The world this weekend celebrated the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. So a day after the big party, why was Russian President Vladimir Putin praising an agreement between the Soviet Union and the Nazis that helped spark World War II?

That’s what he did standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow on Sunday after the two ­leaders honored the war’s toll.

“When the Soviet Union realized that it was left to face Hitler’s Germany on its own, it acted to try to avoid a direct confrontation, and this resulted in signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” Putin told a reporter on Sunday. “This pact did make sense in terms of guaranteeing the Soviet Union’s security.”