Originally Posted by deltav

I think it's standard operating procedure for most national land grabs or at least influence grabs - "We need to protect such such people", often communities who are ethnically and culturally related to your own. And Hitler had that perfected to a T - it's got nothing to do with the Holocaust - in the late 1930s he was all about expanding under the auspices of bringing ethnic Germans back into the fold. Czech, Poland, Austria, etc. And it totally worked.

So I don't think Godwin's Law applies here, in the 20th century Hitler was the one most known for this strategy - no sensationalism needed.

Georgia *may* have shot first in that war, but I don't believe for a second Russia wasn't doing everything they could to destabilize and encourage a pro-Russian separatist movement in Abkhazia and Ossetia. Which Georgia fell for hook line and sinker.

I have a feeling Ukraine is in for a mess, we'll see how it goes though.