Speaking during a meeting with young historians in Moscow, Mr Putin urged the group to examine the lead-up to the war and claimed that Western historians today try to to "hush up" the Munich Agreement.
The pact involving France and Britain - instigated by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain – appeased Adolf Hitler by permitted his annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudentenland.
According to a Kremlin transcript of the event, Mr Putin said: "Chamberlain came, waved a piece of paper and said, 'I've brought you peace' when he returned to London after the talks.
"To which Churchill, I think, said somewhere to a small group of people, 'That's it, now war is inevitable'.
"Because compromise with an aggressor in the form of Hitlerite Germany was clearly leading to a large-scale future military conflict, and some people understood that."
However, the Russian president claimed there was nothing wrong with the Nazi-Soviet pact. » | Friday, November 07, 2014
