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The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers, according to the European Court of Human Rights,...

The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers, according to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the State Department of the United States of America, and the European Union, to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union ostensibly under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. When World War II started in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, Latvia had already been relegated to the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its Secret Additional Protocol of August 1939. In the reassessment period of the Soviet history that began during the Perestroika, the USSR in 1989 condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and herself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, including Latvia. However, the USSR failed to acknowledge occupation prior to its dissolution. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Latvia's struggle for independence came to a conclusion: the sovereignty of the country was restored in 1991, and the last Soviet troops withdrew from the Republic of Latvia in August 1994. Latvia and the rest of the Baltics were