Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine was not very original. As others have noted, his claim that it was necessitated by the genocide carried out against ethnic Russians in the Donbas region reminds us of Hitler’s strategy to destroy democratic Czechoslovakia in the run up to World War II.
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Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia in order to include districts with a German-speaking population within the borders of the Reich. He did not have to, because the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy, with the carnage of the Great War still fresh in their minds, acquiesced to his demands at the 1938 Munich conference. Six months later, however, the The Nazis violated the Munich agreement, established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on Czech territory, and created a nominally independent Slovakian puppet state. Hitler then began to demand a part of Poland.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine began in a similar way, with the seizure of Crimea and the establishment of two Kremlin-backed small states in the Russian-speaking eastern Donbas region in 2014. This was a flagrant violation of the Budapest Memorandum. on Security Guarantees, by which Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, gave up the nuclear arsenals they had inherited from the Soviet Union. In exchange, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States pledged to respect the sovereignty and independence of those three countries within existing borders.
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Just as the UK and France failed to take serious action when Hitler increasingly breached the Treaty of Versailles, neither country did anything serious enough to make the Russians deplore the wildly popular annexation of Crimea and its encouragement of separatism in Donbas.
When Hitler claimed the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, he said it was “his last territorial claim in Europe”, but anyone who had read My Struggle should have been aware of his ambition to create the Lebensraum for the Germans in Eastern Europe. Similarly, we can reasonably suspect that Putin, who described the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a disaster, wants to restore Russian rule over former Soviet territories. If Putin gets away with occupying Ukraine and installing a puppet regime, will the ex-Soviet Baltic states, especially Estonia and Latvia, with their large Russian-speaking minorities, be next?
Putin has a great advantage that Hitler fortunately lacked: nuclear weapons. He issued a warning to countries that might try to interfere in Russia’s military operation in Ukraine by testing a nuclear-capable missile shortly before the invasion begins, saying that any country that intervenes will face “consequences never seen before.” Four days before the invasion began, he put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.
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How then can Putin be stopped? Sanctions are already being imposed, airspace is being closed to Russian aircraft, and boycotts against Russian goods have begun. Neighboring countries, especially Poland, should also close their land routes to Russian trucks. Unfortunately, such measures will harm all Russians, including those who oppose the war, but is there any other way to prevent Putin from achieving his goals?
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky bravely remained in Kiev, encouraging the Ukrainians to fight the Russian advance. If they can inflict significant costs on Russian forces, that could help stop Putin, though most military experts see Russian military victory as inevitable.
Perhaps recognizing this, Zelensky called on the Russian people to stop the war. Many Russians are trying to do exactly that. After the announcement of the invasion there were protests in approximately 55 cities throughout Russia. An independent monitoring organization claims that there were 5,000 arrests for participation in the protests without prior authorization, but many continue to demonstrate. At the time of this writing, more than a million brave Russians have signed a petition to “stop the war.”
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The demonstrations did not stop there. Dmitry Muratov, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner and editor of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last independent newspapers, posted a video calling on Russians to speak out against the war, stating that “Only the Russians’ anti-war movement can save lives on this planet.” Yelena Kovalskaya, director of the Meyerhold Theater and Cultural Center, resigned in protest against the attack on Ukraine, stating that “it is impossible to work for a murderer and receive a salary from him”.
More than 150 scientists and science journalists signed a letter, posted on a Russian science website, lamenting that Russia has been condemned to isolation and to be labeled a rogue state. A similar number of municipal delegates from many cities signed a letter condemning the attack as an “unprecedented atrocity” and adding that “the possibility of having a good life in Russia is collapsing before our eyes.”
What is also needed now is for Russian soldiers in Ukraine to stop fighting an unjust war. Some reports that have not yet been confirmed indicate that there are already those who refused to go to Ukraine. The Russians have access to a wide range of information beyond state media propaganda, so they must know that they are part of a war of aggression. Intentionally killing people without just cause is murder, and that is what Russian soldiers will do if they obey orders to use lethal weaponry against Ukrainians. Obeying orders is no excuse, just as it was not for those under Hitler’s command.
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From now on, as long as Putin remains Russia’s leader, the country must be regarded as an international pariah. Sanctions must be strong enough to ensure that Russians see their chance of a good life plummeting.
This is particularly unfair to those who publicly opposed the war, but how else can they expect Putin to be replaced by someone willing to abide by moral principles and international law? Sometimes the vanquished end up perceiving their suffering as liberation… just consult the Germans today.
PETER SINGER*
© PROJECT SYNDICATE
PRINCETON
Professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He is also the founder of the non-profit organization The Life You Can Save.
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