LETTER: World War III looms

Before people put much faith in Bob Valentine’s March 17 letter to the Review-Journal praising Vladimir Putin’s actions “to rescue the Russians in Crimea,” they might want to review some basic facts:

When Ukraine gained its independence from the old Soviet Union in 1991, the Crimea was its only region with a majority Russian-speaking population. Those “Russians” voted in a referendum to stay with Ukraine rather than with Russia.

Six years later, in 1997, Russia and Ukraine signed the “treaty of friendship, cooperation and partnership” that explicitly recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty over the existing borders, including Crimea. Putin’s army has trampled that treaty into the mud.

Putin’s invasion of Crimea is eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s take-over of the Sudentland in Czechoslovakia in 1938, with the excuse that there were German-speaking peoples there who had to be rescued. The failure of France and Great Britain to stop Hitler then ensured that World War II would be fought.

If we don’t provide the support Ukraine needs to stop Putin’s blatant aggression, World War III is waiting just down the road. And that just might be the war to end all wars.