These events are declared by the Baltic states a prelude to the "annexation" of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Baltic authorities try to represent ethnic Russians living in the countries as "invaders" and "colonizers". At the same time, the Polish, referring to the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol, often blacken Soviet soldiers' reputation by equating the U.S.S.R., ruled by Joseph Stalin, and Hitler's Germany, when speaking about WWII. Russian historians argue that such an interpretation of the events of WWII is unacceptable from an ethical standpoint, as the 600,000 Soviet soldiers who died fighting to liberate Poland from the Nazis knew nothing about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.