A guest on MSNBC was torched by critics making a comparison between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler, providing a more favorable view of the Nazi dictator.
Appearing on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia [under President Obama — Ed] and Stanford University Professor Michael McFaul highlighted “interesting” remarks a commentator made on Ukrainian television about “how horrific” the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has been.
But he also targeted disabled people, which included ethnic Germans. About 70,000 disabled Austrians and Germans were killed in “Operation T4” between 1941 and 1940, per the museum. His programs also involved medical experimentation on disabled citizens — which led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code. Other targets included gay people, alcoholics, and political rivals.
Hitler’s actions, particularly his invasion of Poland, triggered World War II. An estimated 5.5 million German soldiers and between 6.6 and 8.8 million German civilians were killed during that conflict, per the museum.
“I think people need to remember that we’re talking about cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol and Kyiv, there are large populations there, you know, up to a third and sometimes as much to a half that are Russian speakers and are ethnic Russians. And yet Putin doesn’t seem to care about that. He slaughters the very people he said he has come to liberate,” McFaul said.
The comments were then shared by the Maddow Blog, tweeting, “One difference between Putin and Hitler is that Hitler didn’t kill ethnic Germans, German-speaking people. Putin slaughters the very people he said he has come to liberate.”
The clip went viral with critics taking McFaul to the woodshed for his fact-challenged commentary.
And was subsequently deleted by MSNBC:
Or to put it another way:
