Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Firn]

I generally dislike the impulse of peope to compare a current situation with a far more stark past, but I could not resist to take a quick look at the Wiki:

Sudeten German pro-Nazi leader Konrad Henlein offered the Sudeten German Party (SdP) as the agent for Hitler's campaign. Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, where he was instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government led by president Edvard Beneš. On 24 April, the SdP issued the Karlsbader Programm, demanding autonomy for the Sudetenland and the freedom to profess Nazi ideology. If Henlein's demands were granted, the Sudetenland would then be able to align itself with Nazi Germany.

"I am asking neither that Germany be allowed to oppress three and a half million Frenchmen, nor am I asking that three and a half million Englishmen be placed at our mercy. Rather I am simply demanding that the oppression of three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia cease and that the inalienable right to self-determination take its place." - Adolf Hitler's speech at the NSDAP Congress 1938

There are certainly some differences but also quite some similarities...

So now I understand even more why some Polish? guy decided to take this not so original take on Mr. Putin:



Perhaps it was just retweeted by an Ukrainian.

@JMA: I think Putin would have been wise to show restraint. Yes he achieved a strategic surprise by preparing and executing an invasion while he fooled the Western powers. Yes he occupied the Crimea and right now there is very little the Western powers or the Ukraine can do against it. Yes he will be pretty satisfied with him and perhaps be rather smug. But there will be a steep price to payed by the Russian people, hopefully and so far likely not in blood. Russia might boast itself for the vast natural ressources but it's economy is only kept afloat by the money payed mostly by Europeans for it. And increasingly Europe is moving away from Russian imports. There is little doubt that Russia depends economically more on Europe then the other way around.

In any case the words of some Western politicians sound now indeed naive and perhaps even stupid, and Putins words have no worth at all.