By George Koumoulli
Before I get into the main topic, allow me to make a short preface. If we exclude Russia, the country in which Putin’s popularity is the highest, is probably Cyprus. The opponents of NATO and the West, the Cypriot oligarchs and their offshoots, several hierarchs and the followers of conspiracy theories form a very strong pro-Russian current. If you dare to criticize Putin, most of them will respond with a culvert of insults. If they put forward any arguments, they always result in the sanctification and purification of all of Putin’s actions and actions.
It seems that the first group, namely the opponents of NATO and the West, consists mainly of the far-left of Cyprus who expect Putin to restore the Soviet Union. In short, while the far-right has been nurtured to believe that one day we will take Constantinople, which will be the new capital of Greece with the help of the “blond race” (the Russians), the far-left has been nurtured to regard communism as something of an earthly paradise and envision the revival of the USSR. Where can the poor people know that the Soviet Union was a state of the most brutal autocracy, bureaucracy, and censorship, the infamous Mrs. Gee Be, the rigged trials, the Gulaks and the genocides!
As for Hitler and Putin, only blind or historically illiterate people do not see the parallels. In the first place, although both were democratically elected, they both proceeded to completely neutralize the opposition. The big business supported Hitler and is now supporting Putin. But what stands out the most, and deserves more attention, is the aggressive expansionist strategy of the two men. In 1936 Hitler, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, sent a battalion to the Rhineland, and to his surprise Britain and France did nothing. In 1938 he proceeded to annex Austria, again against international agreements. A little later that year Hitler demanded and took the Sudetenland with the approval of the UK and France. Eating comes to the appetite, so in March 1939 Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. But when, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, the Allies were then persuaded to say “so far and no more” and the Second World War began.
Putin can boast of similar conquests. In 2008 it provoked a war with Georgia and detached two parts of its territory, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are self-proclaimed Republics within the internationally recognized borders of Georgia (something similar to the “TRNC” that is within the CCT), but are recognized only by Russia and three other countries. The West did nothing. In 2014, he invaded and annexed Crimea. Again the West did virtually nothing except a few sanctions. In the same year, he began arming the separatists in Dobas, Eastern Ukraine, without the West reacting. Finally, in 2022 he invades Ukraine despite his “assurances” that he had no intention of invading. Heavy penalties are being imposed, but oil and gas are still being supplied, albeit in reduced quantities, mainly in European countries.
He will object that Putin may have provoked the war in Ukraine, but the victims of that war, amounting to a few thousand, cannot in any way be compared with the 50 million people killed in the Second World War. Correctly! But Putin’s career is still not over. There is a danger that the war in Ukraine will develop into a Third World War with nuclear weapons, which will inevitably lead to the annihilation of humanity.
Despite the above analogies, it would be a great mistake to claim that Putin is another Hitler. The most essential difference is that Putin has not launched a genocidal campaign against the Ukrainian people, as Hitler did with Jews all over Europe. Nor did the Russian government, through its propaganda, dehumanize the Ukrainians as the Nazis did with the Jews, whom it called rats and poisonous for the Aryan race. In contrast, Putin, in his official 5,000-word essay he wrote last year, claimed that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.”
Germany passed a law in 1933 banning the establishment of new parties, and this is indeed somewhat similar to Putin’s repression of the opposition. But after passing this law, Hitler created Dachau, the first concentration camp for political prisoners — something unthinkable in today’s Russia. Germany also began prosecuting homosexuals in 1935 and killed 20,000. On the contrary, while in Russia homosexuality is illegal, until now the punishment of homosexuals has been their dismissal from the public service and beatings.
The conclusion is that, despite the similarities between the two men, it would be a mistake for Putin to fully identify with Hitler.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of CypriumNews.
