Victory Day (celebrated in Europe on May 8), but celebrated with great pomp in Moscow on May 9, has come to represent for today’s Russian establishment not only a means of projecting an image, but also a factor in consolidating the regime, increasing its power on the international stage, and a tool in the hybrid war waged vigorously in recent years against the West.
I should mention right from the start that the history of the annual “May 9 military parade in Red Square” dates back to 1995, when Russia decided to respond propagandistically to the commemoration of D-Day in Normandy the previous year. In the Soviet Union, only three Victory Day parades were held: on June 24, 1945, May 9, 1965, and May 9, 1985; in other years, Victory Day was celebrated through the awarding of decorations to veterans, rallies, and wreath-laying ceremonies. After 1995, the May 9 military parade opened the way to a new, ideologically driven conception of Victory. The process itself became inevitable with Vladimir Putin’s appointment as prime minister in 1999. He imposed radical symbolic changes, such as replacing the old “tsarist” anthem (restored by his predecessor Yeltsin) with the Soviet anthem. He then revived the myth of the so-called “Great Patriotic War,” initiated by Stalin, which he gave new prominence in 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Soviet-German conflict. That same year, in a speech to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (the joint session of the legislature), Putin Translated with DeepL.com (free version) calls the collapse of the USSR as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” According to experts, this narrative enabled, in the early 2000s, the mobilization of millions of citizens dissatisfied with the new social and political reality around the ruling power. The portrayal of Russia as a victim and the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin in school textbooks and public discourse have altered the population’s perception of the events of that period. The Great Famine in Ukraine (Holodomor), the purges of 1937–1938, the pacts signed with Hitler’s Germany, and the mass murders and deportations ordered by Stalin himself would now be justified by his image as a great leader who won the war.
The new myth of World War II is built on the close intertwining of three main components—power, suffering, and the glorification of militarism—as fundamental elements that forge the new Russian identity, built upon the foundation of the old Soviet identity. For example, in foreign policy, the myth tells the world that, just as in the days of the tsars or the Soviet Union, Russia is entitled to spheres of influence. Yet this right takes precedence over the postwar and post-communist international order, because Russia is powerful and has suffered. As for the independent countries that emerged after the collapse of the USSR, the myth becomes a tool for maintaining Soviet identity across borders and, at the same time, a useful tool in the hybrid war waged in neighboring countries to polarize societies. To protect its “sacred memory of Victory” in these countries against any attempts to revise outdated Soviet conceptions of war, Russia has made massive use of so-called “soft power” (soft power) – films, television, pop culture, and literature—to spread Soviet myths about World War II and thereby maintain its sphere of influence.[1] At the same time, this “pain” of loss suffered by the former Soviet empire has led to deep-seated resentment among Russia’s elites and population, which has subsequently fueled a thirst for revenge, as well as public displays of chauvinism and expansionism.
On the other hand, once established, myths do not remain static. To be effective, they must incorporate new events and political and ideological demands. The Kremlin’s current policy places great emphasis on the concept a “fairer” multipolar world, divided into spheres of influence, where the argument of brute force (hard power) imposed by the powerful take precedence over international law or established diplomatic agreements. This “new worldview” has so far justified not only the war in Georgia (2008), the illegal annexation of Crimea (2014), the destabilization and occupation of eastern Ukraine (2014–2015), but also the large-scale military invasion of a neighboring state for further territorial gains (2022–present). And the function of the following myths is to ideologically and propagandistically justify these acts of aggression. Let’s debunk the most prominent ones.
Myth #1: "Russia is the sole legitimate heir to the victory over Nazism"
Putin at the Moscow parade on May 9, 2025 , stated that "The Soviet Union endured the brunt of the enemy’s most brutal and merciless attacks.“ This narrative deliberately distorts the multinational character of the Soviet Union and downplays the decisive contribution of the Western Allies. In 1940, ethnic Russians accounted for only 58% of the Soviet Union’s total population. There were at least 20 distinct nationalities, the most significant of which were the Ukrainians and Belarusians, on whose territories in the western part of the USSR most of the war was fought. Approximately 27 million Soviet citizens died in the war, but they were not exclusively “Russians.” For example, Ukraine alone lost between 5 and 7 million people during the war.
A BM-13 Katyusha mounted on a U.S. Studebaker US6 truck supplied under the Lend-Lease program, at the UMMC Museum Complex in Verhneya Pyshma
At the same time, the U.S. program Lend-Lease supplied the USSR with 363,080 trucks (the famous Studebaker), 43,728 Jeeps, 14,203 fighter planes, 6,196 tanks, 35,000 radio stations, 380,000 field telephones, one and a half million kilometers of telephone cables, thousands of locomotives, food (canned meat), boots, belts, over 600,000 tons of copper and aluminum, as well as fuel. Even buttons Soviet soldiers’ uniforms were manufactured in factories in Chicago, Illinois! The significance of Western aid to the Soviet war effort had been acknowledged by Stalin himself, according to Khrushchev’s memoirs, which were not published until the 1990s: “He said that […] if we had been left to fight Germany on our own, we would not have been able to stand up to them because we had lost so much of our industry”. Even the Soviet marshal Georgi Zhukov acknowledged that without American support “they would have been unable to continue the war”.[2] The opening of the Normandy front in June 1944 forced Germany to fight on two major fronts simultaneously.
In fact, the victory over Nazi Germany was the result of a global coalition: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Free France, and other Allied nations that signed the United Nations Declaration.
Myth #2: “The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was a legitimate foreign policy decision by the USSR and in accordance with international norms"
The myth allows for a positive reassessment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and, more generally, of the policy of rapprochement with Nazi Germany, which is presented as inevitable. In the fall of 2014, during a meeting with young historians, Putin was attempting, in a completely absurd manner, to justify the Soviet invasion of Poland: “[…] there is still debate about the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and the USSR is blamed for partitioning Poland. But what did Poland itself do when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia? It took a part of Czechoslovakia. It did so, and, in turn, the same thing happened to it. I don’t want to condemn anyone, but a serious study would show that, at the time, these were the methods of foreign policy. The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. We’re told that’s bad. But what’s wrong with the fact that the USSR didn’t want war? And then, even if the USSR knew that war was inevitable, needed time, at any cost, to modernize its army.“In fact, these false claims make no mention whatsoever of the secret protocol”[3] and I recall the same false affability on Stalin’s part in his conversation with Georgi Dimitrov, the head of the Comintern, on September 7, 1939, ten days before the Soviet invasion of Poland: “These days, the fascist state [i.e., Poland – Trans.] oppresses Ukrainians and Belarusians. The destruction of this state would simply mean one fewer bourgeois-fascist state. What would be wrong with establishing the socialist system in new territories and among new populations following Poland’s defeat?”.[4] He also explains that “The USSR would have preferred an agreement with so-called democratic countries, but the British and the French wanted us to be their serfs, without paying us anything for it”. More specifically, without the ability to expand its territory at the expense of independent countries.
Poland, September 20, 1939. A Wehrmacht officer, a Red Army officer, and an interpreter at the demarcation line
In 1935, to offset its hostile relationship with Germany, the Soviet Union signed a mutual assistance pact with France. Other non-aggression pacts were signed with Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland—countries that, within a few years, would suffer the full brunt of Soviet aggression. At the same time, Stalin never lost sight of the prospect of a Soviet-German friendship, despite the official anti-fascist ideology. For example, in 1937, while his torturers were extracting compromising statements from Soviet generals tortured for “collaborating” with Germany, the Kremlin initiated contacts with the “Four-Year Plan” organization, led by Göring in Berlin, through which an attempt was made to revive Soviet-German trade. After negotiations with Hitler failed, Stalin covered his tracks by arresting and eliminating the members of the Soviet delegation.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed on August 23, 1939, was not merely a non-aggression treaty, but an agreement to divide Eastern Europe between two totalitarian regimes. The secret protocol attached to the pact explicitly provided for the division of Poland and the inclusion of the Baltic states, Finland, and Bessarabia within Soviet and German spheres of influence. Photographs of the historic meeting with Ribbentrop show Stalin exulting with obvious delight and childlike glee. After the document was finalized, Stalin told Nikita Khrushchev: “I know what's on Hitler's mind; he thinks he's fooled me, but in fact, I'm the one who's fooled him! ”.[5] From this perspective, we can say that World War II was a direct consequence of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
On September 17, 1939, the USSR invaded Poland from the east, in direct coordination with Nazi Germany. There were even joint German-Soviet military parades, such as the one in Brest-Litovsk. Between 1939 and 1941, the NKVD and the Gestapo cooperated in suppressing the Polish resistance, and 800 German communists—who had fled out of fear of the Gestapo and found refuge in Moscow—were extradited to the sworn enemy of Marxism. Stalin also recognized the puppet governments that Germany had installed in several of the occupied territories. In fact, the Soviet leader had gone far beyond what he would ever have imagined to assure Germany that he recognized all its existing conquests and to assure Hitler of his friendly intentions.[6]
Stalin himself took his commitments under the pact seriously. The document included mutual obligations to revitalize trade between the two countries, and Soviet deliveries were made on time and in full. During the 17 months the pact lasted, Germany was supplied with 865,000 tons of oil, 648,000 tons of timber, 14,000 tons of manganese ore, 14,000 tons of copper, and nearly 1.5 million tons of grain, as well as many other materials. The Soviet state also purchased goods from other world markets to send to Germany, including 25,400 tons of rubber brought from Japan. The German fleet was offered a naval base near Murmansk to refuel, Soviet icebreakers were made available to the Germans to clear a path for armed German merchant ships through Arctic waters to paralyze Allied trade, while Soviet weather ships transmitted weather reports to the German air force during the Battle of Britain.[7]
The aim of this non-aggression pact with Germany was to divert Hitler’s threat toward the West for the foreseeable future. Stalin had hoped for a war of attrition between Nazi Germany and the West that would weaken Germany to such an extent that it would not risk a war with the Soviet Union. On September 19, 2019, the European Parliament adopted the resolution “European Parliament resolution on the importance of European historical memory for the future of Europe,” which strongly condemns the crimes of the Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes and emphasizes the importance of historical memory for the protection of democracy and European values. The Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR condemned officially annulled the secret protocol in 1989, acknowledging its illegality. On September 19, 2019, the European Parliament adopted European Parliament resolution on the importance of European historical memory for the future of Europe, in which it strongly condemns the crimes of the Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes and emphasizes the importance of historical memory for the protection of democracy and European values.
Myth #3: “May 9, 1945 also marks the Soviet Union’s victory over the Western powers"
This myth seeks to establish the idea that the Soviet Union fought not only against the Third Reich, but also against the so-called “collective West.” Vladimir Medinsky, one of Putin’s closest advisers, wrote in his book on Soviet myths that “our people are not just invincible—and he often found himself fighting alone against a coalition of a united Europe – but he has also proven capable of changing the world’s destiny and creating a new world order”.[8]
The myth that “May 9, 1945” also represents a triumph of the USSR over the Western powers is a propagandistic rewriting of the history of World War II. In reality, after June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union via Operation Barbarossa, the USSR joined the anti-Hitler coalition (the Allied Powers), alongside Great Britain (with which it signed an official agreement on July 12 in Moscow), the United States (following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941), and other Allied nations by signing on January 1, 1942, the United Nations Declaration. Between November 28 and December 1, 1943, at the Tehran Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin coordinated their joint military strategy against Germany and Japan; one of the central decisions was to open a second front in France in May 1944, while the USSR was to launch a major offensive on the Eastern Front to pin down and divert German troops, and after Germany’s defeat to invade Japan. Similarly, during the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Big Three negotiated the final coordination of operations against Nazi Germany, the future organization of postwar Europe, and the implementation United Nations, thus confirming the existence of a strategic alliance between the Western powers and the USSR against the Axis. Therefore, the military logic of the years 1941–1945 was not one of confrontation between the USSR and the “collective West,” but rather one of strategic cooperation among the Allies against the Axis.
At the 1943 Tehran Conference, Stalin proposed the execution of 50,000 to 100,000 German officers, an idea categorically rejected by Churchill, who insisted that only war criminals should be tried. Although Stalin later claimed he had been joking, Churchill viewed the episode as a test of the Allies’ moral and political limits
The facts also contradict the myth of the Soviet Union’s “lone struggle” against a hostile Western Europe. Between 1941 and 1945, the USSR received Western aid worth approximately $49.1 billion (equivalent to about $750–800 billion in 2026) through Lend-Lease, making it the second-largest recipient after the United Kingdom. The World War II Museum in New Orleans points out that the support The Western Front relieved pressure on Soviet industry, as factories and plants beyond the Urals were no longer required to produce trucks, railcars, or locomotives on the same scale, allowing them to focus their resources on the heavy weaponry so desperately needed for the counteroffensive in the summer of 1943.
Medinski’s claim that “our people” have often fought alone against a “united Europe” is not a neutral historical account, but an ideological construct designed to project the current conflict between the Kremlin and the West onto the past. In 1945, the U.S., the U.K., and the USSR were not military adversaries, but victorious allies who jointly administered Germany’s surrender and the immediate postwar order. Tensions between the former allies only escalated after the war, particularly in the context of the Soviet occupation of Central and Eastern Europe and the competition over the postwar architecture, but these cannot be retroactively projected onto the years 1941–1945 to support the myth of a confrontation between the USSR and the West. In fact, after VE Day (May 8, 1945), the leaders of the US, the UK, and the USSR met in Potsdam to determine the administration of defeated Germany, even though relations were already strained between the two camps, especially since neither was willing to trust the other that communism would not spread westward or capitalism eastward.[9] But to confuse the early days of the Cold War with the military reality of World War II is to turn historical memory into a tool of geopolitical propaganda.
Myth #4: “The Red Army brought nothing but liberation to Eastern Europe"
In the article about World War II published by TASS/The National Interest, Putin explicitly states that “The Red Army began its liberation campaign in Europe” and that this “saved entire peoples”. The text completely ignores the establishment of communist regimes and the postwar Soviet occupation. For many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the defeat of Nazism was followed by the establishment of Moscow-controlled communist regimes, political repression, deportations, and the loss of sovereignty.
Although the Red Army played a decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany and liberating territories occupied by the Hitler regime. However, for much of Central and Eastern Europe, the end of Nazi occupation did not mean a return to democratic sovereignty, but rather the beginning of a new form of domination: Soviet military occupation, political control exercised by Moscow, the elimination of democratic opposition, and the establishment of communist regimes. The so-called “liberation mission” invoked by Kremlin propaganda becomes, in this formulation, a half-truth: liberation from Nazism, but not political liberation.
In 1945, bicycles were a highly sought-after means of transportation, and in Berlin, a special permit was required to ride one. In the photo, a Soviet soldier is trying to snatch a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, apparently because she did not have the required permit or proof of it
Thus, in Romania, the armistice of September 12, 1944, placed the country under the control of the Soviet-dominated Allied Control Commission; the 1946 elections were rigged; and on December 30, 1947, King Michael was forced to abdicate. The same pattern was repeated in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, and the Baltic states: democratic parties were marginalized, institutions were Sovietized, and one-party regimes became dependent on the Kremlin. In the Baltic states, “liberation” actually meant Soviet reoccupation, mass deportations, forced collectivization, and repression against the anti-Soviet resistance. Academic literature on the Soviet occupation shows that after 1945, Eastern Europe became a military, political, and economic space controlled by the USSR, and in Romania and Hungary, very few perceived the Red Army as an exclusively liberating force, with the exception of the direct victims of Nazism.[10] Therefore, the correct formulation should be much more nuanced: The Red Army made a decisive contribution to the liberation of Europe from Nazism, but the Soviet regime transformed this military liberation into a new political domination by the USSR. For Western Europe, 1945 meant democratic reconstruction; for Eastern Europe, it meant the beginning of communization, political repression, and the loss of real sovereignty for nearly half a century.
Myth #5: “Poland is responsible for the outbreak of the war"
This narrative attempts to rewrite the causes of the conflict and downplay the responsibility of Nazi Germany and the USSR. Thus, Russian leader Putin stated, during his interview with Tucker Carlson in February 2024, that “the Poles pushed things too far, took too many risks, and forced Hitler to start World War II against them”. He then added that “She [Poland – Trans.] proved to be unwilling to compromise. In carrying out his plans, Hitler had no choice but to start with Poland”.
In fact, Poland was the victim of coordinated German-Soviet aggression. This myth reverses the relationship between aggressor and victim. From a historical and legal perspective, the war began with Nazi Germany’s aggression against Poland on September 1, 1939, followed by the Soviet invasion from the east on September 17, 1939. Poland did not attack Germany, did not invade German territory, and did not initiate a military conflict. It was the state simultaneously attacked by two totalitarian regimes that had previously divided their spheres of influence through the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 23, 1939, and its secret protocol. The Russian leader’s claim that the Poles “forced” Hitler to start the war essentially echoes the logic of Nazi propaganda. In the summer of 1939, Berlin demanded Danzig/Gdańsk, an extraterritorial corridor through the so-called Polish Corridor, and Poland’s strategic subordination to Germany. Warsaw’s refusal to accept ultimatums that would have compromised its sovereignty cannot be presented as a “provocation.” Under international law, a victim’s refusal to yield to the territorial pressures of a revisionist state does not justify military aggression. On the contrary, the aggressor is the state that initiates the armed attack.
The radio station in Gleiwitz (now Gliwice, Poland) – the place where World War II began
Nazi Germany had prepared for the invasion of Poland well before any supposed final “diplomatic deadlock.” The German military plan, Fall Weiss (Case White), had been drawn up as early as the spring of 1939, and Nazi propaganda fabricated pretexts for the attack, including the Gleiwitz incident on August 31, 1939, a false-flag operation in which the SS staged a simulated Polish attack on a German radio station. The next day, Hitler cited false “Polish aggressions” to justify the military invasion, claiming that Germany was responding to provocations by the Poles. Thus, the war was not provoked by Poland’s “intransigence,” but by Nazi Germany’s strategic decision to destroy the Polish state and expand its domination eastward. Equally important is the role of the USSR. Through the secret protocol of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Poland was to be divided between the two powers. The Soviet invasion of September 17, 1939, was not a defensive operation, but the practical implementation of this secret agreement. By the end of September 1939, Poland had already been divided between the German and Soviet occupiers, a fact confirmed, among other things, in historical literature specialized literature on the occupation of Poland and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
Therefore, the false narrative that Poland “forced” the outbreak of the war is nothing more than a form of historical revisionism. It shifts the blame from the actual aggressors—Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR—onto the victim of the aggression. Poland did not provoke World War II; on the contrary, Poland was the first major victim of the temporary cooperation between Hitler and Stalin, a cooperation that made possible the destruction of the Polish state in 1939.
Myth #6: “The Katyn massacre was committed by the Nazis"
Declassified Soviet documents confirm that the Soviet NKVD executed nearly 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in 1940. The Kremlin periodically attempts to downplay or reframe this responsibility. The propaganda narrative regarding Nazi Germany’s alleged responsibility for the Katyn massacre continues to be promoted in the contemporary Russian information space. For example, in an article In a pseudo-academic work titled “Katyn: Lies and Truth,” it is claimed, no more and no less, that the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation “did not acknowledge that the NKVD of the USSR was responsible for the massacre of Polish prisoners of war near Katyn”, and the Russian Constitutional Court reportedly refused to review the documents related to the case “because of their inconsistency” and that the Tver District Court in Moscow allegedly “confirmed that Polish officers were executed by the Germans in 1941”. Following the same conspiracy-theory logic, it is even claimed that the lists of most of the victims were drawn up by the Polish side itself.
This myth is one of the longest-standing fabrications of Soviet propaganda. It emerged after the Germans discovered the mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943 and publicly announced the existence of the bodies of executed Polish officers. Moscow immediately denied responsibility and claimed that the prisoners had been killed by the Germans in 1941, following the launch of Operation Barbarossa. The fundamental problem is that documentary evidence, the chronology of the prisoners’ disappearance, and declassified Soviet archives categorically contradict this version. In fact, the executions were decided at the highest level of the Soviet leadership. On March 5, 1940, Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD, sent Stalin a proposal to execute the Polish prisoners considered “declared enemies of Soviet power.” The proposal was approved by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the USSR, with the signatures of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Mikoyan. In the spring of 1940, the NKVD executed nearly 22,000 Polish citizens: army officers, police officers, gendarmes, civil servants, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and members of the Polish state elite. The victims came from the special camps at Kozelsk, Starobelsk, and Ostashkov, as well as from prisons located in Polish territories occupied by the USSR.
Katyn is, in fact, the symbolic name for a broader series of crimes. Some of the prisoners from Kozelsk were executed and buried in the Katyn Forest, near Smolensk; those from Starobelsk were executed in Kharkiv; those from Ostashkov were executed in Kalinin (now Tver) and buried in Mednoie. Other victims were killed in Belarus and Soviet Ukraine. A notebook later found on one of the officers killed at Katyn ended with these words: “They took us to a small forest. They took our wedding rings, my watch, our belts, and our knives. What are they going to do to us? “ A few minutes later, the officers had their hands tied behind their backs, were led to a deep pit dug among the trees, near an NKVD rest house, and were shot in the back of the head. The bodies of the first group of 300 officers were thrown into 10–12 layers, and the killings took place between April 3 and May 2, 1940. These killings of Polish military personnel were part of a carefully calculated strategy intended to eliminate any group capable of mobilizing to raise the banner of a national liberation uprising against the Soviet occupiers.[11]
Recent studies summarize the Katyn case as the execution, in the spring of 1940, of nearly 22,000 people, based on the Political Bureau’s decision of March 5, 1940, not as the result of a German operation in 1941. The Nazi version of guilt, promoted by Moscow after 1943, is also refuted by the chronology. The families of the Polish officers stopped receiving news from them in the spring of 1940, more than a year before Germany invaded the USSR. The prisoners were then in Soviet custody, not German. If the Germans had executed them in 1941, there would have to be documentary evidence of their transfer or survival after the summer of 1940, but such evidence does not exist. Instead, there are NKVD transport lists, administrative orders, and Soviet correspondence regarding the management of the prisoners and their disappearance.[2]
Beria’s secret note to Stalin dated March 5, 1940, the document that triggered the NKVD executions of Polish prisoners. Based on this decision, approved by I. Stalin, K. Voroshilov, V. Molotov, and A. Mikoyan, with notes of agreement from M. Kalinin and L. Kaganovich, nearly 22,000 officers and members of the Polish elite were killed in the Katyn Forest massacre
A decisive factor was the official Soviet—and later Russian—acknowledgment. On April 13, 1990, the leadership of the USSR acknowledged that the massacre had been carried out by the NKVD. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin sent Poland copies of documents from the so-called “Package No. 1,” including Beria’s note of March 5, 1940, and the Political Bureau’s decision. These documents confirmed what Polish historians, survivors, and Western researchers had been claiming for decades: the massacre was not a Nazi crime, but a Soviet state crime. Then, in April 1995, the then-spokesperson for the FSB, A. Kraiușkin, publicly declared in Smolensk that 21,857 Polish soldiers had been murdered at three separate locations by NKVD units. In April 1940, NKVD files contained the names of those decorated for the elimination of Polish “nationalists” in the Smolensk area.[12] Contemporary narratives claiming that Russian courts have “proven” German guilt or that the documents are “inconsistent” do not alter the historical substance of the issue. They represent attempts at legal and propagandistic relativization, not historical research. The fact that post-Soviet Russian authorities have blocked full access to the files, classified some of the documents, or avoided a full legal characterization of the crime does not mean that the NKVD’s responsibility is uncertain. It merely means that the contemporary Russian state periodically attempts to politically manage a crime that undermines the “liberating” mythology of Stalinism. Therefore, the Katyn massacre cannot be attributed to the Nazis without deliberately ignoring Soviet documents, the chronology of the prisoners’ disappearance, the official acknowledgments from 1990–1992, and the consensus of international historiography. Katyn was a crime planned by the Stalinist leadership and carried out by the NKVD in the spring of 1940, with the aim of decapitating the Polish military, administrative, and intellectual elite. The “Nazi guilt” narrative is a Soviet state lie recycled today in the language of conspiracy theories.
Myth #7: “NATO is an aggressive force comparable to the Nazi threat"
Putin himself had stated, at the May 9, 2026 parade, that Russian soldiers “oppose an aggressive force backed by the entire NATO alliance”, drawing an implicit parallel between the current conflict and the Nazi invasion of 1941. This myth, in itself, is built on a false historical analogy. Nazi Germany was an expansionist totalitarian regime that launched a war of conquest, occupied sovereign states, orchestrated the Holocaust, and sought to reshape Europe along racial and imperial lines. NATO, by contrast, is a defensive political-military alliance, created in 1949, whose central principle is collective defense: an attack against one ally is treated as an attack against all. Comparing NATO to Nazi Germany is not a historical analysis, but a propaganda technique to demonize the adversary.
From a legal standpoint, NATO operates on the basis of The North Atlantic Treaty and Article 51 of UN Charter, which recognizes the right of states to individual and collective self-defense. The Alliance does not annex territories and does not compel states to join. NATO’s expansion after 1991 was the result of voluntary decisions by the states of Central and Eastern Europe, which sought security guarantees precisely because of their historical experience of Soviet domination. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary joined in 1999, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltic states in 2004, and Finland and Sweden took similar steps following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This timeline shows that NATO’s expansion was more of a response to insecurity resulting from Russia's behavior rather than a cause of Russian aggression.
Furthermore, the Kremlin’s argument ignores a key empirical fact: NATO has not attacked Russia. Instead, the Russian Federation has used military force against several post-Soviet neighbors: the Republic of Moldova in 1992, Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 through the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, and then Ukraine again in 2022 through a large-scale invasion. Portraying Russia as the victim of “NATO aggression” while the Russian military is on the territory of a sovereign neighboring state reverses the relationship between aggressor and victim. Under international law, the threat is not the voluntary accession of states to a defensive alliance, but the use of force to alter borders. Therefore, the comparison between NATO and the Nazi threat of 1941 is propagandistic, not historical. It aims to portray Russia’s war against Ukraine as a false continuation of the so-called “Great Patriotic War.” In reality, NATO is not waging a war of conquest against Russia, but is supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense in the face of military aggression.
Myth #8: “Criticizing the USSR amounts to glorifying Nazism"
The Kremlin deliberately uses this false dilemma to stifle discussions about Stalinist crimes, the Gulag, the man-made famine, or the Soviet occupation. For example, in a message In a message delivered on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Vladimir Putin stated that “any attempt to downplay our country’s contribution to the Great Victory amounts, in fact, to justifying the crimes of Nazism and paves the way for the revival of his deadly ideology”. In the same speech, the Russian leader linked this narrative to the war against Ukraine, claiming that Russian soldiers are currently fighting against “neo-Nazi evil”. This propaganda technique aims to stifle any critical debate regarding Stalinist crimes, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, or the repressions carried out by the NKVD, by automatically associating critics with “Nazism” or the “rehabilitation of fascism.” However, condemning Stalinism is not equivalent to rehabilitating Nazism. This myth is based on a false dilemma (or false dichotomy), a logical fallacy that suggests to the public that there are only two possible options: either you fully accept the Soviet narrative of World War II, or you support or justify Nazism. In reality, condemning Stalinist crimes does not imply denying the Red Army’s role in defeating Nazi Germany, nor does it relativize the Holocaust. The two positions are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, the Kremlin’s narrative simultaneously employs a form of reductio ad Hitlerum – a propaganda technique whereby critics of the USSR or Russian policies are automatically associated with “fascism,” “Nazism,” or “the rehabilitation of Hitlerism,” in order to morally delegitimize them without addressing concrete historical arguments. Thus, the debate over the Gulag, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Soviet deportations, or the occupation of Eastern Europe is artificially transformed into a supposed “defense of Nazism.”
A Soviet propaganda poster dedicated to the “friendship between the Soviet and German peoples,” used to legitimize the rapprochement between the USSR and Nazi Germany following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The pacifist message “In the name of world peace!” masked the reality of the political and territorial collaboration between Stalin and Hitler in 1939–1941
Similarly, Stalinist crimes are historically documented: the Great Terror of 1937–1938, the Gulag system, the deportations from the Baltic states, the repression in the occupied Polish territories, the NKVD executions at Katyn in 1940, the artificially induced famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932–1933, and the forced Sovietization of Eastern Europe after 1945. Discussing these crimes does not mean “justifying Nazism,” but rather rejecting the propaganda monopoly over historical memory. For example, how can we label any discussion of the Soviet regime’s complicity with German anti-Semitism from September 1939 to July 1941 as a “justification of Nazism”? Here we must recall that, following the German invasion of Poland, thousands of Jewish and Polish refugees were turned back by the Red Army solely to provoke German border guards into opening fire on them in the strip between the two frontiers. The same procedure was applied to German Jews who had fled to the USSR in the 1930s. They were rounded up and sent to Germany, where they were imprisoned and killed. Another group of Jewish refugees from the occupied territories was deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan or imprisoned in jails and labor camps.[13]
Yet the Kremlin uses this line of reasoning to turn any critical analysis of Stalinism into a moral accusation: anyone who criticizes the USSR is said to be “rewriting history,” “downplaying the victory,” or “rehabilitating fascism.” In reality, it is precisely this technique that rewrites history, because it reduces World War II to a heroic myth without the Hitler-Stalin Pact, without Soviet occupations, without deportations, and without political repression. Studies on the politics of memory in Russia show that the current regime has nationalized the memory of the 1945 victory, eliminating inconvenient episodes such as the Gulag, Soviet-Nazi collaboration from 1939–1941, or the occupation of Eastern Europe. Therefore, condemning Nazism and condemning Stalinism are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. A democratic memory does not choose between the victims of Nazism and the victims of communism, but recognizes both. This is precisely why the European Parliament’s resolution of September 19, 2019, on the importance of European historical memory condemns both the crimes of the Nazi regime and those of totalitarian communist regimes. The Kremlin’s myth does not defend historical truth, but rather attempts to block the investigation of Soviet crimes through moral blackmail and abusive association with Nazism.
Myth #9: “Today's Russia is the direct successor to the anti-fascist struggle of 1945"
According to Putin, in the speech at this year’s parade, the soldiers involved in the so-called “special military operation” (in fact, the war against Ukraine) are presented as direct heirs of the Red Army, legitimizing the war against Ukraine through the symbolism of the victory over Nazism: “The great achievements of the victorious generation inspire the soldiers carrying out missions as part of the special military operation today“The Kremlin exploits the memory of the 1945 victory for geopolitical propaganda and domestic mobilization, often ignoring the historical complexity of the war. Let us not forget that in March 2014, the entire Crimea was plastered with posters depicting the outline of Crimea half-covered by a swastika, with the other half painted in the colors of the Russian flag. The poster itself was meant to illustrate the stakes of the illegal referendum organized by the Russian Federation to occupy the peninsula. The first annexation of European territory since the end of World War II was thus presented as a fight against “fascism”! The illegal annexation of Crimea was convicted by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 68/262, which reaffirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Thus, the first forced annexation of European territory since 1945 was spun by propaganda as an “anti-fascist struggle.”
Propaganda billboard in Crimea in 2014 which portrayed the illegal referendum as a choice between “fascism” and Russia, using the swastika to falsely associate Ukraine with Nazism and legitimize the annexation of the peninsula
Here again we are dealing with a myth based on a mistake false historical continuity: assumes that, because the USSR fought against Nazi Germany, today’s Russian Federation would automatically possess the same moral legitimacy in any conflict it engages in. In reality, contemporary Russia is identical neither to the USSR nor to the entire anti-Hitler coalition. The victory of 1945 was achieved by an Allied coalition and the peoples of the Soviet Union—including Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, Armenians, Kazakhs, and others—not exclusively by present-day Russia. Historically, official Soviet and post-Soviet “anti-fascism” has often been used selectively: it glorifies the 1945 victory and rehabilitates Stalin, but omits the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the Soviet occupations, the deportations, the Gulag, Katyn, and the Sovietization of Eastern Europe. Today, in Russia under the Putin regime, the myth of the “Great Patriotic War” has been integrated in the official narrative of national identity, state patriotism, and military glory. This sanctified memory is then projected onto the present to justify an aggressive foreign policy.
Therefore, today’s Russia does not automatically continue the anti-fascist struggle of 1945 simply because it invokes the symbols of that victory. Moral continuity is not declared, but proven through political behavior: respect for the sovereignty of states, rejection of aggression, protection of civilians, and a critical engagement with one’s own past. When the memory of the victory over Nazism is used to justify territorial annexations and invasions, it no longer functions as an anti-fascist memory, but as war propaganda.
Instead of conclusions
These myths are not mere relics of Soviet propaganda, but active tools of the memory politics promoted by the Kremlin. They provide the Russian regime with a moral and emotional vocabulary through which it can turn the past into a political weapon: Russia is portrayed as a “liberator,” opponents are labeled “fascists” or “Nazis,” and any criticism of the USSR or Russian foreign policy is described as an attempt to “rewrite history.” In this way, the history of World War II is no longer treated as a subject of research, but as a resource for mobilization, intimidation, and legitimization. Unfortunately, the Kremlin will continue to refine these myths because they serve two objectives simultaneously. Domestically, the mythology of the “great war to defend the motherland” sustains a sense of siege, justifies the militarization of society, and facilitates the mobilization of the population for the war against Ukraine. The public is told that Russia is not waging a war of aggression, but is repeating the sacrifice of the 1941–1945 generation against an absolute enemy. This narrative leaves little room for doubt, criticism, or opposition: anyone who questions the war can be accused of betraying the memory of victory.
At the same time, on the international stage, these same myths underpin an expansionist and revisionist policy. Invoking “anti-fascism,” “liberation,” and the struggle against the “collective West” provides the Kremlin with a propaganda framework through which annexations, interference, and military aggression are presented as defensive acts. Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 show how the symbols of 1945 can be repurposed to justify the violation of a neighboring state’s sovereignty. The first forced annexation of European territory since World War II was packaged precisely in the rhetoric of the fight against “fascism.”
That is why the danger of these myths lies in their adaptability. They do not remain static, but are constantly updated to suit the Kremlin’s political needs: the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact is downplayed, Katyn is repackaged as a conspiracy theory, NATO is compared to Nazi Germany, and Ukraine is portrayed as a “neo-Nazi” enemy. Thus, Russian propaganda not only falsifies the past but constantly links it to the present, transforming historical memory into a tool of information warfare. Consequently, debunking these myths is not merely a historiographical exercise but a democratic and security necessity. The response must combine concrete historical data, archival documents, academic sources, and a careful analysis of propaganda mechanisms. Historical truth cannot be defended through opposing myths, but through contextualization, rigor, and the rejection of false equivalences. Only in this way can the memory of World War II remain a space of responsibility, not ideological ammunition for new aggressions.
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By Dr. Nicolae Țîbrigan, coordinating expert Digital Forensic Team, in collaboration with A4E Counter Disinformation Network (CDN)
[14] Idem, pp. 266-267.
[13] Richard Overy, op. cit., pp. 518-519.
[12] Thomas Urban, The Katyn Massacre 1940. History of a Crime, Yorkshire – Philadelphia, PEN & SWORD MILITARY, 2020, pp. 65–75. Translated into Romanian by T. Urban, Katyn 1940. Istoria unui masacru, trad. Sorin Cristescu, București, Corint Istorie, 2024.
[11] Richard Overy, op. cit., p. 130.
[10] Csaba Békés, László Borhi & Ottmar Trașcă, Soviet Occupation of Romania, Hungary, and Austria 1944/45–1948/49, Budapest-New York, Central European University Press, 2015, pp. 15-25.
[9] Richard Overy, op. cit., pp. 496-502.
[8] V. Medinski, Voina: Mifî SSSR. 1939-1945, Moscova, Olma, 2011, p. 630.
[7] Idem, p. 131.
[6] Vezi Chapter 14. Pactul sovieto-nazist by Henry Kissinger, Diplomația, Ed. a II-a, trad. Mircea Ștefancu și Radu Paraschivescu, București, ALL, 2007, pp. 308-324.
[5] Richard Overy, op. cit.p. 126.
[4] Georgi Dimitrov, The diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949, introduced and edited by Ivo Banac, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 2003, pp. 115-116.
[3] This secret protocol to the Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939, provided for the division of Polish, Baltic, Finnish, and Romanian territories between Germany and the USSR, “in the event of a territorial and political reorganization” of the territories in question. It was supplemented on September 28, 1939, following the invasion of Poland, by a “Treaty of Friendship and Delimitation of Borders,” which also included secret protocols and organized cooperation between the Gestapo and the NKVD in the pursuit of those who offered resistance.
[2] For more details on the American aid provided under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR between 1941 and 1945, see also Richard Overy, Războiul Uniunii Sovietice: dezastru și triumf, 1941-1945, trad. Sorin Cristescu, București, Corint Istorie, 2024, pp. 357-362.
[1] According to sociological research (an opinion poll and focus groups) conducted by Olga Cernova in 2011, 59% of respondents cited the family, and around 79.9% cited films. For more details on this research and the role of war films as a means of propaganda in Putin’s Russia, see also Radu Cupcea, „Profesorul Putin”: politică și curricullum identitar în Rusia postsovietică, București, Editura Institutului de Științe Politice și Relații Internaționale „Ion I.C. Brătianu”, 2023, pp. 116-122.
