Home Army relations with the Soviet Red Army grew worse as the war progressed. The Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939 after the German invasion that began on 1 September 1939; even though the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviets saw Polish partisans loyal to the Polish government-in-exile more as a potential obstacle to Soviet plans to control postwar Poland than as a potential ally. On orders from the Soviet "Stavka" (high command) issued on 22 June 1943, Soviet partisans engaged Polish partisans in combat; it has also been claimed that they attacked the Poles more frequently than the Germans.