If you notice, these were all recoveries of territories Russia lost after WWI.
--- On Sun, 1/4/09, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Additionally, the "Warlords" 2 x DVD set's
> 1st episode, "Hitler vs. Stalin," goes into much
> detail about the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (or the
> Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) as well as Russia's land grabs
> in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, Bessarabia,
> & Bukovina (in Romania), all of which happened before
> the Germans attacked the USSR. It doesn't flatter either
> side very much.
>