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Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of several Ukrainian regions this week is being compared to Adolf Hitler seizing parts of Europe before and at the onset of World War II.
"The parallels are eerie and, after decades of over-using the Hitler analogies, we finally have a case where they are apt," Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and current Atlantic Council researcher, was quoted by Politico.
Fried is not the only figure drawing "parallels" between the actions of Putin and Hitler. Sergiy Kyslytsya, who serves as the permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, shared a video with a caption that referred to Putin's annexation speech on Friday, but actually showed Hitler addressing a large crowd of his supporters.
"Oops! Wrong annexation video but good [thing] that Putler's finale will be the same as of Hitler," Kyslytsya wrote, referring to Putin in a combination of his and Hitler's names.
Following Kremlin-backed referendums this week and last that U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned would be "manipulated," Putin formally announced on Friday the annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Western officials have repeatedly decried the referendums and annexation as illegal and illegitimate.
"I strongly condemn Russia's illegal annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It is a serious violation of both international law and Ukraine's sovereignty," French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has stressed that the annexation will not alter its military goals of ultimately freeing all territory from Russian control.
"We will liberate our territory by military means. And our actions depend not so much on what the Russian Federation thinks or wants, but on the military potential Ukraine has," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Associated Press published Thursday.
In March 1939, Hitler's forces invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia following the signing of the Munich Pact, according to History.com. Germany had annexed Austria the year before.
Czechoslovakia ceased to exist in 1992 and was succeeded by the new states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Several months after the Czechoslovakia occupation, Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 spurred Great Britain and France to make war declarations against Germany in what is considered to be the beginning of World War II.
Notably, Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said that one of their goals in the war is the "denazification" of Ukraine, even though its leader, Zelensky, is Jewish.
"Honestly sickening how one little delusional guy can with one speech change the nationality of millions. How does history keep breeding these psychos: Hitler, Stalin and now #putin," Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine's parliament, tweeted Friday.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
About the writer
Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more