World War II only ended in 1991

Twenty years ago the last Soviet troops left what was then Czechoslovakia, which they had been occupying since invading the country in 1968 during the Prague Spring. For the liberal daily Sme this troop withdrawal marks the true end of World War II: "When in August 1968 the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev explained to Czechoslovakian Party Leader Alexander Dubček why tanks had been stationed in Prague and Bratislava, he didn't beat around the bush. Speaking as he had learned to from Stalin, he said: Our soldiers went as far as the Elbe during the War, and that's where our border now lies. The War also made Czechoslovakia part of the Soviet Union: 'The results of the Second World War are for us inviolable, and we shall defend them to ward off the danger of a new conflict', he said to the shocked Dubček. The withdrawal of the last Soviet soldier also marked the end of the doctrine that the liberated country will eternally belong to the liberator. Consequently, for us the war only ended in June 1991."

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