Even in difficult times like the present, the importance of the May 9. If you ask an ordinary Russian if you should stop celebrating this day, there may be grimaces of confusion, displeasure or anger, but it will be difficult to find someone who agrees. the sacrifice of more than 20 million of Soviet citizens was something that marked the Russians, especially all those who lived in the west of the country, where Nazi Germany came to control part of the territory, in addition to bombing, destroying infrastructure and killing both civilians and soldiers.
With that collective wound in memory – many Russians lost an ancestor at that time – commemorating the sacrifice of these people is important to Russians. The Kremlin, aware of the dogma that the memory of the military feat supposes, has tried to establish parallels between current offensive in Ukraine and the great patriotic war, as the Second World War is usually called in Russia and in some countries that were part of the Soviet Union. That is why in obituaries of soldiers who died on the Bakhmut, Mariupol or Kherson fronts, they are compared to those who defied the Nazi monster, labeling them in both cases as “heroes”.
Symbology and lexicon
Even before formally fighting Ukraine, Moscow already started using the “anti-fascism” to justify the war in Donbas, the precedent to the current offensive. Since 2014, the pro-Russian militias and guerrillas in eastern Ukraine have fought against the Ukrainian regular army, repeatedly using symbology and lexicon of World War II, something that attracted the attention of some foreign volunteers who formed the new “Internationalist Brigades”.
militants communists and socialistsmainly from Europe and Latin America, came to Ukraine for the claim to “stop fascism once again” to fight alongside paramilitary groups of different kinds, even going so far as to fight alongside far-right guerrillas such as Chetniks Serbs – accused of war crimes in the Balkan conflicts – volunteers from the Russian Orthodox Army – a group branded as religious fundamentalist and accused of murdering and kidnapping Christians from other branches – or members of the National Bolshevik Party. This formation mixes precepts of german nazism with marxist theorya strange union that is prohibited in Russia.
On his show tonight, Dmitry Kiselyov says that European countries are backing Ukraine against Russia because they want revenge for the battles of Poltava (1709), Borodino (1812), and Stalingrad (1942-3)
Just to remind you, this is one of Russia’s most popular TV programs pic.twitter.com/kTb6VkWQFB
—Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) August 14, 2022
Fighting against “the Nazis & rdquor;
Aware of the stigma of calling “Nazi” to a country or a government today, especially in the eyes of the Russians, Ukraine has been stigmatized for years as such, the high point of such a comparison being the February 24, 2022, when Putin announced the “special military operation & rdquor; to “denazify & rdquor; the country. Previously, especially since 2014, Moscow has been concerned with maximize the importance of far-right groups like Praviy Sektor or the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.
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From state channels or in the mouths of representatives of Russian power, anyone perceived as “hostile& rdquor ;, even pointing personally. This is the case, for example, of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who pointed out that Josep Borellhigh representative of the European Union , in the 30s would have risen together with the Francoist military.
Ukraine is receiving the explicit support both from the US and from most EU countries, something that has not gone unnoticed by the Russian ruling party. From the state Pervy Kanal, one of the main speakers of Putinism, the propagandist Dmitri Kisiliovpointed out that Europe support kyiv as revenge for wars and battles that he lost against Russia, among which he cites that of Stalingradthe defeat that cracked the Nazi war machine.