What Russian President Vladimir Putin did in Crimea, Ukraine, early this year is similar to what Adolf Hitler did to Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, 75 years ago—in 1938. Putin took over Crimea on the pretext of protecting the Russian-speaking people there as if they were being persecuted; Hitler took over Sudetenland on the pretext of protecting ethnic Germans who, he alleged, suffered privations.
Unfortunately both France and Britain pressured the president of Czechoslovakia to accept Hitler’s demand to cede northern and western Czechoslovakia. They signed the Munich Agreement that dismembered poor Czechoslovakia. After the annexation of Austria earlier by Germany, Czechoslovakia came next.
Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that agreeing to Hitler would prevent another world war, the first having just ended 20 years back. What Chamberlain did not see was Hitler’s design of conquering Europe. The surrender of Sudetenland was the beginning of another war.
Russia’s Putin must be stopped. After Russia’s takeover of Crimea, pro-Russian forces occupied government buildings in eastern Ukraine just across the border with Russia.
The world should learn from history before it is too late.
—RICARDO RAMOS,
rbrparadigm@gmail.com