Clinton follows Harper’s lead in comparing Putin to Hitler

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Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has set the world on edge and unleashed a war of words.

There's none more incendiary than comparing Moscow's aggression in the Crimea to Adolf Hitler's 1938 annexation of the Sudetenland in the years leading to the Second World War.

The Canadian government appears to be the first Group of Eight country to publicly make this analogy as pressure builds on the Russian leadership.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now followed Canada in comparing Mr. Putin's aggression in Crimea to Hitler's moves in Eastern Europe prior to the Second World War.

While the comparison may be apt and has been frequently used by media commentators in recent months, it's also potentially inflammatory as major powers seek to calm tensions over Russia's invasion of Crimea.

That may explain why few leaders in Group of Eight countries have opted to make the analogy publicly.

This week both Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and later Prime Minister Stephen Harper drew such comparisons – invoking the Third Reich's annexation of German-speaking districts of Czechoslovakia in 1938 earlier this week.

On Tuesday in Long Beach, Calif., Ms. Clinton tread similar ground in a speech to the local Boys & Girls Club, saying Mr. Putin's rationale for his actions in Crimea – that he is acting to protect the Russian population – is reminiscent of Hitler's justification for seizing areas like the Sudetenland.

According to the Long Beach Telegram, the former secretary of state talked about Mr. Putin's campaign to give Russian passports to anyone in Crimea with Russian connections.

"Now if this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the 30s," she said, according to the Long Beach Telegram. "All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they're not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that's what's gotten everybody so nervous."

Mr. Putin sent troops into Ukraine's Crimea peninsula last week, saying that Moscow has a right to protect Russian speakers in the neighboring country after the upheaval in Kiev where the sitting president was ousted. Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power after he rejected closer ties with the European Union in favour of a closer embrace of Russia.

Mr. Putin, Ms. Clinton told the crowd in Long Beach, is a man "who believes his mission is to restore Russian greatness." She said this includes reasserting control of what used to be countries under the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, she said.

"When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia."

Mr. Harper, who warned Russia could be kicked out of the Group of Eight industrialized nations if it doesn't withdraw from Ukraine, said Tuesday that Group of Seven leaders were planning an emergency meeting regarding Russia.

He invoked Hitler's conduct leading up to the Second World War to describe Russia's seizure of the Crimea region of Ukraine – actions he called an "invasion and occupation" of the Eastern European nation.

"What has occurred, as we know, has been the decision of a major power to effectively invade and occupy a neighbouring country, based upon some kind of extraterritorial claim of jurisdiction over ethnic minorities," Mr. Harper said Tuesday.

"We have not seen this kind of behaviour since the Second World War. This is clearly unacceptable."

Until now, the Conservative government has characterized the invasion of Russian troops as "old Soviet-style" aggression. But the government turned up the rhetoric on Tuesday as it announced that Canada will immediately suspend all military activities with Russia.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird called Mr. Putin's rationale for his actions "ludicrous and .... transparently unacceptable," saying the "ethnic nationalist justification" offered reminded him of the Nazi German gambit of more than 70 years ago.

"It is not lost on the rest of the world that the same argument was made before the Second World War on the annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938," Mr. Baird told reporters.

Steven Chase is a parliamentary reporter in Ottawa.