But no Nazis in Ukraine – now Putin tells a different story Pink pond in Hawaii: why this natural phenomenon means nothing good

Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has been raging for almost 21 months, and no one can currently reliably predict when and how the fighting will end. It is a war of attrition with heavy casualties on both sides. The Russian army has bombed large parts of its neighboring country, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin is denying Ukraine its right to exist – a country that many Russians actually see as a ‘brother nation’.

This war, which plunged Europe into chaos, started with a colossal miscalculation in the Kremlin. The then British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace was the last Western politician to be in Moscow before the Russian attack. “They will fight,” says Wallace, according to the Arte documentary “Who is Vladimir Putin?” said to his Russian counterpart. “No, they won’t,” Sergei Shoigu reportedly replied in the conversation, referring to his Ukrainian relatives. An error. Ukraine has not surrendered its weapons.

The Ukrainians fought and the Russian leadership looked for explanations: why would people who still lived together in the Soviet Union kill each other? Why would so many Russian soldiers die to occupy a strip of Ukrainian land? And why is Putin driving the Russian economy against the wall for this?

Without a massive disinformation campaign, it would have been impossible for Putin to sell this war to his people as a necessity worth dying for. To do this, the Kremlin uses historical enemy images that are deeply rooted in society. First Russia would have fought the Nazis, then NATO. Putin needed these hostile images to cover up his own strategic failures.

From Nazis to traitors

To achieve this, Russian propaganda was initially based on a narrative that the Kremlin had been spreading since Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution in 2013: radical nationalists had seized power in Ukraine. In his speeches, Putin spoke about the oppression of the Ukrainian people by so-called ‘fascists’. Well-known Putin propagandist and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov also wrote daily about Ukraine in his Telegram channel during this time:

So Russia would now attack its neighbor to save Ukraine – from the same Nazis. Of course that was a lie, but Russian propaganda was not deterred by facts such as the democratic elections in Ukraine. On the contrary.

Putin apparently hoped that this story would awaken in the Russian people the spirit of the Great Patriotic War – the Second World War, in which the Soviet army defeated Nazi Germany at great sacrifice. The memory of this also plays a major role in today’s Russia and Putin wanted to use this for himself and his imperialist purposes.

But by the fall of 2022 at the latest, the Russian leadership apparently realized that this strategy was not working; the Russian public simply did not believe the message. The Kremlin conducted a survey that found that the population did not understand the term “denazification” and did not believe that Ukraine was ruled by Nazis. The result: suddenly the Russian propaganda apparatus stopped talking about denazification.

“Deal the first blow”

Putin needed a bigger and more credible enemy. An enemy whose strength explains why the well-equipped Russian army is facing increasing setbacks in Ukraine. For this purpose too, the Kremlin once again used a historically developed enemy image: now the central enemy is NATO – and especially the US. In Russian propaganda, the Ukrainian Nazis became Western puppets.

The tone became even harsher: for Russia it is no longer about saving Ukraine, but about each other Proxy war with NATO, in which the Ukrainians are the traitors. The underlying message: Ukraine has historically often betrayed Russia and made alliances with enemies. Therefore it must cease to exist.

This was not an unwise move, as Putin played on the widespread feeling in Russia that the West would no longer take the country seriously after the fall of the Soviet Union. Now it is no longer about Ukraine, but about a sense of honor, patriotism and opposing Western powers that supposedly no longer respect Russia.

For example, former Russian president and Putin loyalist Dmitry Medvedev compared the West to schoolyard bullies. “If you run away home you are nobody,” he wrote on Twitter (now X) in September 2022. He added:

This propaganda was successful: many Russians apparently like to believe that Russia did not attack Ukraine. In their eyes, it was the United States that provoked the conflict and dragged both sides into it.

Putin’s legacy is in ruins

Russian propaganda uses the old image of the enemy from the Cold War. However, there is one difference: the Soviet Union always presented itself as the good superpower fighting for world peace, while the US was a warmonger. Today the Kremlin legitimizes its actions with whataboutism. The message:

Russian propaganda spreads the message that every superpower has the right to violence. After all, the Americans have also waged wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Putin’s lecture: Why shouldn’t Russia have that right? After all, there is one Privilege of a superpower.

For Putin it was one of the last resorts to legitimize his war. He has donned the mantle of anti-Americanism and presents himself as a champion against Western hegemony and for a multipolar world. This is being well received not only in Russia, but also in parts of the global south – in countries that also reject Western dominance. This will at least provide Putin with some international support, for example from China.

Putin plays this card late. There are reasons for that. The Kremlin boss is thus setting relations between the West and Russia back decades – and bringing back the mutual distrust from the Cold War. This makes it difficult to make long-term deals with the West and Putin’s legacy is already in ruins. Because one thing is especially true in Russia: no propaganda, no strong story can survive a president if a new leadership has no interest in it. At some point, Russia’s attack on Ukraine will also be reassessed in Russia.

And Putin fears this day.