Thirty years ago, on August 18, 1989, the Kremlin conceded for the first time that the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression treaty, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that was signed on August 23, 1939, had secretly and illegally divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
Just days prior to the Kremlin marking the 50th anniversary of the pact, the Kremlin continued to insist that secret protocols of the pact had no bearing on the fact that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had become part of the Soviet Union, and that an admission that the pact was illegal did not alter the political status of the three Baltic states.