Foreign Affairs

NATO-Russia Twitter Feud Sparks Official Response

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A NATO tweet celebrating the story of former Baltic partisans who resisted Soviet occupation during World War II has sparked a feud with the Russian government.

This is the story of the Forest Brothers who fought the Soviet army for their homelands after WWII pic.twitter.com/4JcfuJPmeO

— NATO (@NATO) July 11, 2017

The partisans are a contentious group in Russia for allegedly being pro-Nazi. The tweet drew immediate condemnation from Russia’s permanent mission to NATO, which called the video a “shame attempt to rewrite history.”

Another shameful attempt to rewrite history & glorify inglorious former SS-fighters and nationalists to serve political narrative of the day

— Russians at NATO (@natomission_ru) July 12, 2017

The permanent mission followed up saying the video’s distribution was “intolerance and war-mongering at its best.”

Condemnation then spiraled to the highest levels of the Russian government.

“Don’t remain indifferent, this is a perversion of history that NATO knowingly spreads in order to undermine the outcome of the Nuremberg Tribunal and it must be cut short!” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharovasaid said, alleging the Nazi ties of the partisan group.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin followed suit saying there are “Nazi remnants in NATO.”

NATO published a video about the ‘Forest Brothers’ killing our soldiers. This confirms that we are dealing with Nazi remnants in NATO https://t.co/Jww3x1s0Wg

— Dmitry Rogozin (@DRogozin) July 13, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is intensely sensitive over its legacy as the former Soviet Union. Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union one of the greatest political tragedies of all time and frequently derides NATO as an attempt by the West to contain Russia’s legitimate ambitions.

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