You don’t have to read this one (though it’s spot on):

Trump’s Plan to Sell Out Ukraine to Russia — “His proposal to end the war isn’t a peace plan—it’s a reward for aggression.”

But you do have to read this one:

Ukraine’s fate echoes Czechoslovakia’s in Chamberlain’s appeasement

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In September 1938 . . .  Adolf Hitler had massed hundreds of thousands of troops on the border of Czechoslovakia to reinforce a low-intensity war designed to force Prague to cede the Sudetanland. In an effort to preclude great power war, Chamberlain, in collusion with France and Italy, forced Prague to sign the Munich Agreement which provided for Hitler’s annexation of that territory.

Chamberlain returned to London declaring the achievement of “peace for our time.” The reality was that instead Munich catalyzed the dynamics that unleashed World War II. Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s approach to ending that unjustified attack echoes eerily . . . Chamberlain’s mistaken response to violent aggression.

Trump risks becoming Neville Chamberlain to Putin’s Hitler.

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The huge difference being that — unlike Chamberlain — Trump likes autocrats, has no problem seeing democracy die, would kinda like to maybe do a little annexation of his own.  So that in his third term* — who knows? — maybe he rules Canada and Greenland, too.

The author, Ian J. Brzezinski, continues:

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. . . Like Hitler in 1938, Putin presents Russia as a country unfairly treated by history and, like Hitler, he is determined to reconstitute its great power status through territorial expansion. The central focus of this imperial campaign is Ukraine, which he falsely asserts is “not a real country” but rather an off-shoot of Russian culture and history. Hitler likewise asserted to Chamberlain that Czechoslovakia was not a real nation. Both Hitler and Putin conducted aggressive campaigns of subterfuge and violence to weaken their targets. Each accused Prague and Kyiv, respectively, of extremist actions against German and Russian minorities, respectively.  

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Worth reading in full.

If time permits, watch Trump will pay a ‘heavy political price’ if he abandons Ukraine, Wall Street Journal editorial board warns, where Brzezinski likens the situation also to handing Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta.

*Steve Bannon on Bill Maher:  “On the afternoon of January 20th of 2029 he’s going to be President of the United States.”