Former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, believes that for Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, the decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 will prove as fatal as Hitler’s decision to invade the USSR, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

His claims came on 27 January, when the world commemorated the victims of the Holocaust, during which approximately six million Jews and millions of others were systematically exterminated by the Nazi regime. This date was chosen as it marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops, including soldiers from the 1st Ukrainian Front in 1945.

Zaluzhnyi says that dictatorial regimes are bound to make fatal mistakes. In such systems, decisions are made by a single person, and there is no room for alternative ideas.

“Exactly 80 years ago, prisoners from one of the largest Nazi death camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, were liberated. It was created by an authoritarian regime led by a ruthless dictator who sought to dominate the world but ultimately suffered defeat. However, history shows that dictators can rise again, and humanity must remain vigilant,” states Zaluzhnyi.

Zaluzhnyi, who now serves as Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, points out that Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia “bears a striking resemblance” to Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland (Czech Republic) in 1938, while the German occupation of Austria, which the Nazis called “reunification,” mirrors Russia’s occupation of Crimea. In both cases, a sham referendum was staged.

The official further underscores that, like Hitler, Putin spent years preparing for war by silencing opponents and creating a powerful “propaganda machine,” which forms the foundation of dictatorial regimes. Both leaders also justified their aggression as a “defense against an attack.”

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