Don't Be Fooled by the Bolshevik Butcher

O.K., we all know (or at least should know) why the current third-party peace talks between Russia and Ukraine being mediated by President Trump are eliciting comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain, circa 1938. However, for the select few that need a refresher course on why you don’t trade land for peace, that’s exactly what British prime minister Chamberlain did on September 30th of that year when he – along with France’s Edouard Daladier and Italy’s Benito Mussolini – signed the infamous Munich Agreement, giving Hitler and his Third Reich permission to annex the Sudetenland section of Czechoslovakia in exchange for a promise not to invade the rest of Europe.

Forever naïve and in over his diplomatic head, Chamberlain returned home to England proclaiming, “Peace for our time” and waving aloft a copy of the signed document which he said demonstrated “the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.” Despite being greeted by 5,000 supporters at 10 Downing Street, an estimated 15,000 protesters gathered in London at Trafalgar Square.

Apparently, the protesters knew something that Chamberlain didn’t. Specifically, that Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniac who couldn’t be trusted.

History records that a majority of British citizens agreed with Chamberlain’s position, at least according to a Gallup poll taken at the time. So did the people of France, who gave Daladier a hero’s welcome upon his return from Munich. Meanwhile, Czech president Edvard Benes was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for supposedly averting a war by relinquishing coveted territory to the Nazis.

Of course, all of these “land for peace” promises lasted less than a year because Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939… marking the official beginning of World War II.

Fast forward to 2025…

How I would love to have been in the room while President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin met last week in Alaska… or on Monday when various European leaders – including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky – gathered at the White House to try to end Europe’s bloodiest conflict in 80 years. Given the chance, I would have offered them a brief history lesson on… and a stern warning about… the perils of acquiescing to the demands of a power-hungry despot who is known for poisoning his opponents and murdering his enemies.

While there, I would have also given voice to the 3 million people living in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which includes the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. More than 6 million people lived there prior to the Russian invasion, but the rest have either fled, been captured, or been killed.

Why does Russia desperately want to annex the Donbas region, just like it did Crimea in 2014? Because this mining and industrial hub is rich with anthracite coal deposits. In fact, at one time it produced almost 90% of the coal for the entire Russian Empire. Today, the area remains the largest producer of iron and steel in Ukraine and is one of the world’s leading metallurgical and heavy-industrial complexes.

So, what makes anyone think that Vladimir Putin will stop with acquiring the Donbas? I sincerely doubt he will try any more shenanigans while President Trump is in office, but I’ll bet he has January 20, 2029, circled in red on his calendar… and should a Democrat president be sworn into office that afternoon, all bets are off.

On that fateful day in 1938, Neville Chamberlain told his fellow Brits to “go home and sleep quietly in your beds.” Eighty-seven years later, I can almost hear him crying out from his grave: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

May we not be fooled even once by the Bolshevik Butcher.

Editor’s Note: In December 1938, elections were held in Sudetenland in which the Nazi Party received 97.3% of the vote. If those results are accurate, the heavily German population of what was once Czechoslovakia were glad to become part of the Third Reich. Of course, asking them the same question after the death and destruction of World War II may have resulted in a drastically different vote count.

I am not a statesman or an experienced international peace negotiator, but it seems to me that before the Donbas region is handed over to the Russians, the people who live there should have a say in the matter. And so, how about conducting a public referendum – overseen by NATO, the European Union, the U.S. or the United Nations – and let true democracy prevail?