This is my personal answer to the Russian propaganda. This video shows the meeting of Soviet and German troops, setting up poles on the border in divided Poland. Starting a fire and then being proud you put it out is no glory...
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland. It ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union's Red Army.
On the 23 August 1939 Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with Nazi Germany. As a result, on 1 September, the Germans invaded Poland from the west; and on 17 September, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east. The Soviet government announced that it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.
The Red Army quickly achieved its targets, vastly outnumbering Polish resistance. About 230,000 Polish soldiers or more (452 500) were taken prisoners of war. The Soviet government annexed the territory newly under its control and in November declared that the 13.5 million Polish citizens who lived there were now Soviet citizens. The Soviets quelled opposition by executions and by arresting thousands. They sent hundreds of thousands (estimates vary) to Siberia and other remote parts of the USSR in four major waves of deportations between 1939 and 1941.
The Soviet invasion, which the Politburo called "the liberation campaign", led to the incorporation of millions of Poles, western Ukrainians and western Belarusians into the Soviet Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics.
During the two years following the annexation, the Soviets also arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens and deported up to 1,500,000.
