Poland’s president and prime minister opened solemn ceremonies in the city of Gdansk on September 1 2009 as leaders of 20 countries gathered to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 2.
 
The Swedish presidency of the EU said in a September 1 statement: "World War 2 taught Europe and its citizens a very painful lesson: how fragile peace between nations is and how much solidarity and effort is needed to preserve it.
 
"With the end of the war and the division of our continent, we learned not to take freedom and democracy for granted. We owe it to the victims, the survivors and future generations not only to remember these lessons, but also to act to make sure such dark times never come again," the Polish presidency statement said.
 
The BBC said that the first ceremony took place at dawn on Westerplatte peninsula near Gdansk, where a German battleship fired the first shots on a Polish fort in 1939.
 
At 4.45 am (2.45am GMT) Polish president Lech Kaczynski and prime minister Donald Tusk joined war veterans beside a monument to the heroes of Westerplatte.
 
The ceremony marked the exact time on September 1 1939 when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire at point-blank range on the fort.
 
At the same time, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland from east, west and south. The attacks triggered Britain and France's declaration of war against Germany two days later.
 
The events were scheduled to be attended by German chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, and Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, among others.
 
Putin used the occasion to send sharp messages to the West about perceptions of his country’s role in World War 2.
 
Putin was scheduled to hold talks with his Polish counterpart and also meet his counterparts Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine, Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, Matti Vanhanen of Finland, Jadranka Kosor of Croatia, Borut Pahor of Slovenia and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov.
 
Writing in Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, Putin condemned the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty as immoral, voanews reported..
 
The pact secretly split the Baltics and parts of Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Historians say it encouraged Germany to invade Poland on September 1 1939, setting off the war.
 
Putin blamed other European countries for refusing to back the Soviet Union, leaving Moscow to face the threat of Nazi Germany alone.
 
But he also wrote that the 1940 massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet security forces in the Katyn Forest was a crime and that Russia has a duty "to remove the burden of distrust and prejudice left from the past."
 
On August 30, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said anyone who tries to lay equal blame for the war on Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is telling a "flat-out lie."
 
Bulgaria’s daily Dnevnik said on September 1 2009 that Western media reported that Putin would shake hands with the premiers of the countries where Russia has energy interests.
 
Ukraine hosts the main sections of Russia’s pipeline pumping gas to Europe, while the other countries are linked with the North Stream and South Stream gas pipes. Dutch company Gasunie holds a nine per cent stake in the project company that will develop the South Stream pipeline that should cross Finland’s territorial waters. Croatia and Slovenia are potential participants in the South Stream scheme.
 
According to Ushakov, Borissov, who recently said Bulgaria could balk out of a string of joint Russian projects, is ready to hold constructive dialogue.
 
In a phone conversation last week, Borissov and Putin discussed the Belene nuclear power plant projects, the South Stream gas pipeline and the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.
 
On August 28, Borissov said that the Russian government was ready to provide a 3.8 billion loan euro for the nuke plant but Bulgaria’s previous government, led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s Sergei Stanishev, had failed to take the necessary steps.
 
The delegation accompanying Borissov to the Gdansk event, his first official trip abroad since becoming Prime Minister, included Foreign Minister Roumyana Zheleva, Bulgarian ambassador to Poland Ivan Naidenov and foreign policy adviser Radoslav Tochev.