When Vladimir Putin announced the twin goals of the Special Military Operation in February–i.e., demilitarization and denazification–it sounded strangely familiar. Well there is a reason for that. At the end of World War II, the UK, the US and Russia reached an agreement at Potsdam. Not surprisingly, it was called the Potsdam Agreement.
Putin’s reiteration of the Denazification and Demilitarization principles established from the 1945 Potsdam Conference is not just some quaint tip of the hat to history. He was laying down a marker to the United States and United Kingdom that the agreement reached at Potsdam in 1945 is still relevant and valid.