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Vladimir Putin has said there was nothing bad about the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the non-aggression treaty which led to the carve-up of Poland at the outset of the Second World War, suggesting that Britain and France were to blame for Adolf Hitler’s march into Europe.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Britain and France to blame for Adolf Hitler’s march into Europe, Putin tells young historians Back to video

He also said that Britain and France had destroyed any chance for an anti-fascist front with the Munich Agreement.

The Russian president made the comments at a meeting with young historians in Moscow, at which he urged them to examine the lead-up to the war.

His comments are likely to cause dismay in Eastern Europe, amid wider debate in Russia about growing attempts to use history as a means of shoring up Mr. Putin’s rule.

He claimed that Western historians try to “hush up” the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which France and Britain, then led by Neville Chamberlain, appeased Hitler by acquiescing to his occupation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.