Is Vladimir Putin another Adolf Hitler? The western world seems to think so. In which case is Donald Trump another Neville Chamberlain and Ukraine another Czechoslovakia? Is history bunk, or is it a wise old man leaning on the gate as Europe storms into its latest crisis?

Godwin’s law holds that the longer a political argument continues, the nearer it gets to Hitler. This reductio ad Hitlerum distorts the issue under discussion and diminishes the exceptional horror of Hitler and the Holocaust. A variant of Godwin’s law goes further. It asserts that having to call Hitler in aid means that you have already lost the argument.

Putin’s actions in Ukraine have been horrific enough to need no exaggeration. Trump’s sympathy towards him has been eccentric enough. Yet hardly a commentary on Ukraine fails to hint at “another world war” or Hitler or 1930s appeasement. A cartoon by Michael de Adder depicts Chamberlain declaring “peace in our time” (he actually said “peace for our time”) with the Munich agreement and Trump in talks with Putin. The Führer is always on hand when needed.

No post-revolution Russian rulers have sought to invade western Europe. What they have done is suppress and dominate the “buffer zone” of their immediate neighbours, such as Poland, Finland, Ukraine and Armenia. A better parallel for Putin is the west’s old ally, Stalin. He conned Franklin D Roosevelt at Yalta into believing that after the war he wanted merely to ensure he had

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