1930s – 2010s and 2020s for Ukraine and Nato allies

Was Ukraine an imperfect democracy when Russia invaded it to liberate it from the Nazis?

For sure, those Nazis were perhaps only in the head of Vladimir Putin.

Prof Tim Snyder reimagines 1938 as a year in which Czechoslovakia, like Ukraine in 2022, had chosen to fight:

“So you had in Czechoslovakia, like Ukraine, an imperfect democracy. It’s the farthest democracy in eastern Europe. It has various problems, but when threatened by a larger neighbour, it chooses to resist. In that world, where Czechoslovakia resists, there’s no second world war.”

Snyder said such an outcome had been possible.

“They could have held the Germans back. It was largely a bluff on the German side. If the Czechs resisted, and the French and the British and maybe the Americans eventually started to help, there would have been a conflict, but there wouldn’t have been a second world war.”

Throughout history, we can see that certain major battles between nations could have been avoided had other countries reacted earlier or assisted the threatened country in time.

The past has also clearly shown that those who wanted to keep a particular leader too good and too friendly did not always turn out well.

In Munich in 1938, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, sought to appease the German leader who had sprung up from the crushed German Reich. Adolf Hitler had found a scapegoat or a culprit for Germany’s poor financial condition, even if it was more likely to be due to the debts Germany had to pay off before the First World War.

As well as, if certain countries had not provided the means for an attack in advance, it could not have happened.

German invasion of Poland: Start of World War II

“When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it was invading Poland with the Czech armaments industry, which was the best in the world. It was invading with Slovak soldiers. It was invading from a geographical position that it only gained because it had destroyed Czechoslovakia.”

Strategically outflanked and materially outnumbered, Polish forces stood little chance, especially because they were deployed too close to the German frontier, unintentionally facilitating Germany’s strategy of envelopment.

Outside Germany, one could see well enough where Adolf Hitler was going with his party and how he treated certain population groups. Yet no finger-pointing came from the church in his own country, nor from politicians or institutions outside Germany.

Even in 1939, when there was troop build-up outside Poland’s borders, others did not respond. The surprise attack on Poland by Germany, as dawn broke on September 1, 1939, was not so much a surprise when sixty-two divisions, with more than 1.300 airplanes in support, then commenced a coordinated assault across the German–Polish border. Army Group North attacked from Pomerania and East Prussia, while Army Group South drove deep into southern Poland from Silesia and Slovakia. Strategically outflanked and materially outnumbered, Polish forces stood little chance, especially because they were deployed too close to the German frontier, unintentionally facilitating Germany’s envelopment strategy.

Even with the troop build-up outside Ukraine in 2021-2022, there was also no forceful action by other countries. Around Ukraine, the Russian army placed vehicles to invade the country from different angles simultaneously. From Belarus, Transdniestria in Moldova, and the in 2014 Russian-occupied Crimea Putin pulled his punch at home.  By February 2022 Western defence analysts estimated that as many as 190.000 Russian troops were encircling Ukraine and warned that a Russian incursion was imminent.

But the Europeans still needed their gas from Russia and therefore did not consider it expedient to put such pressure on Russia even then that it would give Crimea back to Ukraine and refrain altogether from even thinking of annexing Ukraine to its empire.

Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukrainian territory as “peacekeepers.”

 

The West should be well aware that Ukraine cannot withstand Russian power with its well-organised support from Iran, China and North Korea and countries like India looking only at its self-interest. For far, far too long, Western Europe and the United States of America have been far too calm. They did use Ukraine to sell weapons so that they could make enough money from them, but they did not really provide solid war equipment that Ukraine could put above the Russian army components.

Like in the 1930s not many saw something bigger than Europe was at stake. The majority of world leaders also do not know what the Bible has to say about the present situation.

Strangely enough, Europe does not seem to know its own power and possibilities. The transatlantic alliance NATO, you could say, is bigger and stronger than ever. It is functioning far better than the US, France and Britain did in the 1930s – and, after five months of hesitation, some of the extra $60bn in US arms may reach the frontline within weeks. Several European countries are doing relatively little, and much too late. If they had issued stricter measures against Russia much earlier, they would not be in such a difficult position.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, after some months said:

“Europe clearly faces a moment when it will be necessary not to be cowards.”

In the end, it comes down to the countries of the European Union setting clear lines and showing Putin that he cannot go on like this. It is time to give up the cat-and-mouse game and for Russia to withdraw completely from Ukraine.

Everybody is assured that an attack on an existing Nato state would be “crazy” since the Nato alliance would have to respond. Therefore, they all think Russia would not go further than willing to conquer Ukraine. Knowing about Gog and Magog I am afraid they could be seriously wrong, underestimating that Man from the North.

Russia’s foreign policy concept issued in 2023 focuses on a global confrontation with the US and building the alliances to defeat the west.Letting Putin to believe he can conquer Ukraine, will have him going for Poland and quickly he’ll have all the border countries of Russia as part of his restored Soviet Union or a “New Soviet Union”.

Since the West and the US have allowed the delivered weapons to be used on Russian territory as well, to destroy the assault weapons stationed there, Putin may see this as an attack by the Nato allies, which may make him decide to attack Nato. Or it may make him realise that from Russia itself he will not be able to start firing a weapon on Ukraine without endangering his countrymen. But the best way to prevent Nato from being involved directly in a conflict is to help Ukraine defeat Russia in Ukraine itself.

Europeans should be well aware of the Russian threat.