Political analyst Andrei Lazutkin discussed the events of 1939 on the YouTube channel Politica. Minskaya Pravda on Sept. 19, 2025. He claimed that the Soviet Union actually did not attack Poland:
“In fact, we never declared war on that interwar Poland. That state had already ceased to exist by the time we crossed the border on September 17. There was a government in Warsaw that had already fled across the Romanian border. And we didn’t attack them — we were protecting the Belarusian and Ukrainian population living in Eastern Poland.”
The USSR did not, in fact, officially declare war on Poland. On the morning of September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union delivered a note to the Polish ambassador stating that the war with Germany had shown the Polish state’s failure, the country had lost its capital, and the government had effectively ceased to exist.
As a result, Soviet leaders ordered their troops to “take under their protection” the population of Western Ukraine and Belarus.
Lazutkin’s words are echoed in the official Belarusian history textbook for 11th grade. It says the Polish government allegedly fled a day before Soviet troops entered Poland, on September 16. However, official Polish sources describe a different picture: President Ignacy Mościcki and the government crossed into Romania late in the evening of September 17, after the Soviet offensive had already begun.
The WTF team reviewed what historical sources from countries not involved in the conflict say about these events. For example, the Romanian government’s website states: “President Ignacy Mościcki and the entire Polish government crossed the border on the night of Sunday, September 17, to Monday, September 18, 1939, finding refuge in Chernivtsi and being received at the Metropolitan’s Palace.”
Foreign press at the time reported the same date: “Faced with a double invasion of its territory and the obvious collapse of its armies, the Polish government left for Romania. Perhaps it will reestablish authority somewhere in Western Europe,” the newspaper The Sun wrote on September 18, 1939.
In an address to the nation on September 17, the Polish president said the decision to leave the country was driven by attacks from both the west and the east. German forces did not capture Warsaw until September 28. The last major battle of Polish troops against the Soviets took place on October 1, 1939, near the village of Wytyczno in the Lyublinskaye Vayevodstva (Lublin Voivodeship).
