The hell it is! Putin and Hitler are cut from the exact same cloth. They are both men who came to power amid economic turmoil and a false flag operation, they both used the ensuing chaos to consolidate power, they both rely on cults of personality that present themselves as "protectors," they both legalized persecution and normalized race-hatred, and they both launched wars with the stated purpose of restoring the "good old days."

Also, Putin's escalation has followed Hitler's playbook to the letter. From using the Russian Apartment Bombings to justify invading Chechnya for the second time, then invading Ossetia, fighting a proxy war in Syria, annexing Crimea, backing seperatist groups and frozen conflicts, and now invading Ukraine. It's a step by step repeat of Hitler militarizing the Rhineland, intervening in the Spanish Civil War, annexing the Sudetenland, annexing Austria, and invading Poland.

What's more, Scott's arguments here, and those of Russian and Putin-apologists, are qualitatively no different than those of Neville Chamberlain and those who favored appeasing Hitler rather than confronting him.

What's facile is saying "there's been lots of wars!"