Occupation of the Baltic states

The Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained under its control until its dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939, before the outbreak of World War II. The three independent Baltic countries were annexed as constituent Republics of the Soviet Union in August 1940. Most Western countries did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal. In July 1941, the occupation of the Baltic states by Nazi Germany took place, just weeks after its invasion of the Soviet Union. The Third Reich incorporated them into its Reichskommissariat Ostland. In 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states as a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, trapping the remaining German forces in the Courland Pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945.