in the process, and never signed the treaty. In 1993, the Russian Federation announced it would alone be responsible for the debt. Helsinki Accords The Baltic question was raised during the negotiations of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975. During the negotiations, the Soviet Union advocated for any attempt of territorial claims to be deemed an act of aggression. West Germany, Spain, Ireland and Canada opposed this; the Canadian representatives stated that accepting the Soviet proposal would mean de jure recognition of the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic states. Supported by other NATO members, the final act instead stated that the current "frontiers"boundaries of territorial control, as opposed to "borders" which would signify boundaries of sovereign jurisdictionof the Soviet Union would not be violated. The President of the United States and leaders of other NATO member states confirmed in statements that the provision did not entail recognition of the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Russia insists that the international community legally recognised the incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR at Yalta, Potsdam, and Helsinki, characterizing Helsinki as recognizing sovereign borders. List of recognition and non-recognition of annexation In terms of the annexation of the Baltic states, the nations of the world form five groups: 1. countries that explicitly and consistently did not recognise the Soviet occupation and annexation, either de jure or de facto; 2. countries that never recognised the Soviet occupation de jure but occasionally recognised the Soviet occupation and administration in the Baltics de facto; 3. countries that at some point of time also recognised the incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR de jure; 4. countries that have not expressed their position in any way. 5. countries under communist rule that considered the annexation of the three Baltic countries into the USSR legal without reservation. 1. De jure and de facto non-recognition – maintained official diplomatic relations, neither de jure nor de facto recognition accorded. After the opening of the US consulate in Leningrad in 1973, whose consular district included Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, US officials began contacts with Soviet officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The US consul general would not directly engage with the highest level Soviet state and Communist party officials in the three countries, but conducted visits to the three capitals and met with the deputy leaders