Germans tanks cross a river into Polish territory m06 September 1939 | AFP/Getty Russia plays the Polish history card Russia’s ambassador prods Polish history, but the reaction is muted.

WARSAW — It's usually not difficult for a Russian to cause outrage in Poland by taking a poke at that proud but prickly country's history — and that seems to be what Moscow's ambassador in Warsaw may have hoped to do by suggesting that Poland bore some of the responsibility for starting World War II.

What's more surprising is that Sergei Andreev's decision to make a rhetorical jab on Polish television didn't cause more of a stir.

The prevalent theory on why Andreev made such a statement is that it was no coincidence that he did so just as Russia embarks on a military mission in Syria, President Vladimir Putin addressed the UN General Assembly with a call to arms against the Islamic State and Moscow is trying to cut a deal with the West that minimizes the costs of its intervention in Ukraine.

Poland has been one of the strongest anti-Russian voices in the EU, consistently backing tough sanctions against the Kremlin and supporting Ukraine's attempts to break free of Moscow's bear-hug. Anything that weakens Poland's diplomatic strength helps Russia.

“Sometimes it is good for Russia to provoke negative emotions in Poland,” says Jarosław Ćwiek-Karpowicz, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. “Then, the Russians can say, ‘Look, these people are Russophobes. They are very emotional, they overreact. That’s why you should marginalize them when you consider what to do about Russia’. ”

That view was echoed by Adam Balcer, an analyst at the demosEuropa think tank. "They would like to provoke us, to discredit us,” he said. “They want to show that Poles are the main obstacle to achieving some kind of rapprochement between the West and Russia, which they will say is necessary for resolving the Syria conflict."

But the response to Andreev's comment was uncharacteristically temperate. The words in question: "Polish policy led to the disaster in September 1939, because during the 1930s Poland repeatedly blocked the formation of a coalition against Hitler’s Germany. Poland was therefore partly responsible for the disaster which then took place.”

Poles are very sensitive to anything that affects their status as one of the main victims of the war, remembering that the Germans attacked them on September 1, 1939, but that on September 17 the Soviet Union invaded from the east to help their Nazi allies. Poland finally freed itself from Moscow's grip only in 1989.

But Poles have a pretty good understanding of Russia's motivations, and refused to be drawn.

"Even Polish children know that neither [German Foreign Minister Joachim von] Ribbentrop nor [Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav] Molotov were Polish," said Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz.

Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the right-wing Law and Justice party, and normally one to quickly take the bait in defending Poland, gave a measured interview, saying that Russia's isolation and the strengthening of the NATO alliance was a result of Russia's "imperial" policy.

Grzegorz Schetyna, Poland's foreign minister, said the ambassador's "regrettable words" stemmed from “a misunderstanding of history."

Andreev walked back his statements a bit after being summoned Monday to Poland’s foreign ministry for an explanation, saying Poland’s interpretation had been “misplaced.”

“I had no intention to offend anyone, or to insult the Polish people,” he told reporters, explaining that he hadn’t meant to say that Poland was at fault for starting World War II, only that the Polish government’s policy at the time had led to Poland’s fate.