Don't Munich Ukraine

Don’t Turn Ukraine into a Second Munich Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The revered President Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Hitler assumed total power and became the Fuhrer; the Nazi dictatorship began. Hitler, like many megalomaniacs, had dreams of conquest. He started by uniting the Germanic people. Germany at the end of WWI had to turn the demilitarized Rhineland over to France control. The nascent German Army entered the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. Neither France nor England were willing to fight. The German Army marched into Austria on March 12, 1938. The Anschluss reunited Germany and Austria. Austria at the end of WWI was forced to cede the German populated Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia. Hitler then eyed the Sudetenland, threatening to use force to free the German population. England and France were again unwilling to go to war. The British and French people were also anti-war at that time. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet with Hitler. An agreement was reached on September 30, 1938. Germany would receive the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise by Hitler that “he had no more territorial demands to make in Europe.” Germany invaded Czechoslovakia on March 15,1039. England and France were once again unwilling to fight Germany. Chamberlain flew back to England. He received strong support by the British people. He spoke his famous/infamous remark: “We have achieved peace in our time.” The phrase Minich arose out of Chamberlain’s mouth. Valdimir Putin does not just seek to unite the Russia people. He wants to reunite the old Russian Empire. He sliced off part of Geogia on August 8, 2008. He annexed Crimea in 2014. He sponsored guerilla warfare in the Donbass oblast of Ukraine, seizing much of it. He twice waged war on Chechnya. Prime Minister Putin has clearly stated he wants all of Ukraine. He also eyes Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. History tells us he would also want Poland and Finland. He hasn’t asked for the return of Alaska. Vladimir Putin, like Adolph Hitler, has a unsatiable hunger for seizing land. Security agreements mean nothing to him. They’re barely worth the paper they’re inscribed on. Catherine the Great by 1784 had consolidated all of Ukraine into the Russian Empire. Ukraine had a short, very short, period of independence at the end of World War II. Stalin brutalized Ukraine, killing millions in the Great famine of 1933-34. The Soviet Union Collapsed. Ukraine declared its independence in 1994. The departing Russians left behind about 1700 nuclear warheads, delivery weapons, and maintenance. Ukraine was third largest nuclear country for a few years. A global drive for non-proliferation, fostered by President Clinton, led to Ukraine. Ukraine was persuaded to surrender its nuclear weapons to Russia. Ukraine in return received guarantees of Ukraine’s independence, a security agreement, called the Budapest Manifesto. The United States, United Kingdom, and Russia promised to protect Ukraine’s independence. Russia violated it in 2014 and 2024. How has that security guarantee worked out? Remember, Putin wants all of Ukraine.