This is not the first time that a Russian politician has referred to controversial historic events of the second world war. Back in the 80s, former president Mikhail Gorbachev broke with the previous Soviet policy of refusing to make any reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and made a commitment that the "blank spaces" in Soviet history would be investigated. Why is it though that the Poles feel that not enough had been done and why has Putin's letter been greeted with bewilderment rather than being seen as an act of reconciliation?
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Putin's letter to the Poles
Pact that set the scene for war
The 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact is controversial even today, with historians divided over its importance. In the first of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, the BBC Russian Service's Artyom Krechetnikov and Steven Eke analyse the significance of a treaty that helped set the scene for war.
Signed on 23 August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was accompanied by a secret protocol that detailed the reshaping of Europe's map.
Substantive talks on forming a political alliance between Nazi Germany and the USSR had begun that month.
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Wizards and wives drive Afghan election
Slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud wouldn't think of losing him as his media manager and interpreter. Anyone who shook Abdullah's soft hands will at once discover he never held a Kalashnikov, although he would speak with great elan about the life and times of the mujahideen. That places Abdullah in a unique position to claim mujahideen pedigree, yet avoid being branded a "warlord".
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Russia and Poland trade insults on 70th anniversary of World War Two
In the days leading up to anniversary, Russian media has aired a string of accusations against Poland, claiming that Warsaw intended to collaborate with Hitler in an invasion of the Soviet Union, and that Jozef Beck, Poland's foreign minister in 1939, was a German agent. Moscow broadcasters have also claimed that there was a "German hand" in the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish PoWs, an atrocity generally held to have been the exclusive work of Stalin's secret police.
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Lockerbie: U.S. accuses Britain of breaking promise
Gordon Brown today categorically denied 'double dealing' over the Lockerbie bomber even as the U.S. claimed it was assured by Britain that he would be forced to serve out his sentence in Scotland.
Amid growing fears for the special relationship, the Prime Minister again insisted the decision to free Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was entirely Scotland's own and that the Government had not tried to influence it.
Poland and Russia row over second world war marks Gdansk day
European presidents and prime ministers gathered today on Poland's Baltic coast to mark 70 years since the first shots were fired in the second world war with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.
But as direct memory of the war recedes, the ceremonies in Gdansk were clouded by bitter recrimination over Russia and Stalinism in central and eastern Europe, feeding current tensions between Moscow and several of its former client states in the region.
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