Last reception to date, Friday. Vladimir Putin drew a parallel between Russian personalities and cultural events in the West and the planned burnings by the Nazis.
It was the Nazis in Germany 90 years ago who campaigned to destroy such unwanted culture. I remember very well the pictures of books being burned in public squares, “he said. Meeting with cultural figures.
Earlier, diplomat Sergei Lavrov estimated that European leaders had delivered a speech with “Hitlerian” notes during his visit to Russia.
The Russian president, again, compared the Western sanctions adopted after last week’s attack on Ukraine to a “Blitzkrieg” and the Nazi “anti-Semitic massacre.”
– Historical Falsehood –
This analogy is not insignificant to the heir of a country in the Soviet Union that lost 20 million to Hitler’s army during the Great Patriotic War.
In Russia, whatever the political side, this sacrifice unites, and the Anglo-Saxon allies consider the majority of the population to exaggerate their role in the Nazi defeat, while at the same time denigrating the Soviet Union and Stalin.
Vladimir Putin has for many years made the struggle against the “falsification of historical truth” a central element of his speech on patriotism and Russian power in the face of the Western adversary. Even if it means denying the implications of the 1939 German-Soviet agreement that led to the secession of Poland and the Red Army’s invasion of the Baltic states.
At the same time, Russia faces an existential threat, which he confirms will be destroyed by NATO, which continues to expand towards Russia’s borders since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Finally, the military intervention in pro-Western and NATO candidate Ukraine is justified by the need to arrest the “neo-Nazis” involved in the genocide of Russian speakers in the east of the country.
“The West does not understand this, but in the minds of the Kremlin, the war – a hybrid, Third World War – has been going on for a long time (…) against Russia. Its identity, its policies, its values,” says Konstantin Kalatsev, an independent political scientist for the AFP. .
This talk allows us to “unite the people”, “to create a new myth (…) based on the call to history”, he continues, because the Russians “escaped the siege (Leningrad Nazi) war. We compare ourselves with the heroism of our ancestors”.
– When the balance is exhausted –
Alexei Mukhine, a pro-Kremlin historian and political scientist, told AFP that since Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, “of course it is uniting the people, and all sociologists have increased support for Putin.”
According to him, there is no doubt that “contact with the 1930s” is necessary because NATO is trying to “rebuild the Third Reich”.
“Two years ago, I presented a study of Russians as new Jews, 21st century Jews (…). Unfortunately, my theory was validated,” he insists.
On the other hand, Nikita Petrov, historian of the NGO Memorial, which specializes in Soviet repression and contemporary Russia, recently dissolved by Russian justice, regrets this speech.
“History is being used as a tool of propaganda,” he notes, referring to “the country is surrounded by enemies, against which it must defend itself.”
According to political scientist Konstantin Galatcio, “in the short term, it will work.”
But he thinks it will not last “once the bread supply is exhausted” under the effects of sanctions.
He says that World War I “began with the tumult of patriotism, and three years later (with the Bolshevik revolution) everything changed drastically”.
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