May 22, 2024
By Ellie Cook
Security & Defense Reporter
Ukrainians fighting Russia are fending off a third world war a prominent historian has said, likening the third year of full-scale war in Ukraine to the period just ahead of World War II.
Comparing 2024 to 1938, Timothy Snyder, a Yale University history professor specializing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union said Ukraine was comparable to a Czechoslovakia “that has chosen to fight.”
In 1939, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler entered Czechoslovakia and secured Czech assets for Germany’s armed forces. Great Britain and France offered Poland security guarantees but despite this Hitler’s forces invaded Poland in September 1939. London and Paris then declared war on Germany, starting World War II.
“If the Ukrainians give up, or if we give up Ukraine, then it’s a different Russia making war in the future,” Snyder said during a conference in the Estonian capital, Tallinn.
“It’s a Russia making war with Ukrainian technology, Ukrainian soldiers, from a different geographical position,” he added. “Then we’re in 1939. We’re in 1938 now. In effect, what the Ukrainians are letting us do is letting us extend 1938. They’re helping us to stay out of 1939.”
Video: American F-16 and Russian Su-30 in close encounter
More than two years of full-scale conflict in Ukraine has brought the possibility of a third world war to the fore. However, NATO countries have been clear they are not a party to the war in Ukraine, eager to tamp down on the possibility of the violence spreading beyond the country’s borders.
Kyiv has warned that, should Ukraine fall to Russian forces, other nations in Europe will be next on Russia’s hit list.
A Ukrainian soldier is seen in a trench outside Kupiansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on January 23, 2024. More than two years of full-scale conflict in Ukraine has brought the possibility of a third world… More ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
“I would like you to come out on the streets and support Ukraine, support our efforts and support our fight because if Ukraine will not stand, Europe will not stand,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said shortly after Moscow’s troops poured into Ukraine in February 2022. “If we will fall, you will fall.”
Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “everything is possible” when discussing whether a wider war could break out between Russia and Western countries backing Ukraine.
The globe is “one step away from a full-scale World War III,” Putin said in mid-March.
“I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” he added during a media session.
The previous month, Belarus’ leader Alexander Lukashenko—one of Putin’s most steadfast allies—warned that the world “has again come to the brink of the abyss.”
“There are grounds for concern” about a third world war, he added.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology. She joined Newsweek in January 2023, having previously worked as a reporter at the Daily Express, and is a graduate of International Journalism at City, University of London.Languages: English, Spanish.You can reach Ellie via email at e.cook@newsweek.com.
“It’s a Russia making war with Ukrainian technology, Ukrainian soldiers, from a different geographical position,” he added. “Then we’re in 1939. We’re in 1938 now. In effect, what the Ukrainians are letting us do is letting us extend 1938. They’re helping us to stay out of 1939.”
Anything prof Snyder says, you can take it to the bank.
The rat nazi intends to use Ukraine as a battering ram to extend his empire of filth, should he succeed.
There are numerous parallels to the late 1930s, but many in the free world are more worried about insignificant things of life than their own security, which this war is being threatened by. Most haven’t even grasped the fact yet that we’re in a new period of history, having exited the post WWII era, which was basically one of peace between the major powers and growing prosperity. Vlad and his gangsters inside mafia land and his buddies in the various trash countries, like china, iran, and north korea, are a clear and present danger to US ALL! Various Western leaders are not doing their people any favors by not taking these threats seriously enough.
Clear and present danger is right.
In veth’s article we see that putinaZis are experiencing visa problems in Turkey and moving to Serbia and Montenegro. The former is no surprise; Serbians are cunts who love putler, but Montenegro? The country whose democratically elected ruler was nearly brought down by a putler coup?
The EU absurdly has putler Trojan horses in its midst: Orbanistan, Slovakia, Austria and Montenegro.
All except Austria are Nato members too.
This is INSANE.
I often refer to the “horseshoe of politics”; the phenomenon whereby the far left and far right don’t have a cigarette paper between them when it comes to putler. In Britain, the putinaZis have recruited far right scum to carry out terror attacks for them:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1898131/putin-uk-terror-attack-far-right-extremists-russia
On the tankie side, we have Ireland now recognising “Palestine” as a state. Should that come to pass, we’d have another mini-Taliban country.
Ireland recognising the palis is another kick in the teeth for Ukraine, since Hamas is a putler-owned shitshow.