As the world prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the shadow of events leading up to World War II looms over efforts to stop Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine. To avoid the horrors of another global conflict, Western leaders must apply the lessons learned from the struggle against totalitarianism in the twentieth century.
US President Donald Trump’s efforts to initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine reflect a laudable desire to end the war. However, after more than three months of Russian delaying tactics and empty promises, it should now be abundantly clear that trying to negotiate a meaningful compromise with Vladimir Putin was a mistake.
Since the current peace process began in early February, Russia’s ruler has refused to join Ukraine in supporting the U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire. Instead, Putin continues to press for maximalist goals that reflect his continued determination to erase Ukrainian statehood and subjugate the Ukrainian people.
Putin’s demands include the comprehensive disarmament of the Ukrainian military and the restoration of Russian dominance in all spheres of Ukrainian public life (euphemistically called “denazification” by the Kremlin), as well as formal international recognition of Russia’s territorial gains and an end to all military support for Kyiv. If implemented, Putin’s conditions would leave Ukraine divided, isolated, and defenseless. This is not a negotiating position; it is a call for Kyiv’s capitulation.
While Russia’s ultimate goals remain unchanged, there is a very real danger that Putin could try to exploit Trump’s apparent ambition to settle the Ukraine issue as quickly as possible. He could do so by agreeing to a temporary cease-fire that would lead to a pause in the fighting while creating the conditions for completing the conquest of Ukraine after Trump’s presidency ends. This would allow Putin to lift sanctions, rebuild the Russian military, and destabilize Ukraine from within.
To secure the Kremlin’s support, a ceasefire agreement must give Putin the appearance of victory while denying Ukraine any genuine and credible security guarantees. Worryingly, reports indicate that the current US peace proposals go a long way toward fulfilling these conditions.
Significantly, the United States is reportedly ready to formally recognize Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. This has led to inevitable comparisons with the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Britain and France handed over the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in the hope that it would appease Adolf Hitler. Instead, the shameful Munich deal encouraged the Nazi dictator to step up his territorial demands. Less than a year later, World War II began.
The appeasement policies of the 1930s have long been condemned for enabling the rise of Hitler. Efforts to appease Putin have produced strikingly similar results. After Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Western efforts to downplay the war and resume “business as usual” only emboldened the Kremlin. When Russia’s 2014 incursions into Crimea and eastern Ukraine again failed to provoke a decisive Western response, Putin interpreted this as a tactical green light for further action. This paved the way for a full-scale invasion in 2022.
It should now be obvious to any objective observer that continued appeasement of Putin will further fuel his imperial ambitions. This could prove potentially fatal for Ukraine itself. It would also be disastrous for the future of international security.
Putin’s revisionist agenda is not limited to Ukraine. He speaks openly of establishing a new world order and frequently laments the collapse of the Russian Empire, which at its peak included more than a dozen now-independent states beyond Ukraine, from Finland and Poland in the west to the South Caucasus and Central Asia. If Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, it would be a mistake to think that he will simply stop. On the contrary, abandoning Ukraine to Russia would dramatically increase the chances of a much larger conflict in the coming years.
To prevent this nightmare scenario from becoming a reality, the West must demonstrate maximum unity and an uncompromising commitment to Ukraine’s survival as an independent state. Putin sees any talk of compromise as a sign of weakness. The only language he truly understands is the language of force.
The most effective deterrent remains Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Not surprisingly, Putin has gone to great lengths to prevent this from happening. He has used nuclear blackmail to intimidate the West, and spent years spreading false stories about NATO’s supposed security threat to Russia itself.
Putin’s objections to Ukraine’s membership in NATO do not stand up to scrutiny. Remarkably, he has failed to explain why he went to war over Ukraine’s remote hopes of joining NATO, but has done nothing to prevent Finland’s recent accession to NATO, even though Finland’s membership in the alliance more than doubled Russia’s NATO borders overnight. Indeed, Russia already borders six NATO members and leaves those borders largely unguarded. Putin’s real problem, apparently, is Ukrainian independence, not NATO expansion.
Ukraine’s admission to NATO would serve as a powerful barrier to future Russian incursions and would dramatically reduce the likelihood of a major European war, without undermining Russia’s national security. However, it would require political will on the part of the United States and major European powers, including Britain, France, and Germany, which is currently lacking. If this does not change, Western leaders must offer a credible alternative to NATO membership that will guarantee Ukraine’s long-term security.
No one wants peace more than the Ukrainian people. But Ukrainians also understand that well-intentioned attempts to compromise with the Putin regime will only encourage further Russian aggression. Such policies, aimed at appeasing Hitler, led directly to World War II. If Western leaders want to prevent a repeat of that disastrous outcome, they must stop offering concessions to the Kremlin and demonstrate the kind of resolve that Russia respects.
Oleksandr Merezhko is a people's deputy of Ukraine from the Servant of the People party and chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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