4: 5. Western Appeasement of 2014: Crimea Annexation and the Flawed Minsk Accords. Serhii Plokhy (Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University) examines the Western reaction to the annexation of Crimea in February 2014, following the appearance of "l

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

5. Western Appeasement of 2014: Crimea Annexation and the Flawed Minsk Accords. Serhii Plokhy (Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University) examines the Western reaction to the annexation of Crimea in February 2014, following the appearance of "little green men." Professor Plokhy asserts that had the West reacted to the Crimean annexation with the same severity as they did to the 2022 invasion, the major war might have been avoided. Instead, the collective West treated Crimea as an isolated exception, drawing a historical parallel to the 1930s Anschluss of Austria, and mistakenly believed that Putin would stop there. This flawed assumption led Germany to pursue economic ties like Nord Stream 2, hoping escalation would be less likely. Moreover, NATO's policy was to pacify Russia by not placing military units close to its borders, leaving the alliance with "very little to respond with" in 2014. Although the annexation was quickly followed by Russian-concocted violence in Donbas, leading to a massive Russian counterattack in summer 2014, the West pursued the Minsk II agreements. These agreements were often implemented according to Russia's interpretation: requiring elections first under Russian military control, intended to create a "Trojan horse" to destabilize Ukraine and preclude its movement toward the EU or NATO. This approach was closely related to the "policies of appeasement of the 1930s."
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0:00.0	This is CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor. Here's John Batchelor.
0:12.2	This is CBS, I on the world. I'm John Batchelor, Ukraine conflict. It is February 23rd, 24th, 2014 at the Kremlin. A meeting that lasts all night
0:25.3	involves the heads of state security, the GRU, the SVR, the SVR, the FSB, plus the National Security
0:32.7	Council, plus Vladimir Putin, and the decision that night is to annex and tear apart Ukraine.
0:41.0	This scene is representative of the decisions made at the Kremlin without any permission of anyone
0:49.9	outside, like a democracy or a parliament or representatives of government or people of the world,
0:57.1	made unilaterally by Vladimir Putin and his state security chiefs, remembering always that
1:03.5	Vladimir Putin's training is that of a Czechist, a member of the FSB, a secret policeman.
1:15.1	This scene riveting is in a new book,
1:21.5	The Russo-Ukrainian War, The Return of History, by Professor Serhi Ploki. He is a professor of Ukrainian history and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
1:26.9	This book written between March of 2022, the month after the invasion, and February of
1:34.5	2023, the war is ongoing. It's more than 500 days, but the roots of it are critical to understand
1:41.0	if we have the future. The professor reminds us that an historian is the worst
1:45.9	possible interpreter of current events except for everyone else. Professor, I greet you. Thank you very
1:52.6	much. What in that meeting illustrates a theme that runs through your book? This is a combination
1:59.8	events that are in contest, a war of
2:03.0	national liberation, Ukraine, and imperial disintegration, Soviet Russian Federation. Good evening to you.
2:11.5	Good evening, and thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be back.
2:22.1	What happened on the night of February 23rd, 2014, certainly demonstrates very clearly that Russia today,
2:28.1	even Russia back in 2014, nine years ago,
2:31.9	was anything but a democracy.
2:35.0	And if you look closer at the story of that meeting, the story how it was retold a number of times by Vladimir Putin itself, it's not just the decision made by the leader of the country and a small group of the security officials.
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