The World Once Upon A Time. Lumix M4/3 14mm

This is the page depicting Western Russia taken from my grandfather's Cassell's 7th Edition Atlas.  I can find no date to its publication, but the first map depicts the world as it was, divvied up post-WW1 by the League of Nations.  We can assume it's some point between the wars. 
Like many others, I find it incomprehensible that in 2022, the world has defied the laws of physics and turned back the clock to the late 1930s when one country had its armies massed on the borders of its neighbors before unleashing hell upon Europe and then the world.  How is it possible that a modern European city is today being assaulted by rockets and artillery, and another syphilitic megalomaniac is able to do this unchecked?