Russian President Vladimir Putin has passed a controversial anti-history law. According to Russian media, this makes it a criminal offence to compare the role played by the Soviet Union throughout the Second World War with that of Nazi Germany.

Historians have already expressed concern about how the law will be used. The legislation is seen as a response to the EU parliament’s condemnation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the 1939 non-aggression pact amongst Germany and the Soviet Union.

The Germany of Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin secretly made agreements about how they would divide Europe. That led to the invasion of Poland, the European Parliament ruled in 2019. That held the Soviet Union partly responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War.

The non-aggression pact, however, did not last. Hitler later turned on the Russians and ordered his Wehrmacht to invade the communist Soviet Union. Tens of millions of people died there during the Second World War.