Most of the present-day Russians in Estonia are recent migrants and their descendants who settled in during the Soviet occupation between 1945 and 1991. Following the terms of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed the Baltic States in 1940. The authorities carried out repressions against many prominent ethnic Russians activists and White emigres in Estonia. Many Russians were arrested and executed by different Soviet war tribunals in 1940–1941. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Baltic States quickly fell under German control. Many Russians, especially Communist party members who had arrived in the area with the initial occupation and annexation, retreated; those who fell into the German hands were treated harshly, many were executed.