The Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained under its control until its dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years durin
A protest sign from the 1980s calling on the United Nations to abolish Soviet colonialism in the Baltic states
Soldiers of the Red Army enter the territory of Lithuania during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940.
Schematics of the Soviet military blockade and invasion of Estonia in 1940 (Russian State Naval Archives)
A cross commemorating the victims of the Rainiai massacre, committed by the Soviet NKVD on 24–25 June 1941
The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941.
Occupation of the Baltic states
…1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939, before the outbreak of World War…
Soviet troops in Riga, Latvia (1940)
Soviet repressions in Kuressaare, Estonia (1941)
Soviet propaganda demonstration in Liepāja, 1940. Posters in Russian say: We demand the full accession to the USSR!