But the legacy of the war victory and Putin’s talk of being “winners” was also a rare historical bright spot for a population that was traumatised by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic chaos of the 1990s. There was barely a family in Russia that did not have relatives who fought in the war, and the tremendous losses the Soviet Union suffered in the victory over Germany dwarf the losses of the other allies combined. Precision marching by soldiers in Red Square during the Victory Day military parade on. Ever more opponents of modern Russia were branded as Nazis, neo-Nazis or Nazi accomplices.
Of course, it takes a particular mindset to look at Russia’s expansionist war, with the executions, targeting of civilians, filtration camps and harassment of dissidents at home, and come to the conclusion that it is the Ukrainians who are the Nazis.īut already for some years, the victory cult has been referred to by critics as pobedobesie, a derogatory play on the Russian words for victory and obscurantism – “victorymania” is an approximate English translation.Īs this pobedobesie metastasised year on year, the phenomenon took on forms that were ever more grotesque: schools put on performances in which the children dressed up as Soviet soldiers people posing as captured Nazis were paraded through the streets. For sure, there have been other convincing explanations offered for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: a fear of Nato expansion, a post-imperial disdain for Ukrainian language and culture, and an isolated leader who spent the Covid pandemic in a bunker pondering his legacy.īut the rhetoric of victory and of fighting Nazis, which has become gradually more twisted over the past two decades, also plays a role. Many see this talk of “denazification” as pure propaganda. His soldiers often wear the orange-black St George’s ribbon, which has become the symbol both of the second world war victory and of the war in Ukraine. In mid-March, when he addressed a flag-waving crowd at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, banners promised a “world without fascism”. Putin, when launching the invasion, described one of its main goals as the “denazification” of the country. Photograph: Kremlin Press Office/Anadolu Agency/Getty A Kremlin press office picture of flags waving as Putin speaks at a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on 18 March 2022.
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