the peoples of Europe," a reference to decades of Soviet dominance over Poland and many neighbors after the war.
Komarowski has invited EU leaders to "reflect" on this at a meeting on May 8 on the Westerplatte Peninsula in the Polish city of Gdansk, where the war began with a battle between Polish and invading German forces in 1939.
Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, said on January 29 that the invitation was "designed to discourage a number of European states' leaders from coming to Moscow on May 9."
