Russian revisionism ahead of 9 May: ‘Modern Europe is reincarnated Nazism’
In a few days, on 9 May at the Victory Day parade in Moscow, Putin is expected to lash out against European countries, with heavy use of the terms ‘Nazi’ and ‘neo-Nazi’. The real reason: European support to Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s current aggression.
We bring a series of articles to better prepare you.
Historical revisionism with “Nazi” all-over
In our first article, we examined how Putin and the official Russian perception of WWII fighting has developed to gradually exclude more and more countries from the once privileged role of brother- in-arms. The Allied and Western countries have fallen out of favour Western democracies are accused of pushing Hitler to attack the USSR and the role of nations and people from former Soviet republics including Ukraine is increasingly put into question – despite 6 million Ukrainians having fought Nazism. More and more, the claim in Putin’s “History 3.0” is that USSR equals Russia and Russians were the only ones really fighting Nazi Germany, while others were either collaborators with the Third Reich or just pretending to fight.
The Third Reich and the EU
A striking feature in recent years across the Kremlin-affiliated outlets is that the EU is equalled with Nazism. The language has become vulgar with phrases once heard in late-night bars now being mainstream in official communication. We will spare you the details to not provide them with more oxygen, but TV-shows, caricatures and AI-generated material showing leaders from the EU, NATO or Ukraine in Nazi uniforms, with swastikas, as rats, hyenas or similar are now widely circulated by Russian state and Kremlin-affiliated outlets.
The rhetoric and political messaging have hardened considerably in the past year. Prominent public personalities known for their close connections to the Kremlin, such as state-TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov and RT’s Chief Editor Margarita Simonyan seem to be competing to see who can take the derogatory defamation to the highest (or lowest) level. The social media account of former President Medvedev, now Russian Security Council secretary, is a cesspool of nuclear threats and calls for the eradication of European states like Poland.
The Izvestiya outlet, known for its close Kremlin links, promotes the notion that Nazi Germany simply changed colours and their descendants reincarnated in the form of the EU. Our Database is rich with examples of claims such as ’the EU revives Nazism’, which are being spread across the Kremlin ecosystem in multiple languages, including on the RT and Sputnik networks.
Intellectual absurdity – a narrow vocabulary and weaponising insults…
We are not soft-skinned, but it is time to call a spade a spade. Calling the EU, European leaders and Zelenskyy ‘the reincarnations of Nazism’ is absurd and an intellectual insult to the rest of the world. The fact that “Nazi” seems to be the only key term in Moscow’s vocabulary illustrates how narrow-minded propaganda-borne systems tend to become.
As political scientist and thinker Ivan Krastev said: Putin’s system has violated one of the most important rules: not to trivialize Nazism.
Like a drug addict, the system requires ever-stronger doses and accelerate misuse of, in this case, the emotional triggers in communication. They function like a beacon, giving one thin ray of direction that is mandatory to follow. Their only resources are mass, repetition and suppression.
It is not difficult to see why all the Russian state’s resources in the information space are mobilised against the EU. Brussels and the EU system has become the target of Moscow’s complex and deep frustration –both with the long-desired but never achieved quick victory over Kyiv, as well as the relationship with a neighbour, Ukraine, now in an abysmal tailspin.
In the past years, a central claim has emerged in the Russian rhetoric designed to give this anger a more ‘objective profile’. The claim goes that the countries of the ‘collective West are currently trying to falsify history and glorify Nazi criminals’. It is sometimes hard to confront such allegations of ‘being Nazi’ head-on because Russian officials and pro-Kremlin commentators are often vague about how, exactly, Western countries official policy are ‘falsifying history’. In reality, Moscow often blows out of proportion individual, small number private gatherings of old war veterans and try to label this as ‘glorification of Nazism’.
… and speaking of being soft-skinned
The tendency to use the Nazi claim less as a credible accusation and more as a rhetorical hammer, delivered as an insult, is common in Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dared to invite European officials to attend the World War II commemoration in Kyiv on 8 May, Russian state outlets accused him of ‘ignoring the victory over Hitler’. As if Moscow has a monopoly as the one-and-only place to mark the victory over Nazi Germany. The ‘revising history’ slur has become one more insult that Moscow hurls at its critics.
In the next article, we will examine how Moscow tries to present itself as a convener of a global alliance for peace and how this reflects on the 80 years parade compared with the 60 years parade in 2005 when Russia was not at war.
Don’t be deceived.
