Portal:Poland/Selected article/6
The Polish–Soviet War, fought between 1919 and 1921, determined the borders between two nascent states in post–World War I Europe. It was a result of conflicting attempts — by Poland, whose statehood had just been reëstablished after it being partitioned in the late 18th century, to secure territories which it had lost in the partitions — and by the Bolsheviks who aimed to take control of the same territories that had since then been part of Imperial Russia until their occupation by Germany during World War I. The conflict ended with the Peace of Riga which divided Ukraine and Belarus between the Second Polish Republic and the newly formed Soviet Union. Both states claimed victory in the war: the Poles claimed a successful defense of their state, while the Soviets claimed a repulse of the Polish Kiev Offensive, which was sometimes viewed as part of foreign interventions in the Russian Civil War. (Full article...)