Irish Examiner view: Europe moving into dangerous territory on Russia

If Ukraine is assimilated, we must be prepared for further expansions

Protesters hold posters in front of the Russian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

So, the comparisons with Munich 1938, represented by some commentators as glib and unhelpful have not proven to be overblown. For Sudetenland, and its predecessor, the Saarland, read Luhansk and Donetsk — the “Donbas” — where Vladimir Putin has sent a force of “peacekeepers”.

This is, as Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney rightly concludes, a staged justification for entering Ukraine illegally. Peacekeeping forces do not normally send in tanks and helicopters as weapons of first resort.