The Soviet playbook

The following guest essay was written by my partner, Susan M. Papp, Ph.D Most people in the western world were shocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet, if you examine his mindset and historical perspective, Vladimir Putin’s behaviour is in accordance with the Soviet playbook of expanding and expropriating lands for the empire. It is well known that Putin was a KGB-trained operative. What he has done in Ukraine is similar to the manner in which Joseph Stalin ordered that Transcarpathia, the easternmost region of Czechoslovakia, be expropriated by the Soviet Union in November 1944. This action was taken when...