Russia bullies Ukraine

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Vladimir Putin seeks to establish an empire with Eastern Europe annexation

Near the middle of the 20th century, a disgraced nation rising to power attempted to annex land from a weaker nation. The world powers of the time consented with little fuss. Unfortunately for them, this appeasement played a heavy hand in hastening one of the worst wars in human history.

Now, almost 70 years after World War II ended, history is beginning to repeat itself. The world failed to make a stand then, and I fear we may be about to make the same mistake once again.

Seventy-six years ago today, Sept. 30, 1938, the Munich Agreement was signed between Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. According to the historical records, the agreement gave Nazi Germany the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia predominantly populated by ethnic Germans. The agreement also gave Germany full control over the rest of Czechoslovakia on the condition that they did not press further into Europe.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain left the meeting believing the issue was truly settled.

“My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor,” Chamberlain said in his speech at Heston Aerodome, announcing the outcome of the deal. “I believe it is peace for our time.”

Eleven months later, Sept. 1, 1939, the day now recognized as the start of World War II, Germany shocked the world by invading Poland. The annexation of the Sudetenland had not stopped the Nazis thirst for power as the world had hoped. Instead, it had only served to whet their appetite.

Today, a similar situation is unfolding again in Europe. The role of Germany has been recast for Russia, with Ukraine now playing Czechoslovakia. The Ukrainian region of Crimea now stands in for the disputed Sudetenland, its future waiting to be decided.

In March of this year, Russia annexed the region of Crimea. According to a USA Today article, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Russian troops seized the area to support citizens wishing to “take destiny into their own hands” by retaining ties with Russia. Fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists began in April, and since then, there have been more than 3,200 casualties, according to the BBC.

Russia has repeatedly denied they have any military personnel on Ukrainian soil. However, NATO said it has uncovered evidence of Russia moving artillery units and soldiers across the border to fire on Ukrainian soldiers. President Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly that there is also evidence of Russia sending weapons to separatist fighters in Ukraine.

Having lived in the former Soviet Union, I was not at all surprised to learn that Russia was actively trying to undermine Ukraine. The peoples of Eastern Europe have long known that Russia never fully let go of the power the Soviet Union held during the Cold War. Much like Germany at the end of World War I, Russia mourns the loss of its empire and is forever scheming to reclaim it.

Crimea has long been on Russia’s radar as a territory to be reclaimed. In 1994, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin, then deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, said the USSR had given up territories which had historically been Russian and that Russia could not simply abandon its citizens, according to a New York Times article. One of the areas he specifically mentioned was Crimea. He stated that the world had to respect the interests of the Russian state and the “great nation” of the Russian people. Now, Putin is not hiding his goal to restore the former Russian empire.

“If I wanted to, Russian troops could, in two days, be not only in Kiev (Ukraine), but also in Riga (Latvia), Vilnius (Lithuania), Tallinn (Estonia), Warsaw (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania),” Putin told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, according to the EU Observer.

While Putin’s words were meant to show that Russia had made no serious move to use its substantial military power against Eastern Europe, they sound to me like an unveiled threat. The world failed to take Hitler seriously, and the result was a war that devastated Europe and cost millions of lives. We cannot afford to make the same mistake with Russia.

To be fair, the world has handled Russia’s annexation of Crimea somewhat better than it did Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Economic and military sanctions have been leveled against Russia by the United Nations, the U.S. and Japan, according to a New York Times article. However, Obama told the UN General Assembly that sanctions against Russia would be lifted if Russia supported the ceasefire that came into effect Sept. 5.

On the surface, this might seem fair. However, Russia has since found another way of hurting Ukraine without violating the ceasefire — the economy. Much of Ukraine’s gas comes from Russian pipelines. With a harsh winter fast approaching in Ukraine, Russia is threatening to cut off the gas and leave Ukraine without the energy it needs to heat its homes, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Business Insider said Russia has also raised claims that Ukraine owes billions of dollars to Russia — a claim Ukraine insists is false. While the ceasefire may have put a stop to the fighting, it has by no means discouraged Russia’s attempt to retake Ukraine.

“Ukraine makes or breaks Russia’s image as a great power, which has fared poorly since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” journalist Max Fisher wrote in an article for
the Washington Post.

Dan Drezner, political scientist at Tufts University, agreed with that assessment.

“For all of Putin’s Middle East diplomacy, Ukraine is far more important to his great power ambitions,” Drezner said. “One of the very first sentences you’re taught to say in ‘Foreign Policy Community College’ is, ‘Russia without Ukraine is a country. Russia with Ukraine is an empire.’”

It is for this reason that we cannot afford to lift the sanctions against Russia. They already possess a long enough leash to choke Ukraine into submission. To give them more rope would be not only nonsensical, but also potentially dangerous. Russia has made it clear that they possess the will and the military power to retake what they lost in the collapse of the Soviet Union. If they are allowed to do so, they would emerge even stronger, just as Germany did. Once Russia has tasted that intoxicating power again, who is to say that they will stop there?

After the signing of the Munich Agreement, F. L. Lucas, a King’s College fellow, wrote a letter to the Manchester Guardian, calling the British celebration of the deal “the funeral of British honor.” He decried the sacrifice of weaker Czechoslovakia and called the British government to action.

“… Unless we propose to barricade ourselves behind pieces of paper signed by Herr Hitler, we shall look a little better to our defenses,” Lucas wrote.

The world now finds itself in precisely the same position it was in 76 years ago. Perhaps the outcome will be different. Perhaps history is not in fact doomed to repeat itself. Perhaps, as the world dared to hope with Germany, the annexation of Crimea would be enough to appease the Russian bear. But do we dare to take the risk?

I believe the answer is a resounding no.

BROWND is a copy editor and lived in Eastern Europe for six years.