VE Day offers chilling reminder of where Trump's 'appeasement' of Putin may lead

The Second World War took the lives of up to 60 million people because of power-crazed despots like Hitler and Mussolini

The Scotsman’s editorial of May 8, 1945 – Victory in Europe Day – ended with a challenge to world leaders: “The war has been decisively won. Can they win the peace?”

“Will the victors be equal to the demands of this great hour? Hitler and Mussolini have perished, but they have left behind them a shattered world. The United Nations, and more particularly the Great Powers among them, have to lay the foundations of a new European and world settlement, and it is hoped that the United States will not only help to frame the peace, but remain to enforce it,” we wrote.

“There is no illusion, as there was after the last war, that an era of universal peace will automatically be ushered in. Indeed, the sufferings of war and the bitter hatreds to which they have given rise may complicate the task of the statesmen.”

READ MORE: Why 1938 MI6 warning about UK's defences is as relevant today as it was then

Donald Trump, pictured with Vladimir Putin in 2017, has been pressuring Ukraine to give up territory seized by Russian forces (Picture: Mikhail Klimentyev) | SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

Biden’s warning about Trump

While there have been many wars in the 80 years since, none has come close to the horrors of the Second World War, in which up to 60 million people were killed.

Our editorial writer would probably not have guessed it, but the US has helped enforce international peace ever since, primarily through its role as the military muscle within Nato. The US President has become known, rightly, as “the leader of the free world”.

READ MORE: VE Day: How Orkney played a vital role and bore heavy losses during World War II

Today, however, Donald Trump is threatening to abandon this role and sell out democratic Ukraine to warmongering dictator Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to the BBC, former US President Joe Biden warned that Trump’s decision to pressure Ukraine into giving up territory to Russia amounted to "modern-day appeasement", a reference to the 1938 appeasement of Hitler.

He also took issue with Trump’s remarks about taking over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. “What president ever talks like that?" Mr Biden said. “That's not who we are. We're about freedom, democracy, opportunity – not about confiscation.”

The Second World War demonstrated the need to confront, not appease, dictators and for democracies to stand together. Forget these hard-earned lessons, and our world may once again be cruelly shattered because of the vainglory of violent, power-crazed despots.