Putin’s great patriotic war of fascism
He touts his invasion as an existential struggle. In truth, it's Nazism 2.0.
Destroyed Russian tanks outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz)
A rotating collection of destroyed Russian military vehicles has occupied the plaza outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv since early in Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The scorched-brown husks stand out against the cathedral’s powder-blue exterior, creating a tableau of contrasts: war and peace, brutality and sanctuary.
The history of St. Michael’s deepens the symbolism. Dating to the 12th century, and variously expanded, enhanced and renovated over the next 800 years, the cathedral has existed in its present form only since 1999.
In the mid-1930s, as part of a campaign to abolish religion throughout the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin ordered the demolition of thousands of places of worship in the nations then under Russian control. More than 60 years passed before Ukraine could rebuild and reopen St. Michael’s, after the country regained its freedom when the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991.
In that context, the cathedral’s gleaming cupolas and the burnt-out tanks beyond its walls testify in equal measure to the past century of Russian tyranny against Ukraine. From Stalin to Putin — who aside from his contrived piety acts the part of Stalin 2.0, as I’ve written before — the Kremlin has imprisoned, killed and terrorized Ukrainians as a matter of state policy.
Yet in the skewed worldview that Putin force-feeds his fellow citizens, Russia is not a belligerent but a victim — pushed to invade a sovereign nation to halt the advance of Western democracy into what he calls “historical Russia.” His Orwellian, war-is-peace propaganda helps explain why earlier this week Moscow unveiled its own array of military hardware seized from battlefields in Ukraine.
Beneath triumphalist billboards declaring “Our victory is inevitable,” the exhibition includes tanks and fighting vehicles manufactured in America, England, Germany, France and other Western countries. A seasoned purveyor of heavy-handed choreography, the Kremlin has brought the vehicles to a World War II memorial park dedicated to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, seeking to wrap Putin’s genocidal war in the glory of a legitimate existential struggle.
During and after the Great Patriotic War, as Russia refers to WWII, Stalin orchestrated similar displays of captured German vehicles and weapons. (Never mind that he and Adolf Hitler agreed on the sly to carve up Central and Eastern Europe before later turning on each other.) The fight against the Nazis since has served as the unifying principle in Russia’s national narrative and the rationalization for its ravenous imperialism, attaining the status of secular religion under Putin.
The Russian dictator has described his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as an attempt to “denazify” a democratic nation — one led by a Jewish president — and, more broadly, as a crusade against “geopolitical opponents aiming to tear apart Russia.” The huge crowds attending the “Trophies of the Russian Army” exhibition attest to his success in convincing Russians to believe and celebrate the parallel reality he imposes on them.
“History is repeating itself,” the Russian defense ministry told Reuters in a statement about the show. “Strength is in the truth. It’s always been that way. In 1943 and today.” A foreign ministry official asserted that the so-called trophies prove how “the West destroys peace on the planet.”
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Thousands of photos of fallen Ukrainian soldiers fill a wall outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz)
Large crowds also flocked to St. Michael’s when the first batch of ruined Russian tanks appeared on the plaza two years ago. People radiated a joyful relief, a sense of wonderment. Weeks earlier, a delusional despot had unleashed his much larger army on their country, and somehow, Kyiv still stood.
In the shadow of the enemy’s military vehicles, another display on cathedral grounds conveys the toll of defending freedom from Putin’s fascism — from Nazism 2.0. A perimeter wall adjacent to the plaza bears thousands of small photos of Ukrainian soldiers killed since he first invaded the country in 2014.
The images stretch on for an entire city block. More are added every week. The faces form a mosaic of infinite loss.
Etc.
— The Associated Press wrote about a 98-year-old woman who, cane in hand, walked six miles to escape her home in eastern Ukraine last week after Russian troops entered the town where she lived. No doubt the Kremlin views her forced evacuation as a major blow for “denazification.”
— More than 4 million Ukrainians were conscripted into Stalin’s Red Army during WWII to fight the Nazis. Last year I talked with villagers in eastern Ukraine about Putin’s Russia assuming the role of the Third Reich.
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Tremendous historical analysis. Well done.
Thank you, Martin, for your reporting from Eastern Europe. People need to hear the truth about Putin's genocidal war on his neighbors - a war that some, fellow travelers or useful idiots? - finds support from in the halls of Congress.