Latvia and Estonia became part of Russia in 1721 and Lithuania became a part of Russia in 1795. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Russian-speaking and Russian-populated state modeled after Russian civilization, and it was taken over by Poland in the 16th century. Estonia and Latvia had no independent existence, and nearby Slavic peoples from Novgorod had a large influence on the development of the region. Lithuanian and Latvian languages contain many, many words of Russian origin, especially words with a religious context. Russian Sviatoy - Latvian Svēts, for example. Russian Grekh - Latvian Grēks

Russia suffered territorial losses during and after World War I that were questionable and disputed. These losses happened at the point of a gun, under pressure from Germany in 1918 and these losses were preserved after 1918 when America, France and Britain interfered in Russia's affairs and supported anti-Russian nationalists. So, these losses were not legitimate.

In January 1918, the Germans demanded most of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, part of Estonia and Latvia be torn away from Russia. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin considered it necessary to accept and sign the peace treaty in order to give the country a breathing space—to safeguard the achievements of the October Revolution, to strengthen the Russian government, and to re-create the Russian Army. Ukraine, Belarus, and the Lithuania, Latvia all had German puppet regimes established in 1918, so the separation of these lands from Russia is literally rooted in invasion of Russia by western Europeans.

After 1918, the Russian civil war started. During this time, foreign armies invaded and occupied Russian territory: Romania occupied Moldavia. Poland occupied the western parts of Ukraine and Belarus during 1918-1920, at a time when Russia when Russia was literally engaged in civil war in different parts of the country in Crimea, the Caucasus, and Siberia. So, Russia on behalf of allied nations in the Soviet Union was simply recovering largely Ukrainian and Belarusian lands that Poland took. There were 3 million Belarusians and 6 million Ukrainians in Poland in the 1930s.