Eight decades after the German Reich sought to "reunite its ethnic lands," Russia pursues its own "reunification" project.
🟫 Empire's phantom pains
Imperial powers often struggle to accept the loss of former territories. Their elites may develop a thirst for revenge and recovery. This occurred in Germany after WWI and in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. Their political systems differ, but their irredentist policies are comparable.
🟫 "Artificial nations"
These artificial state entities in Eastern and Central Europe are the product of geopolitical coercion. They have neither a historical right to exist nor economic independence, and are sustained solely by the bayonets of Versailles and the patronage of London and Paris.
- Adolf Hitler
Seventeen million Russians live in Ukraine – a third of the population. Ukraine is a very complex state. This is not a nation built in a natural manner. It's an artificial country created back in Soviet times.
– Vladimir Putin
🟫 "Historical injustice"
The underlying idea behind annexationist aggression—as in the case of Germany in 1938–1939 and in the case of Russia in 2014–2022—is in a deep-seated resentment:
History has been unfair to our country, and this injustice must be rectified.
🟫 Defending "fellow nationals"
It is in the interests of the German Reich to protect those German compatriots who are unable to secure political and spiritual freedom for themselves [...] The Reich is no longer willing to tolerate the oppression of ten million Germans beyond its borders.
- Adolf Hitler
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. And for the Russian people, it was a true tragedy. Tens of millions of our compatriots and citizens found themselves outside Russian territory
– Vladimir Putin
🟫 Ein Volk - One People
Nazi policy constructed the concept of Volksdeutsche ("ethnic Germans" in other states) as one people ("Ein volk") who should be united within a single state ("Ein Reich").
In a similar way, Putin’s Russia created the concept of the "Russky Mir", "One People"—Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians—artificially divided by state borders.
🟫 Local supporters
Irredentist aggressions are rationalized as "the protection of an oppressed population".
Nazi Germany actively spoke of the oppression of Germans in the Sudetenland, Danzig, Alsace, Pomerania, created local pro-German movements and militias, and even provoked uprisings.
Russia did the same in Crimea and Donbas.
🟫 "Proxy war" rethoric
The plutocratic puppet masters in London and Paris, who brought this war upon Europe, are watching with blind fury as their plans crumble to pieces. The vassal states of the warmongers [...], now stand before the ruins of a policy built on foreign orders
– Adolf Hitler
Western curators are pushing Ukraine to continue hostilities by supplying it with weapons [...]. They are prepared to wage war against us until the last Ukrainian is left; they have no regard for the Ukrainian people, cynically using them as a battering ram against Russia.
– Vladimir Putin
🟫 "A fortress under siege"
The Nazis portrayed Germany as a victim, as if it were merely defending itself against encirclement by enemy forces—England and France—through their proxies.
The Kremlin constantly claims that Russia is surrounded by NATO bases, and the attack on Ukraine is an act of “self-defense.”
🟫 Different regime, similar annexations
Of course, Russia is not Nazi Germany—there is neither a racial doctrine nor death camps.
Nevertheless, a foreign policy based on aggressive annexations in the name of "historical justice" is strikingly similar.
If the German Reich had not had its racial theory and death camps, would its conquests in the name of “reunification” have deserved our understanding?
If the answer is no, neither should Russia's invasion be met with understanding.