You can see why Putin so often characterises Russia’ s enemies as ‘Nazis’. The label immediately provokes revulsion; except of course among Neo-Nazis, who the Russian President seems to think are more influential – in Ukraine, the Baltic States (see https://www.propastop.org/en/2024/02/01/decoding-putins-accusations-of-nazism-against-baltic-states/), the USA, and even the whole of Europe – than they probably are.

There are of course historical reasons why Putin chooses this particular stick to beat the Ukrainians with. In its ‘Great Patriotic War’ (1941-45) the Soviet Union’s main enemy was a Nazi-dominated Europe; the Soviets’ heroic victory over which cost around 26 million Russian lives. (For comparison, Britain lost ‘only’ 450,000 dead, and the USA 418,000.) So you would expect the Russians to remember that war more, for longer, and rather differently from the way we in the West remember it. And since it ended we’ve never sufficiently acknowledged the Soviets’ vital contribution to our Allies’ war effort, and have been pretty beastly to them in other ways – albeit with good reasons, to be sure. So in these circumstances the ‘Nazi’ charge is an understandable prejudice, as well as being a useful propaganda tool for Russia.

And of course it’s not entirely groundless. There will undoubtedly be some genuine neo-Nazis in Ukraine today, as there are everywhere in the West; in Ukraine’s case feeding the resistance against Russia. (See https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-there-any-truth-to-russias-ukrainian-nazis-propaganda/a-63970461.) How strong and influential they are I have no means of knowing – it’s not my area of historical expertise; but it’s an obvious nail to hook Russia’s Europhobia on. But of course not to explain the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, exactly four years ago. Or even to excuse Putin’s motive behind it; which to a historian in my field looks far more like 19^th-century imperialism.