In late April 2024, after lectures in several cities in Poland, I visited Moldova and its breakaway province of Transnistria. Together, they approximate the size of the state of Maryland. Located in southeastern Europe, Moldova borders Ukraine and Romania. Moldovans, I can tell you, are worried they might be next on Vladimir Putin’s hitlist. Some 3,000 Russian soldiers are already stationed in Transnistria, a place where sympathies for the old Soviet Union are apparent in still-standing Lenin statues and other communist symbols. (READ MORE: The US Is No Longer a Trustworthy Ally) Considering the behavior of 20th-century Russian regimes, the fear that Putin might move on Moldova (which, like Ukraine, is a non-NATO country) is understandable. Those fears are shared by other nations in the region too — the Baltic states and the Caucasus area, in particular. They have all been threatened, attacked, and occupied by Moscow before. Russian history since 1917 illustrates this point vividly: Concentrated power is rarely content with inflicting evil on its own subjects. Sooner or later it threatens its neighbors as well. Consider just one year, 1924. Georgians Haven’t Forgotten Soviet Aggression The bloodthirsty Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin died in January 1924, triggering a succession struggle from which Joseph Stalin eventually emerged triumphant. Two other events that year showed the world that, no matter who was in charge in Moscow, the Soviets harbored no intention of leaving their neighbors alone. Some 900 miles to the east of Moldova’s capital of Chisinau is Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi. It was there that the “August Uprising” of Georgians against Soviet domination took place in 1924. The country had been forcibly incorporated into Lenin’s empire, but the locals were not about to give up without a fight. They staged a last stand against Soviet rule that lasted more than a month until it was savagely suppressed by Stalin’s Red Army. Stalin, incidentally, was a native Georgian but not opposed to butchering his own people if it was necessary to consolidate communist authority. (READ MORE: Is President Zelensky Still Legitimate?) “This well-organized rebellion in 1924 involved a number of Georgian high-level officers; several thousand people were killed and mass arrests and executions continued for a long time thereafter,” says my friend Gia Jandieri, the founder and vice-president of the New Economic School in Tbilisi. “It is seared into the memory of Georgians who, to this day, understand well from painful experience never to trust the regime in Moscow. It grabs whatever it can, at any opportunity.” What possible threat did this tiny nation in the Caucasus Mountains pose to the vast Soviet Union? None, of course. Power doesn’t need a good reason to aggrandize itself. Inherently expansionist, it is always on the march. In 2008, Putin sent Russian troops into Georgia, and to this day, they occupy a portion of the country and constitute an ongoing threat to the rest of it. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia responsible for systematic human rights abuses in those regions of Georgia under its control. The War in Ukraine Threatens Its Neighbors Turn now to Estonia, in December of 1924. The tiny Baltic republic was an independent nation facing a violent uprising shortly before Christmas. Unlike in Georgia a few months prior, the instigators were not freedom fighters but were, instead, communists supplied with arms by Moscow. Their objective was to overthrow the Estonian government and hand the country over to their Russian comrades. This time, the communists lost. Estonians rallied. Government forces defeated the insurgents. The heroes of this fight for Estonian independence were honored with the “Cross of Liberty.” But sadly, liberty would be short-lived. Fifteen years later, as part of the secret agreement with Hitler that started World War II, Stalin invaded and occupied Estonia and its Baltic neighbors. They would not be free again until 1989. Moldovans today are right to be concerned about their future. The Russians are already in Transnistria at the same time their army is savaging neighboring Ukraine. The events of 1924 in Estonia and Georgia were among the very first of a long train of Moscow-engineered atrocities. At least five million Ukrainians were killed during Stalin’s man-made Holodomor, just a few years before the Soviet dictator connived with the Nazis and then rolled over Poland and the Baltics. For decades, much of Eastern Europe lay in thrall to Moscow’s hegemony, punctuated by the occasional armed assaults (as in Hungary and Czechoslovakia) intended to keep it that way. (READ MORE: What the Red Ball Express Teaches Us About Ukraine) Post-Soviet Russia signed an agreement recognizing Ukrainian independence. The U.S. pressured Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons put there by its Soviet overlords. Ukraine complied, assuming that Russian guarantees of its sovereignty were worth the paper they were written on. They weren’t. And the genocide perpetrated by Moscow on Ukraine in the 1930s might very well be repeated should Putin succeed with his war today. Moldovans should worry, and so should decent people everywhere. Europe faces a Russian threat that dates back a hundred years, across two regimes. Whether you support U.S. aid to Ukraine or not, do not delude yourself into thinking that Moscow will stop if it takes Kyiv. Lawrence W. Reed is president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia. The post Putin’s Power Trip May Not Stop with Ukraine appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.