4: V 8. The West's 2014 Appeasement: The Failure to Respond to Crimean Annexation. Serhii Plokhy (Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University) focuses on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 via "brute force" and the Western response. Professor Plokhy

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🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

8. The West's 2014 Appeasement: The Failure to Respond to Crimean Annexation. Serhii Plokhy (Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University) focuses on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 via "brute force" and the Western response. Professor Plokhy suggests that if NATO's reaction to Crimea had been commensurate with its response to the 2022 invasion, the current large-scale war might have been avoided. Instead, the West treated the annexation as an exception, comparing it to the 1930s Anschluss of Austria, believing Putin would cease aggression after securing the Russian-majority region. This thinking was a mistake; for example, Germany continued pursuing Nord Stream 2, based on the failed premise that economic ties guaranteed peace. NATO's overall policy was designed to pacify Russia and avoid placing military units near its borders, resulting in NATO having "very little to respond with" when the annexation occurred. Russia quickly moved beyond Crimea, concocting uprisings in Donbas, leading to a massive Russian counterattack against Ukrainian forces in the summer of 2014. This led to the Minsk II agreements, which NATO backed. However, Russia exploited Minsk II by insisting on holding elections first under its military control—a plan intended to insert a "Trojan horse" into Ukraine's political body to destabilize it and block its Euro-Atlantic integration. This resembled the policies of appeasement seen in the 1930s.

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0:00.0	This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Serhi Ploki, Professor of Ukrainian
0:11.4	History, Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. His new book is
0:15.8	The Russo-Ukrainian War, The Return of History. The decision is made at the Kremlin by Vladimir Putin,
0:23.4	his state security chiefs watching. On the 27th, what we call now the little green man appear,
0:31.2	gunman in Crimea. A man named Exinov is identified by the Kremlin as to be the new prime minister of the Crimean Parliament.
0:42.4	This is very much an annexation by brute force of Crimea.
0:47.6	The puzzlement now, reading the professor's timeline here, is what the U.S. did, what NATO did,
0:53.8	how they reacted to what was clearly an intention
0:57.0	to brutalize and tear apart Ukraine. Professor, I know that there are second thoughts everywhere,
1:03.2	but your measure today, did NATO go along with the Crimean annexation because it was anxious about war?
1:12.7	It was not ready to worry.
1:13.9	It hadn't anticipated that Putin would go that far.
1:16.9	Why was there not the protest?
1:19.7	I know there were sanctions, but not the protest at the level we see today with a similar brutality by Russia.
1:33.6	I am personally convinced that if reaction to the annexation of the Crimea would be on the same level as was the reaction to the start of the all-out war against Ukraine
1:41.0	in February of 2022, we would not have to date this big war that Ukraine is
1:48.8	fighting with the help of its Western allies. So the question is why there was no such reaction.
1:56.8	And my explanation to that is by drawing historical parallel between the annexation of Crimea and
2:04.3	Anshluss of Austria.
2:07.2	And the reaction of the West, collective West, was more or less of the same kind.
2:13.2	But yes, of course, this is a happy occurrence. but isn't this fear that all the Germans have to
2:21.9	live in one German state? Isn't this true that the majority of the population in the Crimea are
	...

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