Ukraine's History: Parallels and Errors in Focus

Ukraine's History: Parallels and Errors in Focus

For Ukraine, history is a battlefield. Months before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his all-out invasion, he published a thoughtful 5,000-word article calling for the dismantling of the country. In his speech At the start of Russia's offensive, he cited a list of historical accusations against the West. Months after the war began, he presented himself as the successor to Peter the Great, Russia's modernizing tsar.

Parallels to the past

Historical analogies are again important in the current context. While US President Donald Trump a negotiated termination of the war in Ukraine, politicians and experts are trying to find suitable comparisons to explain the precarious state of Ukraine and assess the risks of a diplomatic process.

Although parallels are imprecise, three central chapters in the diplomatic history of the 20th century can be identified: Munich 1938, Yalta 1945 and Budapest 1994.

The Munich Agreement

The Munich Agreement – ​​the agreement that involved ceding the Sudetenland to Adolf Hitler's Germany to avoid war in Europe – is the best-known example of historical analogies.

Over the years, this agreement has become a convenient shorthand for appeasement: giving up the Sudetenland strengthened Hitler's position and paved the way to a world war. Critics of Trump compare his willingness to meet Putin face-to-face in Alaska and his suggestion that Ukraine might have to accept territorial losses to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's mistake in taking Hitler at his word.

"Trump's magical thinking threatens a slow Munich repeat - repeating the mistake of appeasement," wrote Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal on

But there is also a military dimension compared to Munich. The agreement allowed the Nazis to bypass an extensive system of fortifications and essentially left Czechoslovakia defenseless. Military analysts point out that if Russia occupies the rest of the Donetsk region in a peace deal, Putin may gain control of key fortress towns such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which are part of Kiev's defense ring.

The Yalta Conference

Another historical example is the Yalta Conference of 1945, a meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin that laid the foundations of the postwar order in Europe.

Seen then as a triumph of diplomacy, the legacy of Yalta is now viewed through a pessimistic lens - particularly in Eastern European countries, where it is seen as the meeting that left them behind the Iron Curtain and condemned millions of people to communist rule.

Observers say Trump's push for a possible grand compromise with Putin risks betraying Kiev, especially if possible outcomes are negotiated over the heads of Ukrainians.

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The Budapest Memorandum

While European allies try Security guarantees for Ukraine the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 remains in memory. Under this memorandum, the newly independent Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This piece of paper, signed by Russia, contained a promise to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, these commitments did not protect Ukraine from Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full-scale invasion in 2022.

In an interview on CNN, the former Ukrainian president noted Petro Poroshenko that the security guarantees in the memorandum were toothless.

“As president of Ukraine, I had a security guarantee in the form of the Budapest Memorandum,” he said. "This doesn't work. Any other security guarantee, unless it's binding - that's unacceptable."

Ukraine now faces another historic turning point as diplomats hastily search for the right venue and formula for peace talks. Whether this moment will be remembered as a dark chapter in European history remains to be seen.

CNN's reporting was contributed by Christian Edwards.