On February 11th, I asked in this space, “What is Vladimir Putin thinking?” Now we know. After the Russian dictator invaded eastern Ukraine earlier this week, he’s channeling another tyrant’s calculations of nearly nine decades ago.

Similarities between Adolf Hitler’s actions and Putin’s recent conduct are striking. An Anschluss like the Nazis’ uncontested occupation of Austria has lately happened in Belarus. Putin has reprised the Third Reich’s brazen seizure of Czechoslovakia’s German-populated Sudetenland, in the name of ethnic solidarity, with his operations in Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbass regions.

Vladimir Putin now probably calculates that, like Hitler, he can finish the dismembering of the country he’s targeted. The Western response again has been too little, too late. And, most worrying, like Hitler, he has a powerful partner in such crimes. His Stalin is another ruthless Communist: China’s Xi Jinping.

Brace for impact.

This is Frank Gaffney.