For those of us in the West, the angry accusations that the Kremlin produces about “deNazifying Ukraine” are difficult to understand. How can Ukrainians be described as “Nazis” when they fought against Hitler’s Third Reich, alongside members of the Soviet army, and suffered many more civilian deaths than the Russians did in the Second World War? In addition, how can Ukraine be a “Nazi” state if it has a president who comes from a Jewish family? What is Putin’s reason for using this terminology as justification for Russia’s attack on Ukraine?
One of the defining characteristics of an autocracy is that its leaders operate in a “post-truth” world. When autocrats come to power, one of their first goals is to eliminate the free press. This is what Putin did during the first four years of his presidency. Once autocrats control the media, they can make up what scholars describe as “meta-narratives” to explain how they operate and what their goals are – and these stories often bear little resemblance to reality. Putin has used a number of these “meta-narratives” to justify his aggressive foreign policy. Likening himself to a czar such as “Peter the Great” or “Ivan the Great” on a mission to rebuild the Russian Empire is one of his assertions. But no czar who was truly committed to rebuilding imperial Russia would steal billions of dollars from the Russian people and hide the stolen assets in offshore investment accounts.
Nor would any great czar start a “war of choice” by attacking Ukraine, a decision that drove more than 100,000 of Russia’s “best and brightest” young generation to flee the country rather than lose their life in a mindless war against their Slavic neighbors. Putin attacked Ukraine because he needs war to justify his political power and protect his greed – and that of his top advisors. War allows Putin to repress any internal opposition in Russia and prevent any popular demonstrations against him, like those he witnessed in 2011-12 when he returned to the presidency. Since then, Russia has experienced state terror, comparable to the repression under Joseph Stalin.
Another Putin meta-narrative is his claim that Russia is a “defender of traditional Christian values,” and that his regime is targeting the loss of moral values in the West, a decline that he characterizes as a threat to traditional families and a boon to deviant sexual and gender lifestyles. But, again, Putin’s description bears little relationship to the truth. In fact, unlike Ukraine, which has a vibrant ecumenical religious community, in Russia fewer than 4% of the Russian population attend religious services on Easter Sunday – the most holy of Orthodox holidays. The Russian Orthodox Church is essentially a state agency under the control of the Kremlin, and Putin’s positioning of himself as a defender of traditional Christian values and religious freedom is as bogus as his other assertions.
Because the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) achieved few successes in its seventy years of Communist Party rule, Putin and his media specialists have emphasized one of Russia’s few achievements: the role it played in defeating Adolf Hitler’s attempt to build a “Thousand-Year Reich.” For this reason, Putin repeatedly compares Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Using the word “Nazis” to describe Ukrainians is his strategy to generate popular support for Russia’s attack on Ukraine. When you control the media like the Kremlin does, in ways most of us have never experienced, this relentless propaganda shapes the perspectives of its TV audiences.
Ukraine is now experiencing a re-run of Hitler’s war aims in 1941, when he sought to destroy Ukraine and Russia. Hitler was convinced that the Soviet Union, which controlled Ukraine, was a Jewish state, and his goal was to topple the Communist government and take over Ukraine’s fertile agricultural regions. He believed the Soviet Union was an artificial country and the Ukrainians were simply a colonial people. Professor Timothy Snyder from Yale University notes that the similarities to Putin’s war are striking. Russian media regularly broadcasts its view that Ukraine is an artificial state and its Jewish president is not really running the country. Russian armed forces were in for a real surprise when they crossed the Ukrainian border.
Once the invasion of Ukraine began, Putin increasingly used the word “Nazis” to describe the reason for this decision. For him, a “Nazi” is anyone who opposes him or his plan to destroy Ukraine. If Ukrainians resist Russian occupation, they are “Nazis” and deserve to die. They are described as “subhuman.” On Russian state television, Ukrainians are called “worms,” and two of the leading Kremlin propagandists argue passionately that “Ukraine cannot continue to exist.” Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s former vice president and then successor president for one term, wrote on social media: “I hate them. They are bastards and degenerates . . . I’ll do all I can to make them disappear.” He shares Putin’s hostility toward three targets: Ukraine, traitors at home, and the liberal West.
Hate speech pervades Russia, which helps to explain how Russian troops have no hesitation when they murder innocent civilians who cross their paths. The mass graves in all the areas occupied by Russians make this clear; the brutality against Ukrainians who remain in their hometowns continues every day. Analysts have reported that when Russians are asked what it means to be Russian, their answer is often “anti-Ukraine.”
Using the word “Nazism” supports Russia’s aggressive, brutal war and its multiple crimes against humanity. As Professor Snyder repeatedly makes clear, when the Kremlin talks about “deNazification,” this means “deUkrainization” – which is genocide, the intent to destroy a nation and its history and cultural legacy.
Dr. John A. Bernbaum
Senior Research Fellow
Paul Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics
Calvin University – Grand Rapids, Michigan