Russia And Modern Facism: New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine

Russia and Modern Fascism

The editors Dr Ian Garner is Assistant Professor at the Center for Totalitarian Studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. He is also an adjunct faculty member in War Studies at the Royal Military College, Canada, Fellow at the Centre for International & Defence Policy, Canada, as well as lifetime fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London.

His books include Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival (Mc-Gill-Queen’s UP 2022) and Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst/Oxford UP 2023). He regularly writes for major media outlets including the Globe & Mail, National Post, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and UnHerd.

Dr Taras Kuzio is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including Russia’s War on Ukraine: The Four Roots of Putin’s Invasion (Cambridge University Press 2025, with Michał Wawrzonek), Fascism and Genocide: Russia’s War Against Ukrainians (ibidem 2023), Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge 2022), The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics (E-IR 2018, with Paul D’Anieri), Putin’s War Against Ukraine (University of Toronto Press 2019), Ukraine: Democratization, and Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger 2015).

292

SPPS

Edited by Andreas Umland

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society

Vol. 292

Garner, Kuzio (eds.)

Russia seems to be hurtling toward fascism. Vladimir Putin and his allies—domestic and foreign—have obliterated and colonised Ukrainian cities in a “holy war,” committed over 100,000 war crimes, introduced Draconian domestic crackdowns on free speech and political opposition, and rewritten the constitution to seize power in perpetuity. The state and its propagandists declare their intentions to destroy the Ukrainian state and commit genocide against the Ukrainian people, to overthrow the liberal international order, and to recreate the Tsarist and Soviet empires. Meanwhile, the Russian population languishes in a militarising culture in which civic life has been replaced by a cult of war, past and present. Each of these phenomena invites comparisons with past fascist regimes.

This volume gathers leading experts in the first scholarly study of a new Russian fascism that draws on distinctly modern forms of control and violence as much as on historical precedents. An array of theoretical debates and case studies from across disciplines makes this a pioneering study of modern Russian politics. The volume’s contributors include Jaroslava Barbieri, Paul D’Anieri, Jolanta Darczewska, Maria Domanska, Ian Garner, Joanna Getka, Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, Taras Kuzio, Alexander J. Motyl, Andreas Umland, and Michał Wawrzonek.

SPPS

Ian Garner, Taras Kuzio (eds.)

Russia and Modern Fascism New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine With a foreword by David Satter

ISBN: 978-3-8382-2015-4 Distributed by

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Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (SPPS)

Vol. 292

ISSN 1614-3515 General Editor: Andreas Umland,

Commissioning Editor: Max Jakob Horstmann,

Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, andreas.umland@ui.se

London, mjh@ibidem.eu

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE* DOMESTIC & COMPARATIVE POLITICS Prof. Ellen Bos, Andrássy University of Budapest Dr. Gergana Dimova, Florida State University Prof. Taras Kuzio, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Prof. Heiko Pleines, University of Bremen Dr. Sarah Whitmore, Oxford Brookes University Dr. Harald Wydra, University of Cambridge SOCIETY, CLASS & ETHNICITY Col. David Glantz, “Journal of Slavic Military Studies” Dr. Marlène Laruelle, George Washington University Dr. Stephen Shulman, Southern Illinois University Prof. Stefan Troebst, University of Leipzig POLITICAL ECONOMY & PUBLIC POLICY Prof. Andreas Goldthau, University of Erfurt Dr. Robert Kravchuk, University of North Carolina Dr. David Lane, University of Cambridge Dr. Carol Leonard, University of Oxford Dr. Maria Popova, McGill University, Montreal

FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Dr. Peter Duncan, University College London Prof. Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, University of Bonn Prof. Gerhard Mangott, University of Innsbruck Dr. Diana Schmidt-Pfister, University of Konstanz Dr. Lisbeth Tarlow, Harvard University, Cambridge Dr. Christian Wipperfürth, N-Ost Network, Berlin Dr. William Zimmerman, University of Michigan HISTORY, CULTURE & THOUGHT Dr. Catherine Andreyev, University of Oxford Prof. Mark Bassin, Södertörn University Prof. Karsten Brüggemann, Tallinn University Prof. Alexander Etkind, Central European University Dr. Ian Garner, Pilecki Institute, Warsaw Prof. Gasan Gusejnov, Free University of Berlin Prof. Leonid Luks, Catholic University of Eichstaett Dr. Richard Mole, University College London Prof. Andrei Rogatchevski, University of Tromsø Dr. Mark Tauger, West Virginia University

ADVISORY BOARD* Prof. Dominique Arel, University of Ottawa Prof. Jörg Baberowski, Humboldt University of Berlin Prof. Margarita Balmaceda, Seton Hall University Prof. Timm Beichelt, European University Viadrina Dr. Katrin Boeckh, University of Munich Prof. em. Archie Brown, University of Oxford Dr. Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Prof. Timothy Colton, Harvard University, Cambridge Prof. Paul D’Anieri, University of California Dr. Heike Dörrenbächer, Friedrich Naumann Foundation Dr. John Dunlop, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California Dr. Sabine Fischer, SWP, Berlin Dr. Geir Flikke, NUPI, Oslo Prof. David Galbreath, University of Aberdeen Prof. Frank Golczewski, University of Hamburg Dr. Nikolas Gvosdev, Naval War College, Newport, RI Prof. Guido Hausmann, University of Regensburg Prof. Dale Herspring, Kansas State University Dr. Stefani Hoffman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. em. Andrzej Korbonski, University of California Dr. Iris Kempe, “Caucasus Analytical Digest” Prof. Herbert Küpper, Institut für Ostrecht Regensburg Prof. Rainer Lindner, University of Konstanz Dr. Luke March, University of Edinburgh

Prof. Michael McFaul, Stanford University, Palo Alto Prof. Birgit Menzel, University of Mainz-Germersheim Dr. Alex Pravda, University of Oxford Dr. Erik van Ree, University of Amsterdam Dr. Joachim Rogall, Robert Bosch Foundation Stuttgart Prof. Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, Middletown Prof. Gwendolyn Sasse, University of Oxford Prof. Jutta Scherrer, EHESS, Paris Prof. Robert Service, University of Oxford Mr. James Sherr, RIIA Chatham House London Dr. Oxana Shevel, Tufts University, Medford Prof. Eberhard Schneider, University of Siegen Prof. Olexander Shnyrkov, Shevchenko University, Kyiv Prof. Hans-Henning Schröder, SWP, Berlin Prof. Yuri Shapoval, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Dr. Lisa Sundstrom, University of British Columbia Dr. Philip Walters, “Religion, State and Society”, Oxford Prof. Zenon Wasyliw, Ithaca College, New York State Dr. Lucan Way, University of Toronto Dr. Markus Wehner, “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” Dr. Andrew Wilson, University College London Prof. Jan Zielonka, University of Oxford Prof. Andrei Zorin, University of Oxford

* While the Editorial Committee and Advisory Board support the General Editor in the choice and improvement of manuscripts for publication, responsibility for remaining errors and misinterpretations in the series’ volumes lies with the books’ authors.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (SPPS) ISSN 1614-3515 Founded in 2004 and refereed since 2007, SPPS makes available affordable English-, German-, and Russian-language studies on the history of the countries of the former Soviet bloc from the late Tsarist period to today. It publishes between 5 and 20 volumes per year and focuses on issues in transitions to and from democracy such as economic crisis, identity formation, civil society development, and constitutional reform in CEE and the NIS. SPPS also aims to highlight so far understudied themes in East European studies such as right-wing radicalism, religious life, higher education, or human rights protection. The authors and titles of all previously published volumes are listed at the end of this book. For a full description of the series and reviews of its books, see www.ibidem-verlag.de/red/spps.

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Ian Garner & Taras Kuzio (Eds.)

RUSSIA AND MODERN FASCISM New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine

With a foreword by David Satter

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Contributors Jaroslava Barbieri is a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Birmingham, and a researcher in the Arena Programme at the SNF Agora Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Her research interests include Ukrainian politics, Russian foreign policy, EU security and enlargement, disinformation, and the politics of memory in the post-Soviet region. Her commentary has appeared in many British and international media outlets.

Paul D’Anieri is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California at Riverside. He studies politics in the former Soviet Union, focusing on Ukraine and on Ukraine-Russia relations. He also teaches and studies economics and budgeting in universities at the University of Florida, and University of Kansas.

He is the author of, among other books, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 2023), Politics and Society in Ukraine (Routledge, 2018; with Robert Kravchuk and Taras Kuzio), Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design (Routledge, 2015), International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs (Cengage Learning, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2020), and Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (State University of New York Press, 1999).

Jolanta Darczewska is a political scientist, translator, and expert on security issues in the post-Soviet area. From 1992 to 2021, she was affiliated with the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and served as its director from 2007 to 2011. She is the author of numerous publications including Between Overt Disinformation and Covert Practice: The Russian Special Services’ Game (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2019), Active Measures: Russia’s Key Export (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2017; with Piotr Żochowski), The Devil Is in the Details: Information Warfare in the Light of Russia's Military Doctrine (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2015), and The Anatomy of

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Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation—A Case Study (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2014).

Maria Domańska is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and specialises in Russia’s domestic politics.

From 2006 to 2015, she was a diplomat at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she worked in the Eastern Policy Department and in the Polish Embassies in Belarus and Russia. For three years, she was head of the Political Section in the Polish Embassy, Moscow. She is the author of Uwarunkowania procesów integracyjnych i dezintegracyjnych na obszarze poradzieckim (Aspra, 2023). Her commentaries and reports have been published by, among others, OSW and Zentrum Liberale Moderne as well as in Nowa Europa Wschodnia, Kultura Liberalna, Institute of National Remembrance Review, New Eastern Europe, Strategic Europe, Sprawy Międzynarodowe, Nowa Debata, Politeja, and other outlets.

Ian Garner is Assistant Professor at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw.

A British-Canadian academic, his work on Russian identity and militarism includes Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) and Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst, 2023). He is a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London. He regularly writes for media outlets including the The Globe and Mail, National Post, Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The New Statesman.

Joanna Getka is Director of the Institute of Intercultural Studies of Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw. She is the author of, among others, Faszyzacja antyfaszyzmu: Kulturowe kody wojny Rosji (Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2024; with Jolanta Darczewska), Na drodze do wolności: Białoruska partyzantka kulturowa w przestrzeni publicznej i Internecie (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2021; with Jolanta Darczewska), U progu modernizacji: Ruskojęzyczne drukarstwo bazyliańskie XVIII wieku (Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2017), and Prosta mowa konca XVIII wieku: Język "Nauk

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Parafialnych" (Poczajów 1794) (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012).

Andreas Heinemann-Grüder is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS), and Professor of Political Science at the University of Bonn. He is, among others, editor of Who Are the Fighters? Irregular Armed Groups in the Russia-Ukrainian War since 2014 (ibidem-Verlag, 2024), Lehren aus dem Ukrainekonflikt: Krisen vorbeugen, Gewalt verhindern (Budrich, 2022; with Claudia Crawford and Tim Peters), Osteuropa zwischen Mauerfall und Ukrainekrieg: Besichtigung einer Epoche (Suhrkamp, 2022; with Angelika Nußberger, Martin Aust, and Ulrich Schmid), Zivile Konfliktbearbeitung: Vom Anspruch zur Wirklichkeit (Budrich, 2013; with Isabella Bauer), and Federalism Doomed? European Federalism between Integration and Separation (Berghahn Books, 2002), as well as author of Föderalismus als Konfliktregelung: Indien, Russland, Nigeria und Spanien im Vergleich (Budrich, 2011), Im Namen der Nato: Sicherheitspolitik und Streitkräftereform in Osteuropa (Agenda Verlag, 2003), Die sowjetische Atombombe (Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2002), Der heterogene Staat (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2000), Die Spezialisten (Dietz, 1992; with Ulrich Albrecht and Arend Wellmann), and Sowjetische Politik im arabisch-israelischen Konflikt (Deutsches Orient-Institut, 1991).

Taras Kuzio is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is the author or editor of 24 books, including The Four Roots of Russia’s War Against Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2025; with Michał Wawrzonek), Fascism and Genocide: Russia’s War Against Ukrainians (ibidem-Verlag, 2023), Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship (ibidem-Verlag, 2023), Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge, 2022), The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics (E-IR, 2018; with Paul D’Anieri), Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger, 2015), Aspects of the Orange Revolution VI: Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions in Comparative Perspective (ibidem-Verlag, 2014), Aspects of the Orange Revolution I: Democratization and Elections in Post-Communist Ukraine (ibidem7

Verlag, 2014; with Paul D’Anieri), Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism (ibidem-Verlag, 2007), and Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence (Macmillan, 1994, 2000).

Alexander J. Motyl is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in 1992-1998 and of the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers in 1999-2008. His books include National Questions: Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe (ibidem-Verlag, 2022), Ukraine vs. Russia: Revolution, Democracy, and War (Westphalia Press, 2017), Imperial Ends: The Decline, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (Columbia University Press, 2001), Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (Columbia University Press, 1999), Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR (Columbia University Press, 1990), Will the Non-Russians Rebel? State, Ethnicity, and Stability in the USSR (Cornell University Press, 1987), and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919-1929 (East European Monographs, 1980).

David Satter has worked for the Chicago Tribune, as Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, and as special correspondent on Soviet affairs for the Wall Street Journal. He was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford, CA, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, and Jamestown Foundation in Williamsburg, VA, and visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Washington, DC, as well as at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union (ibidem-Verlag, 2020), The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin (Yale University Press, 2016), It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past (Yale University Press, 2007), Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale 8

University Press, 2003), and Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale University Press, 2001), Andreas Umland is an Analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies in the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), and Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is editor of the book series ‘Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society’ and ‘Ukrainian Voices’ published by ibidem-Verlag as well as of the collected volumes Ukraine's Decentralization (ibidem-Verlag, 2024; with Valentyna Romanova), Brücken bauen: Analysen und Betrachtungen zwischen Ost und West (ibidem-Verlag, 2012; with John Andreas Fuchs und Jürgen Zarusky), The Idea of Russia’s “Special Path” I-II (special issues of Russian Politics and Law; M.E. Sharpe, 2012; with Dmitry Gorenburg and Emil Pain) Aspects of the Orange Revolution III-V (ibidem-Verlag, 2007; with Ingmar Bredies and Valentyn Yakushyk), Fascism Past and Present, West and East (ibidem-Verlag, 2006; with Roger D. Griffin and Werner Loh), Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche Hochschullehre in Osteuropa I-IV (Peter Lang, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009; with Thomas Keith and Matthias Bürgel), and The Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Russia (ibidem-Verlag, 2004).

Michał Wawrzonek is Professor at the Ignatianum University in Cracow. He is the author/co-author of four monographs: Memory, Politics and Legacy of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ignatianum, 2023), Orthodoxy Versus PostCommunism? Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and the Russkii Mir (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016; with Nelly Bekus and Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska), Religion and Politics in Ukraine: The Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches as Elements of Ukraine’s Political System (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), and Екуменічна діяльність митрополита Андрея Шептицького в Україні та Росії (The Ecumenical Activity of Metropolitan Sheptytsky in Ukraine and Russia) (Basiliani, 2006).

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Contents Contributors ........................................................................................... 5 Preface by the Series Editor Andreas Umland .................................................................................... 13 Foreword David Satter ........................................................................................... 17 Introduction. Russia’s Twenty-First Century Fascism Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio ................................................................... 21 Putin’s Russia as a Fascist Political System. Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Contentious Concept Alexander J. Motyl ................................................................................. 49 How Fascist Is Putinism? Three Uses of the Concept of Generic Fascism for Understanding Russia’s War Against Ukraine Andreas Umland .................................................................................... 79 Narrative Reversal and the Aggression Against Ukraine.

Testing and Understanding Russia’s Fascisation Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska ................................................. 115 The Russian Orthodox Church and Orthodox Imperism Michał Wawrzonek............................................................................... 149 Military and Propaganda Narratives Justifying Russia’s ‘Holy War’ Against Ukraine Andreas Heinemann-Grüder................................................................ 179 The Making of a Homo Putinicus. Fascist ‘Patriotic Education’ in Putin’s Russia Maria Domańska .................................................................................. 203

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From School Benches to Frontline Trenches. The Fascist Paradigm of Russia’s Youth Indoctrination and Militarisation in Occupied Ukraine, 2022-2025 Jaroslava Barbieri ................................................................................. 241 Mass Destruction and Ukrainian Erasure. The Fascist Rebirth of ‘Great Russia’ in Mariupol Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner ................................................................. 271 Conclusion. Fascism with Adjectives?

Paul D’Anieri ....................................................................................... 295

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Preface by the Series Editor Andreas Umland The book series ‘Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society’ (SPPS) was started by ibidem-Verlag in 2004 and included among its first essay collections the volume Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006). This 510-page book contained an extensive, interactive and international scholarly debate of Roger D. Griffin’s definition of generic fascism—a concept also frequently mentioned and partly discussed by the editors of and contributors to the present SPPS volume. The 2006 SPPS book included, as appendices to the main part on Griffin’s notion of fascism, a smaller and also contentious spin-off discussion, on the political role and fascist ideology of Aleksandr Dugin, an afterword, with special reference to Russian affairs, by the late Walter Laqueur, as well as the English translation of a manifesto of early post-Soviet Russian fascism—Dugin’s 1997 essay ‘Fascism—borderless and red.’

The latter three parts were added to the more general debate about fascism and provided some content that justified an inclusion of Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006) into a book series on Soviet and post-Soviet affairs. Nevertheless, the decision to publish this volume in SPPS and the choice of the Nazi-like flag of Russia’s National-Bolshevik Party, founded in 1993 and banned in 2005, as the picture for the 2006 book’s front cover may have been seen, at that time, by some comparativists as inapt. The volume’s inclusion into SPPS linked a distinctly comparative, theoretical, and conceptual debate to one specific country in one historical period (i.e., to early post-Soviet Russia).

Moreover, the initial debate within the broader field of comparative fascist studies had been initiated already in 2002, i.e., before the foundation of SPPS. At the time, Werner Loh invited Griffin to submit a leading article as the basis for a forum discussion on the theory of fascism and its relevance to contemporary democracy.

Loh further contacted a wide range of German- and English-

13

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ANDREAS UMLAND

speaking experts to participate in the controversy that was eventually published within the book Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006).

In 2003-2004, Loh prepared the ensuing interventions for publication and circulated the replies over the course of two rounds of criticism and response. In 2004-2005, Loh accompanied three rounds of the secondary debate on Dugin between the late A. James Gregor and me. These had spun off from the initial controversy over Griffin (Gregor 2004, 2005; Umland 2004, 2005). The entire discussion was initially published, in several stages, within three issues of volumes 15 and 16 of the University of Passau journal Erwägen Wissen Ethik (EWE, Deliberation Knowledge Ethics) that had been previously known as Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften: Streitforum für Erwägungskultur (Ethics and Social Sciences: A Forum of Debate for a Deliberative Culture) and existed in 1990-2015.

Twenty years ago, the decision to republish EWE’s 2004-2005 debate as a collected SPPS volume—with additional short texts by Laqueur, Dugin and myself—under the title Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006) was not only taken for greater convenience to readers interested in a fascinating controversy around Griffin’s important concept of fascism. It was, in 2005, also based on a speculative assumption that both, the term fascism and person of Dugin, would remain topics whose academic and public salience may not decline and could even grow further in Russia. The present SPPS volume and many other publications on Russian imperial nationalism, especially since February 2022, illustrate that this 20-year-old suspicion was unfortunately justified.

Since 2005, ibidem-Verlag’s book series SPPS has published a large informal subseries of monographs and collected volumes on East European nationalism in general and Russian nationalist ideas as well as right-wing groups, in particular. Among them were—in chronological order—arguably seminal monographs, in Russian language, on the neo-Nazi party Russian National Unity (Likhachev and Pribylovskii 2005), in English language, on early post-Soviet Russian antisemitism (Likhachev 2006), in German language, on Dugin’s ideas and theories (Höllwerth 2007) as well as on postwar Soviet-Russian nationalism (Mitrochin 2014), and, in English

PREFACE BY THE SERIES EDITOR

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language, on the fascist writer Aleksandr Prokhanov (Griffiths 2022). Among other books, Marlene Laruelle published in 2007, in Russian language, one of the first larger collected volumes on modern Russian nationalism (Lariuel’ 2007). Finally, several contributors to the present collection have published important English-language books related in one way or another to topics discussed in the present volume in SPPS (Kuzio 2007a, 2007b, 2023; Motyl 2022; Heinemann-Grüder 2024).

I was thus happy to accept Ian Garner’s and Taras Kuzio’s volume for publication in SPPS although, as becomes clear in Chapter 2, I do not always follow Garner’s and Kuzio’s re-conceptualization of fascism, and application of the term to today Russian affairs (see their Introduction & Chapter 8). Yet, like regarding the 2006 controversial discussion of Griffin’s concept in Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006), such differences in interpretation—while sometimes causing frustration—can be cognitively stimulating and are thus worth documenting. In some ways, this SPPS volumes continues the EWE/SPPS debate from 20 years ago. It should not and hopefully will not be the last such collection of essays.

References Gregor, A.J. (2004). Response to Dr. Andreas Umland. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 15(4), 594–595.

Gregor, A.J. (2005). Once Again on Fascism, Classification, and Aleksandr Dugin. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 16(4), 570-572.

Griffin, R., Loh, W., & Umland, A. (Eds.). (2006). Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Griffiths, E. (2022). Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism.

Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Heinemann-Grüder, A. (Ed.) (2024). Who Are the Fighters? Irregular Armed Groups in the Russian-Ukrainian War since 2014. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Höllwerth, A. (2007). Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Aleksandr Dugin: Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus.

Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

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Kuzio, T. (2007a). Ukraine—Crimea—Russia: Triangle of Conflict. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Kuzio, T. (2007b). Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism: New Directions in Cross-Cultural and Post-Communist Studies. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Kuzio, T. (Ed.) (2023). Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship: Bias and Prejudice in Journalistic, Expert, and Academic Analyses of East European, Russian and Eurasian Affairs. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Lariuel’ [Laruelle], M. (Ed.). (2007). Sovremennye interpretatsii russkogo natsionalizma. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Likhachev, V. (2006). Political Anti-Semitism in Post-Soviet Russia: Actors and Ideas in 1991-2003. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Likhachev, V., & Pribylovskii, V. (Eds.). (2005). Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo 1990-2000 (2 vols.). Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Mitrochin, N. (2014). Die ‘Russische Partei:’ Die Bewegung der russischen Nationalisten in der UdSSR 1953-1985. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Motyl, A. (2022). National Questions: Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

Umland, A. (2004). Some Addenda on the Relevance of Extremely RightWing Ideas in Putin’s New Russia. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 15(4), 591– 593.

Umland, A. (2005). Classification, Julius Evola and the Nature of Dugin’s Ideology. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 16(4), 566–569.

Foreword David Satter Communism and fascism, mistakenly viewed over the years as opposites, are two sides of the same coin. Both are based on the supremacy of force. Both seek to destroy the ethical backbone of subject populations, creating a moral vacuum.

Communism is ideological. It sought to impose an entire false interpretation of reality on its subjects. Fascism was also ideological in Nazi Germany and beyond. It adopted a mythology that served its interests without attempting to wholesale reinterpret reality. In any circumstances, however, fascism is always based on extreme nationalism, foreign aggression, and the denial of fundamental rights. Like communism, it conditions people to live and act according to the needs of the state. This is why when Russian communism fell and democracy did not take hold, fascism in its non-ideological variety was a logical result.

The Soviet Union was the first country in history to have been based on atheism. In the absence of religion, the Communists deified the state. The proletariat, which the state purported to represent, became the source of right and wrong. Whatever served the interests of the working class—the ‘protagonist of history’—was moral and therefore not subject to any universal standard of right and wrong. This difficult moral inheritance led to a troubled decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

After 1991, Russia needed transformed the communist economic system by carrying out sweeping economic reforms within the framework of law. Only the rule of law could generate an alternative consciousness in Russia. Unfortunately, many of the socalled reformers of the Yeltsin era did not have time for the rule of law. They were obsessed with transforming the economy so quickly that there could be no possibility of a return to communism. The result was criminal capitalism and, ultimately—to protect the new system—the state use of terror under Vladimir Putin.

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Putin made his career in St. Petersburg working as vice mayor.

Despite this position, Putin acted as one of the city’s links with organised crime groups, especially the Tambov Criminal Organization and its leader, Vladimir Kumarin (disturbingly known as the city’s ‘night governor’). The Tambov gang extorted protection money from thousands of St. Petersburg businesses and engaged in narcotics trafficking, smuggling, and contract killings. Kumarin’s men terrorised the city. Simultaneously, however, they were the preferred business partners of the city administration which was run on a day-to-day basis by Putin.

We often hear that Russia is a mafia state. But even the phrase ‘mafia state’ does not fully capture the depravity of Russian criminal organizations. We may associate the term, ‘mafia,’ at least in the US, with the Italian mafia, which claimed to disapprove of the killing of bystanders and the family members of their victims. There is no such romance about the mafia in Russia. The Russian criminal gangs (like Putin’s partners the Tambov Criminal Organization) that grew out of Soviet Communist society, with its contempt for human life and universal morality, had no such compunctions.

There have been many cases—the number of which seem to have grown since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war—in which hired killers connected to Russia’s criminal organizations have murdered not only a ‘justified’ target but also wives and children.

In the 1990s, the West, led by the US, invested heavily in the idea that the former president, Boris Yeltsin, was the embodiment of democracy. We thereby relieved ourselves of the obligation to think about Russia. All we had to do was support Yeltsin. In fact, Yeltsin was himself hardly dedicated to the rule of law. He did not hesitate to attack the lawful Russian parliament with tanks in 1993.

To protect his family members, he anointed Putin as his heir as the 1990s ended—even though Putin himself was under criminal investigation for bribery and corruption. When Yeltsin chose him as his successor, Vladimir Putin proved to be the ideal person to protect Yeltsin and his family from the consequences of their corruption.

Putin’s rule has been criminally violent from its inception. In early September 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were blown up in the middle of the night, killing 300 people and injuring

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nearly a thousand. The bombings terrorised Russia. People all over the country were suddenly afraid of being blown up in their beds.

Yeltsin ordered the mayor of Moscow to have all 30,000 residential buildings in the capital searched for explosives. Residents everywhere mounted patrols round the clock. Putin, newly appointed as prime minister, vowed ‘to destroy the terrorists in their outhouses,’ and sought targets in the Caucasus to obliterate. Russia launched a military intervention in Chechnya that met with initial success.

Putin’s popularity soared and, in March 2000, he was elected Russia’s president.

There was something deeply suspicious, however, about the bombings. As the days passed, mounting evidence suggested that they were carried out not by Chechen terrorists but by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) as part of a plot to bring Vladimir Putin to power—and to keep him there. On September 23, two individuals who placed a bomb in the basement of a twelve-story building in Ryazan, a city southeast of Moscow, were arrested as the result of a dragnet. They were later proven to be agents of the FSB. Their bomb, which was discovered and deactivated before it could explode, was made of hexogen, the same substance used in the four successful bombings.

Once Putin was president, his regime was implicated in various terrorist acts that claimed the lives of Russian citizens. In October 2002, nearly a thousand people were taken hostage in a theatre on Dubrovka Street in Moscow. Some of the perpetrators had just been released from Russian custody. There is evidence that their explosives were prepared by a retired officer in Russian military intelligence. After security forces flooded the theatre’s auditorium with gas, the terrorists—now lying unconscious—were executed.

So much the better not to be available for questioning.

In 2004, history repeated itself. Terrorists recently released from Russian prisons organised an attack on a school in the city of Beslan, taking nearly a thousand people hostage. Warnings that the attack was about to happen were ignored; the leader of the terrorists may even have been a Russian agent. Russian special forces opened fire on the school with flamethrowers and grenade launchers, killing some of the terrorists and 318 hostages. More than 160

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hostages were burned alive. Most of the dead were children. The Putinist state has for twenty-five years either organised or staged such violent events for its public.

Today, Putin poses as the champion of ‘Great Russia,’ a hypothetical construct that disposes of national boundaries to include Ukraine and Belarus alongside Moscow’s territory. This stance helps rally the support of a nation assaulted almost continually with chauvinistic and violent propaganda. However, the essence of Putin’s fascism lies somewhere deeper. It seems to consist of the desire to throw off any moral restraint, whether internally or suggested by the West, to strengthen the clique of thieves and murderers in Russia who have taken power.

The most dangerous authoritarian states—North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia—in the world today share behaviour that makes them enemies of the universal morality embodied in the culture and institutions of the West. The end of morality is the underlying fascist temptation. The question for the West is: how far will the reach of Russia’s modern fascism be allowed to extend?

Introduction Russia’s Twenty-First Century Fascism Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio On February 23, 2022, a music video was released onto YouTube and Russian networks RuTube and VK. In the video, a pale young man, his hair in white dreadlocks and his body clad in a black leather jacket, stares intently at the camera as he sings against a plaintive guitar accompaniment: ‘We will arise…the truth is with us… God is with us.’ The song, 30-year-old Shaman’s latest release We Will Arise, was littered with similar declarations of national pride, warfare, and revanchism—declarations that, on the surface at least, seemed to invoke the language of twentieth century fascism. In great part thanks to state support, Shaman’s song proved a smash hit and sent the singer’s career as a patriotic tub-thumper into the stratosphere.

Hours later, Vladimir Putin—effectively installed as the dictator-for-life thanks to constitutional changes rammed through the legislature two years earlier—appeared on television to declare the beginning of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine. Tanks, rockets, and soldiers poured into the country that the Russian president contrarily declared a ‘brotherly nation.’

Within weeks, the war crimes and horrors of Bucha and Irpin and the destruction of Mariupol had become bywords for Russia’s genocidal—as many scholars and analysts labelled it (Finkel 2024)— war against its neighbour. The east of Ukraine was seized and tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were killed.

At home, a campaign of violence unfolded at an alarming pace. Angry patriots screamed on television screens and in social media videos, urging the destruction of Ukraine and Ukrainians— neliudi, or unpeople, as they were termed—at all costs. School curricula and textbooks were rewritten to praise the heroes of the socalled ‘Special Military Operation’ as brave defenders of the Motherland who were upholding the legacy that their grandfathers, the 21

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victorious soldiers of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ had established.

Militarised youth groups were showered with money and resources to bolster the young population’s support for war. Russian Orthodox Church leaders and ordinary priests sang hymns to holy war, proclaiming the duty of every Russian man to take part in the crusade against Ukraine to save their soul—and to defend Russia against the Western hordes.

Resistance at home was crushed. The spark of anti-war protest was rapidly extinguished as thousands were arrested in the first days of the war. Opposition leaders were arrested and, like Alexey Navalny, killed. Journalists were jailed, beaten, or declared to be ‘foreign agents.’ New legislation introduced draconian penalties for ‘discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation’—a means to jail everybody from oppositionists to small-scale bloggers and parents whose children had stepped out of line. Russia, as Putin put it, was undergoing a ‘self-cleansing’ that would see it freed of the degeneracy of transgender, LGBTQ+, Ukrainian, and Western decadent influence.

Throughout this carnival of violence and repression, the refrain rang out: We Will Arise. In Russia’s war on Ukraine and Russia’s war on its own public, something new has arisen: a twenty first century form of fascism, embodied in technology, media, and carnivalesque spectacle and participation.

Does Fascism Live On? Did the collapse of the USSR in 1991 mark the end of Russia’s authoritarian experience—or did old trends simply re-emerge in new forms? In this volume, we challenge a group of specialists from across the fields of culture, history, and political science to respond to this question. What we collectively conclude is that, in retrospect, a definitive break with the authoritarian past never occurred in Russia. Democratising forces were soon suppressed in the 1990s and then extinguished under Vladimir Putin. Today, familiar behaviours from the fascist regimes of the twentieth century mingle with a new form of fascism that mobilises subjects on an affective, discursive level.

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‘Fascism’ is an infinitely contested term. Indeed, Robert Paxton (2005, 9) writes that, ‘everyone is sure they know what fascism is.’ Ernst Nolte (1965) saw fascism as a counter-revolutionary ideology that emerged in response to the perceived threats of liberalism and Marxism. Stanley G. Payne (1995) highlights its authoritarian, totalitarian, and militarising aspirations. Emilio Gentile (2000) frames it as a political religion centred on the sacralisation of politics and a charismatic leader, while Umberto Eco (1995) describes a set of flexible characteristics—a cult of tradition, a rejection of modernism, a fear of difference—that he terms ‘Ur-Fascism’ (in this volume, Alexander Motyl discusses these many variations of the term at some length).

Recognising the impossibility of catering to every definition of fascism, in this introduction we draw on the work of Paxton and Roger Griffin (1991) to explore fascism as a phenomenon that demands redemptive violence—especially war—to rebirth a purportedly degenerated nation. We set this into the context of more recent scholarship that accounts for the post- or even post-postmodernity that characterises today’s Russian Federation. Nonetheless, we recognize that these varied perspectives underscore the complexity of fascism, making any singular definition elusive, particularly in the context of Russian variants. As a result, of this complexity, many scholars are rightly concerned to, as Maria Snegovaya (2017) has put it, drop the ‘f-bomb.’

Despite these concerns, we believe that Russia since 2020 has come to embody a modern form of fascism. Putin and his allies are ruling and shaping a Russian nation that is undergoing revolutionary transformation—it is presented, discursively at least, as arising—thanks to a violent kinetic and political war. Russia’s transformation wends through every aspect of Russian life, online, in classrooms, in the law books, and in the Kremlin—and it is manifested in Russia’s behaviour towards Ukrainians and in occupied Ukraine.

Scholars and analysts variously claim that Russia is authoritarian, totalitarian, a hybrid regime, a kleptocracy, or, perhaps, a ‘mafia state’ (Spain Details Its Strategy 2010; Naim 2012). We do not believe there to be an innate contradiction in a twenty-first century fascist state, in this case Russia, being so corrupt that it meets the

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definition of a ‘mafia state,’ and being fascist. Brian Whitmore (2024), for example, persuasively argues that Russia is a kleptocracy whose leaders manipulate nationalism to cling on to power and points to the co-existence of corruption and nationalism. Thus, our contention that Russia is fascist should not preclude its also being a ‘mafia state,’ as government bodies, analysts and scholars have called it.

However, those who argue that Russia simply cannot be fascist—if not deliberately reiterating the Kremlin’s line, then certainly echoing it—fall into familiar traps. For example, some scholars have been reluctant to accept that fascism could exist after 1945. For some, a movement that was tied to modernity and to a great contest between fascism and its Other, socialism, can simply no longer exist in a postmodern—and today post-postmodern—era, when Leninism-Marxism is long gone as a meaningful political force. Ernst Nolte (1993), for instance, argued that fascism in the interwar and war eras was inextricably bound up with anti-Marxism and that ‘the ‘age of fascism’ was fundamentally and permanently ended by the Second World War.’ However, Nolte’s opponents in the Historikerstreit of the 1980s challenged this view as a relativisation that downplayed the Holocaust and the fascist phenomenon more broadly, suggesting that fascism could exist outside of Germany and Italy of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, one need not look far to find fascist or fascistic regimes—Salazar’s in Portugal and Franco’s in Spain—and those—Suharto’s Indonesia, Perón’s Argentina, and the Greek Junta—that displayed elements of the extreme nationalism, corporatist structure, anti-communism, aesthetic neo-classicism and body worship, and use of widespread political violence well into the late twentieth century. These states were not simply the rotting corpses of the mid-twentieth century but active generators of political, social, and ideological processes.

Indeed, ideology, even if inconsistent and irrational, seems essential in a fascist regime. Frequently, scholars supporting the ‘mafia state’ and kleptocracy theses have supposed that Putin’s regime has no ideology at all—an assertion that, if true, should mean that, by any definition of fascism, our theory falls flat. A Rand Corporation report published a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion of

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Ukraine claimed that Russian foreign policy since 1991 has been ‘largely free of ideological drivers’ (Charap et al. 2021, 28-29). The report’s six authors write that nationalism was not a ‘significant driver’ in their data (Charap et al. 2021, 28-29). Oddly, the eight factors the authors do believe influenced Russian foreign policy include Russia’s status as a great power and identity ties between Russia and Russian speakers in the other former Soviet republics, which are both clearly linked to ideology and nationalism. Indeed, this report is part of a trend that saw scholars downplaying the importance of nationalism in Putin’s Russia between the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the early 2020s (see Kuzio 2020).

Nonetheless, much thought-provoking scholarly work (see Laruelle 2024) has recently been published on the Putin regime’s developing ideology, which revolves around religion, war, and national identity (see Snegovaya, Kimmage, and McGlynn 2023).

Dima Kortukov and Julian Waller (2024) argue that since the 2010s, Russia has possessed a de facto ideology that has included antiWesternism, social traditionalism, cultural conservatism and national civilisation. Kate C. Langdon and Vladimir Tismaneanu (2020, 84), meanwhile, went even further. They describe as ‘shortsighted’ the belief there is no ideology in Putin’s Russia, arguing that an exaltation of national destiny, claims of Russian superiority, hostility to Western liberalism, and claims Russia can act with impunity are all evidence of a national ideology. They suggest that Putinism is ‘Peronism on steroids’ (Langdon and Tismaneanu, 2020, 101) and deftly draw attention to similarities between Putinism and the Russian imperial nationalism and anti-Westernism promoted by Andrei Zhdanov, Joseph Stalin’s ideologue. Such continuities between twentieth century Russian imperial nationalism and today’s state ideology are vital to understanding the broader project of state fascism, and particularly the importance of the war against Ukraine to the Putin regime.

The turn to ideology—or perhaps the revelation of ideology in a modern state with deep economic ties to the West—has been a shock to many. Lawrence Freedman expressed surprise at this turn, suggesting further that international relations scholars continue to find it difficult to comprehend ‘just how ideological and religious

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is [Putin’s] view on Ukraine.’ Here, then, we see how contentious the issue of analysing even the most fundamental building blocks of Russian dictatorship is in academic debate, threatening to add further layers of contention and complexity (see Coalson 2022).

Introducing the term ‘fascism’ threatens to add yet more layers of contention and complexity to this difficult debate. Many scholars, with some justification, note that the very extremity of the word ‘fascism’ renders it difficult to apply as an analytical tool (Coalson 2022, Laruelle 2022): do we simply engage in what Laruelle terms a ‘mirror game,’ revealing more about our own projected desires and enmities than about Russia’s nature, by levelling the term at Russia?

Indeed, definition of Putin’s Russia through the lens of Western political science is only made more difficult because the Kremlin draws on the Soviet approach of using terms such as ‘Nazi’ and ‘fascist’ in ways that have little to do with their Western definitions (in a chapter included in this volume, Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska explore this phenomenon in some depth). Soviet propaganda long denounced Ukrainian dissidents, nationalists, and the Ukrainian diaspora as ‘bourgeois nationalists,’ agents of Western and Israeli secret services, and ‘Nazi’ collaborators. These terms were revived by Putin’s Russia during the 2004 Orange Revolution and have grown in usage, especially since 2014 and 2022, within an overall Russian policy of dehumanising Ukrainians. The Soviet Union—with Russia at its head—was, in this narrative, by definition ‘anti-fascist’ due to its Marxist roots and because of its leading role in defeating Nazism in the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Neither the USSR nor Russia could therefore be fascist. In the Soviet Union, whether an individual is a Nazi or fascist had—and continues to have—little to do with political preferences and more to do with whether that individual holds a Ukrainian identity that sees itself as distinct to Russian (see Kuzio 2016, 2024b).

Nonetheless, several scholars have applied the term fascism to Putin’s Russia, a trend that has been accelerating in recent years (Will 2022). Timothy Snyder (2014, 2018, 2022) began describing Russia as fascist in 2014, pointing out that White Russian émigré imperial nationalist and fascist Ivan Ilyin had become Putin’s

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favourite author and was influencing the current president’s attitudes to Ukraine and Ukrainians. Ilyin, like many of his White Russian émigré imperial nationalist peers, denied the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians in a manner all too familiar in today’s Russian propaganda. After 2014 and prior to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alexander Motyl (2016) and Russian scholar Vladislav Inozemstev (2015)—among other Russians—likewise described Russia as a fascist state.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes committed by its invading forces, a growing number of scholars have described Putin’s Russia as being motivated by fascistic or outright fascist ends (see Patrikarakos 2022; Kirillova 2023a, 2023b; Vladimir Putin is in thrall to a distinctive brand of Russian fascism 2022). Jason Stanley (2023) believes Russia is the ‘closest state to fascism since Nazi Germany and [Mussolini’s] Italy…in Russia, it is even tougher than in Italy, with all this Russian ultra-nationalism. Fascist parties and movements exist always and everywhere. The question is whether the government creates the conditions for them to have a decisive influence. Putin succeeded.’ Elena Davlikanova (2024) seems to agree, arguing with some limitations that, ‘Russia does not fully resemble fascist states of the past, lacking revolutionary fervour and a mass obsession with utopia’ and thereby suggests the term ‘post-fascism’--which is, she contends, ‘just as dangerous as fascism.’ Whatever the term—Laruelle (2022) floats terms like ‘proto-fascism,’ while others prefer ‘neo-fascism’—academics circle around the same core questions of ideology, influence, narrative, revolution, and mass participation.

Snyder (2022), Sergei Medvedev (2023), and Mikhail Epstein (2023) have described Russia as a ‘schizo-fascist state’ and Putin as promoting ‘schizophrenic’ fascism. In this ‘schizo-fascism,’ the Kremlin posits a contorted version of the Soviet-era narrative of fascism/anti-fascism to accuse Ukraine and the West of being ‘fascist’ and Nazi while itself being more akin to a fascist regime (and admiring the fascist writings of White Russian emigres). As Snyder (2022) writes, it is precisely in engaging in such logical contortionism that tips Russia into fascism:

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IAN GARNER AND TARAS KUZIO Fascists calling other people ‘fascists’ is fascism taken to its illogical extreme as a cult of unreason. It is a final point where hate speech inverts reality and propaganda is pure insistence. It is the apogee of will over thought. Calling others fascists while being a fascist is the essential Putinist practice…I have called it ‘schizo-fascism.’ Ukrainians simply call it ‘Ruscism.’

This last term—Ruscism—has become widely used in Ukrainian academic discourse about Russia in recent years, but it is one that threatens to essentialise fascism as an innately genetic concept in Russia. As scholars who trace out the explanations for political movements and phenomena in sociocultural processes, we therefore do not favour its use.

The fascist phenomenon lasted into the final decade of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, we contend that the ‘End of History’ as the Cold War ended, and the birth of a globalising postmodernity in the post-Cold War years, did not eliminate fascism.

Indeed, one could make a strong case that, given the two Soviet revanchist and far-right nationalist coup attempts in 1991 and 1993, the late Soviet Union and Boris Yeltsin’s Russia were more dominated by imperial nationalism than the influence of democratisation. It may have lain dormant, but today, in Russia, fascism—or some integral part of its philosophical, political, and aesthetic core—has been manifested.

Toward a Twenty First Century Fascism If Russia can theoretically in the twenty-first century be fascist (or neo-fascist, quasi-fascist, schizo-fascist, Ruscist, and so on), then considering what constitutes the core of modern fascism is an essential step to understanding the state’s nature. Paxton (2005, 218) defines fascism as an ‘obsessive preoccupation with community decline,’ ‘humiliation, or victimhood,’ and ‘cults of unity combined with violence, ethnic cleansing, destruction and national rebirth, energy, and purity’ driven by ‘nationalist militants’ working with traditional elites using ‘redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints towards the goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.’ For Paxton (2005, 155, 157), then, war is the ‘clearest and radicalising impulse’ for fascism. Paxton states that ‘war making proved essential to the cohesion, discipline, and explosive energy

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of fascist regimes.’ War was indispensable for fascist regimes to harden societies, conquer land, and fulfil imperial dreams through expansionism—all factors that, as the authors in this volume show, are found in Putin’s Russia.

Roger Griffin’s (1991) description of palingenetic ultranationalism—the notion that a social revolution must precede a ‘national rebirth’—explains the function of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Genocide and ethnic cleansing must precede ‘revolution’ and rejuvenation. War provides the impetus for a ‘rebirth’ of the fascist society through violent purification of the self and the ‘Other.’

Through war, the imagined demons and ailments of the body politic are banished. As Ukrainians, Ukrainian cities, and Ukrainian cultures are destroyed, and as thousands of Russia’s own soldiers are sent into the slaughter, it is worth asking whether war—refracted in endless cultures and celebrations of violence in the Russian Federation—has become so central to Moscow’s de facto ideology, discourse, and official aesthetics that the country has tipped into fascism. George F. Will (2022) has recently noted that ‘the fascist aesthetic of redemptive, regenerative violence serves the fascist philosophy of national purification through the ‘self-detoxification of society’ (to use Putin’s phrase).’ Images, discourses, and behaviours of this violence and purification wend their way relentlessly through Putin’s Russia (even if, in the digital age, escapes towards and simulacra of other realities are always on tap in a way unimaginable in ‘traditional’ fascism).

Modern fascism includes some of the facets of its earlier twentieth-century predecessor, such as racial superiority, territorial expansion, dictatorship, cult of war, glorification of death and sacrifice for the motherland. Likewise, modern fascists deny the existence of certain peoples and have the goal of reunifying or rejuvenating purportedly damaged or destroyed national and other groups. These facets are familiar from the past. Hitler’s pan-Germanism denied the existence of Austrians as a people distinct from Germans. In 1938, Hitler ‘reunited’ Austria and the Czechoslovak region of Sudetenland with Germany.

Putin’s pan-Russianism denies the existence of Ukrainians as a people distinct from Russians and launched an invasion to bring

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about ‘reunification’ of the pan-Russian people (obshcherusskii narod). Russia’s fascistic denial of Ukrainian identity prompted former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma (2023, 489) to equate Putinism with fascism. Lawrence Freedman (2024) argues that, for Putin, ‘it’s almost as if the idea of independent Ukraine is an affront’ and ‘without Ukraine, Russia is not complete’ (see Kuzio 2022; Kuzio 2024a; Kuzio 2024b). Freedman is alluding to the Russian imperial nationalistic denial of the existence of Ukraine as an independent entity and Putin’s (2021) erroneous claim Russians and Ukrainians are ‘one people.’ These were central arguments in Putin’s (2021) long essay, ‘On the Unity of the Russian and Ukraine Peoples,’ published eight months before the full-scale invasion.

Despite these parallels, today’s fascism does not have to be identical to that of the past. Scholars such as Paxton contend that fascism does not definitionally need to imitate ‘classical fascism perfectly in its outward signs and symbols’ (2005, 174). Writing about western Europe in the early 2000s, Paxton (175, 179) believed that ‘something akin to fascism was far from dead in Europe as the twenty-first century opened.’ In what he calls ‘updated fascism,’ twenty-first century fascists continue to look to an idealised, mythical past (in Russia’s case, that experienced under Tsarist leaders Peter I, Catherine II, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin), rather than the future; they view their nation as being under threat from internal ‘traitors’ (domestic opponents in the Russian Federation and Ukrainians seeking to split from and betray the pan-Russian people) and external forces (in Russia’s case, the West); are mired in a culture of victimhood (the supposition that Russia was ‘stabbed in the back’ during the 1990s); and they remain racist, misogynist, homophobic, and anti-intellectual. Twenty and twenty-first century fascists have a mission to cleanse their society and punish ‘traitors,’ whether domestic opponents—such as opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was murdered in prison in March 2024—or Ukrainians who dare to defy Moscow’s claim that they and their compatriots are really Russians whose identities have been deformed by a nefarious ‘Collective West.’

Paxton’s writing proved prescient (see Zerofsky 2024). However, it is through the use of online communications that we see the

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biggest differences between twentieth and twenty-first century fascisms—and begin to understand the absence of certain key facets of the fascism of the past. Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen (2022, 121) explains how European fascists in the twenty-first century turn to simulacra and digital platforms to spread the idea that they defend Europe’s true Christian civilisation by ‘shaping the chaotic mass with force, awakening people to a historic mission, stopping multiculturalism and violently annihilating the foreign within.’ Rasmussen shows how these movements chiefly operate online, building simulacra of reality in which the ‘Other’ can constantly be (re)created—and offered up as an object for destruction to purify the body politic.

While the goals and aspirations of modern fascists, therefore, may resemble to a great degree those of their past, their tools have changed immensely. Twenty-first century fascists continue to use mass rallies. However, contemporary fascists also have access to 24hour television, the internet, and social media. In the inter-war era, fascists mastered the use of television and radio to spread their propaganda and mobilise and indoctrinate their populations. Today, they are also media savvy, so that ‘social media forms a fertile environment for fascists,’ functioning as a place where citizens can connect, engage, and celebrate in simulacra of 24/7 rallies that conjure up feelings of togetherness, belonging, and the national masses (Rasmussen 2022, 126). Indeed, across the globe, fascist and neofascist movements are arising because of the disruptions in meaning and truth brought about by the advent of the digital era (Rabinowitz 2023).

Modern fascism, like its twentieth century predecessor, thus uses parades, rallies and large gatherings to mobilise true believers (Garner 2023). Nevertheless, modern fascism can reach larger audiences at the flip of a switch thanks to the advent of social media, modern digital communications, artificial intelligence, and 24-hour television. Its reach and existence are dependent on violence conducted, discursively and physically, across a full spectrum of life: in culture, in religion, in the classroom, and in doctrine, woven seamlessly between and throughout both the physical and the digital realm. It may not occupy and mobilise millions, simultaneously, as Nazism appeared to—but in a virtual world where

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borders and time collapse, it fuses into Russian life, and out into Ukraine and beyond, with ease; individuals can easily believe that they are one among many thousands or millions of mobilized even if, in reality, their connection to others is a virtual simulacrum in which little is real (Garner 2025). If fascism, as an extreme and reactionary movement, emerged partly as a response to the dislocations and anxieties of modernity (as envisaged by, for example, Marshall Berman [1995]), then today’s fascism responds on the micro level to the continued anxieties and fragmentations provoked by the digitisation and hermitisation of twenty first century society.

Aspects of this new form of fascism are to be found in Russia and other ‘revolutionary’ powers seeking their own form of revolution: an upheaval in the international liberal order which has existed since the end of the Cold War (the birth of the so-called ‘multipolar world’). Russia’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept, for example, claims to herald a new ‘era of revolutionary changes’ which Russia will create (The Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation 2023). In the same year as the new Russian foreign policy concept was released, Chinese leader Xi Jinping—not a fascist but certainly an extreme nationalist and part of a growing wave of allied authoritarian nations that includes China, Iran, and North Korea—announced that: ‘Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years.

And we’re driving this change together.’ Russian analyst and Kremlin ally Dmitri Trenin (2024) describes ‘revolutionary Russia’ as ‘pushing back more and more against the hegemonic US-centred system,’ presumably together with its anti-Western allies. Russia, in his eyes, sees the international liberal order as ‘beyond repair and is instead seeking to prepare for a new alternative arrangement.’

Russia’s ability to create a ‘multipolar world’ is limited: the state’s attack on Ukraine has left its economy, demography, and international standing weaker. It is beholden to China and India to make trade terms; its influence in the BRICS grouping and across Central Asia has plummeted. The strident claims that the ‘multipolar world’ is being birthed, expressed across propaganda channels and especially online, may not be borne out by reality, but they function effectively for consumption as post-postmodern simulacra.

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Despite the loose parallels with China, Iran, and North Korea—which seem to function mostly at the discursive level, despite Pyongyang’s kinetic intervention in the war against Ukraine—in Russia alone, war and violence have come to be the driving force of culture and politics.

Russia’s Fascist Transformation, 2000-2025 Since Vladimir Putin took power in 2000, the Russian Federation has experienced three critical junctures on the road to dictatorship and fascism. The first of these junctures came in the mid-2000s, when Russian imperial nationalists reacted sharply to what they perceived as Washington’s fomenting of colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Mikhail Zygar (2016, 85) writes that Putin was obsessed from the first year he became president, saying ‘We must do something, or we’ll lose it.’ The second juncture came in 2012 when Putin returned to the presidency as the ‘gatherer of Russian lands’ who would unite great, little, and white Russians (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians respectively) into a pan-Russian people within a Great Russia. Ukrainian distinctness was officially repudiated, while Russia also became defined as a civilisation-state.

The third critical juncture from 2020 witnessed Russia moving from authoritarianism to dictatorship and fascism. Since the 2022 invasion, Putin’s regime has increasingly adopted a growing number of attributes of what we define, using Paxton and Griffin’s work as our guide to interpreting how post and post-postmodernity has altered the nature of collective and political engagement with ideology and nation-states, as a fascist state (Soldatov and Borogan 2022; Kovalev 2023). Russia transitioned from authoritarian collective rule to dictatorial rule by a leader whose term in office was extended by constitutional changes until 2036, but de facto made president for life. The regime suppressed every avenue of independent life; Russia now has more political prisoners than in post-Stalin USSR (see Reznikova and Korostelev 2024). Putin was hailed as the new imperator (emperor), a title used by Russian tsars between 17211917. The 2020 change in Russia’s constitution ‘enshrined a revised version of the nineteenth century Tsarist formula ‘Orthodoxy,

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Autocracy, Nationality’’ (Laruelle 2024, 8). Sergei Uvarov (17861855), Minister of Education under Nicholas I (1825-1855), formulated the Russian Empire’s ideology of ‘Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nationality’ in 1833. This ideology has been revived in Putin’s Russia (Plokhy 2023b).

Russia today, through its quasi-religious cult of the ‘Great Patriotic War’—which Putin begin to amplify in his earliest years in power (Wood 2011)—is a major critic of Nazism and Nazi crimes.

Yet on the other hand, Hitler’s nemesis, Stalin, who murdered just as many people, has been elevated and promoted by Putin’s Russia into a cult figure. Stalin has returned to school history textbooks.

His positive portrayal rippled through online groups and fora in the 2000s, but has since been hijacked by the regime, finding its way further into popular culture in pulp fiction, calendars, and other paraphernalia easily available in bookstores and subway kiosks. In this pop culture miasma, Stalin himself might be seen to play the role of charismatic fascist leader—a godfather of imperial nationalism. Today, nearly two thirds of Russians (63 percent) and nearly half of Russians aged 18-24 (48 percent) have a positive attitude towards Stalin (Dynamics of the Attitude of Ukrainians to Stalin 2023). Analysts at the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that at least some part of Russian society has, as a result of attitudes inherited from the Soviet era and the state’s embrace of Stalin, proved ‘incapable of a critical view’ of the former dictator. KIIS suggests that positive Russian attitudes are one reason for widespread approval for the war against Ukraine today (Dynamics of the Attitude of Ukrainians to Stalin 2023).

Alain Besancon believes Russia had by 2020 become, like the fascist regimes of the past, ‘literally a police state’ (as quoted in Langdon and Tismaneanu, 2020, 211). The aim of policing is certainly to exert control, but it also has a cleansing function (see Reznikova and Korostelev 2024). Meanwhile, the emptying of Russian prisons and the sending of convicts to fight in Ukraine, where they have a high rate of casualties, might also be understood as an act of cleansing. A disproportionate number of Russian casualties in the war in Ukraine are from its national minorities. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of anti-war or apathetic millennials who

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have left Russia for Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, and Central and Eastern Europe, have stymied the chances of an opposition movement growing. Russia’s space is being emptied of potential ‘Others’.

These cleansing and purifying functions are also embodied in the state religion. Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill heads a church that codifies war as a vital part of national identity through rituals and state-sponsored constructions like the newly consecrated Cathedral of the Armed Forces in Moscow, welcomes fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine as an act of symbolic purification, embodied in the image of ‘washing’: ‘Sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty washes away all sins’ (Russia’s Patriarch Kirill Says Ukrainians Dying Because Of ‘Sins’ 2022). To kill, to die, and to be resurrected in official memory—as a part of the nation’s cult of war—is bound up as much with individual identity recreation as it is with pure obedience to the state.

Nadiia Koval and Denys Tereshchenko (2023, 19) describe Russia’s revolutionary fascism as a ‘revanchist conservative ideology’ with the goal of re-integrating the former Soviet Union, beginning with Ukraine, within Russia’s state civilisation empire. Russian media, official discourse, and the Russian Orthodox Church portray Russia, backed by its revolutionary allies, as ‘fighting a holy war against godless Ukraine to protect traditional values. Russia is the true protector of Christianity and indeed all faiths. Ukraine, usurped by the godless heathens of the Kyiv regime, is fundamentally evil.’ The state, meanwhile, demonises Ukraine and its Western supporters as ‘godless heathens’ (Thirteen Myths 2024). While the entire population is not mobilised into acting on this ideology, as twentieth century fascist regimes at least purported to attempt, the state is able to mobilise groupings of its subjects, drawing them into shared realities—principally online—that are backed up with extensive physical and digital surveillance and security apparatuses. In this volume, chapters on the rebirth of Mariupol, patriotic education in Russia, and forced indoctrination in occupied Ukraine reveal the workings of these digital (and chiefly affective) forms of mobilisation—beginning to tackle what has been a vexing topic for

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scholars seeking to understand whether seemingly apathetic Russians are ‘mobilised.’

Russia’s internal purification is echoed and furthered by the interlinked destruction of Ukraine and revival of Great Russia. Fascists need enemies—Others—to target and destroy to ‘mobilise followers’ (Paxton 2005, 36-37) and, as Griffin would contend, to enact a purification and rebirth of the nation. For today’s Russia, Ukrainians play the role of enemy-in-chief. In summer 2021, Putin (2021) published an ideological treatise arguing that Ukrainians and Russians were one people. The document provided pre-emptive justification for the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ that began eight months later. It also became the introductory essay to an 802page collection of 242 documents on Russian-Ukrainian unity published by the Russian State Archives (Ob istoricheskom edinstve russkikh i ukraintsev 2023)—a quasi-official piece of doctrine-making based on a document that, according to Eugene Finkel, resembled writings from the early twentieth century by the Kyiv-based Club of Far-right Russian Nationalists (2024, 162). Ukrainians had become the ‘official’ enemy of the state and the nation. Russia’s 2024 ‘Strategy to Counter Extremism’ defines Ukrainians as a source of ‘extremism’ and purveyor of neo-Nazism and Russophobia that constitute a threat to the state of Russia and, implicitly, a metaphysical and poorly defined sense of Russianness (Putin, 2024b).

The ‘[re]unification’ of Ukrainians and Russians as a singular, pan-Russian people necessitate the destruction of deleterious, extremist, or enemy elements of the former. This could be classified as part of the broader internal purification of the Little Russian nation from its contamination by Western values and structures (a topic we explore vis-à-vis the obliteration of Mariupol later in this volume). Externally, Russia’s rejuvenation will purportedly be accomplished by the imperial nationalist expansion of the Russian Federation and thus the rejuvenation of Great Russia.

What is thus understood in international law as territorial expansion against a sovereign state—Ukraine—is described by Putin and imperial nationalists as the ‘return’ of ‘Russian historical lands’ that were wrongly included by Lenin within the Ukrainian SSR.

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Indeed, on the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter I in 2022, Putin described how the reunification of ‘historically Russian land’ (in Ukraine) with Russia would herald a new golden era (Cheng and Thebault 2022). Peter I ‘tore nothing off,’ Putin said; the tsar merely ‘returned’ land and strengthened the country (Cheng and Thebault 2022). Domestic propaganda about the revival of ‘national greatness’ through comparison to military victors of yore is widespread in Russia. For example, the Russian Military Historical Society, headed by presidential aide and former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, publishes the book series ‘Gatherers of Russian Lands,’ which includes texts on Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, Peter I, Catherine II, Emperor Alexander III, Stalin, and—the end of the line—Putin himself. Putin is lauded in school room posters, military billboards, rock concerts, and political rallies as the Russian leader who is fighting Ukraine and its Western sponsor whose defeat will rejuvenate Great Russia.

At the heart of today’s Russia, then, are discourses and realities of violence and war as paths to national rejuvenation. The goal of destroying Ukraine and Ukrainian identity has been presented as a second ‘Great Patriotic War’ against Nazism; after the war, the defeat of Ukraine and the ‘Collective West’ will unleash the rebirth of Great Russia. Russia’s full-scale invasion is supported by a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox Church and accompanied by numerous war crimes, dehumanising and genocidal rhetoric against Ukraine and Ukrainians (Ibrahim 2022; Hook 2023, 2024; Lewis 2024; McGlynn 2024).

Fascist regimes were built ‘upon popular feelings about master races, their unjust lot, and their rightful predominance over inferior peoples’ (Paxton 2005, 16). Russia seems to have inherited a chauvinistic Soviet belief, readily amplified by the Putin regime after flirtations with more pluralistic and liberal views in the early 1990s, that it had a preordained right to dominate Eurasia. Judging by his public statements, at least, Putin views his war against Ukraine as a vast metaphysical struggle that will determine the revival of the Russian chosen people and Great Russia. Truth is, under fascism, irrelevant: the ‘truth’s’ doctrine is determined by the

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‘leader’s mystical union with the historical destiny of his people’ (Paxton 2005, 17).

The leader (i.e., Putin) has awoken in segments of the Russian people ‘the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historical destiny, and power’ (Paxton 2005, 17): in the modern world, these segments exist in and are bonded around fluid groupings online in digital projects, astroturf-ed groups, and social media comment threads as much as they are in classrooms, fascist rallies or youth groups.

Conclusion: Why Russia Has Become a Fascist State Griffin (2021) believes Putin’s regime is based on a sense of ressentiment which he defines as ‘resentment politics.’ Ressentiment, as understood by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, is a ‘psychological state’ of ‘suppressed feelings of envy and hatred’ which are impossible to satisfy by revenge or other acts (Greenfeld 1993, 551). Contemporary Russian ressentiment has its roots in the eighteenth century but today is driven by a sense that the West looks down on Russia (Greenfeld 1993, 583). In the mid-2000s, Vladimir Putin famously called the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.’ It seems that ressentiment about Russia’s post-Soviet trajectory—its purported humiliation by the West—has caused the president to equate ‘Historic Russia,’ the Tsarist Empire, and the USSR. Russian imperial nationalists view these constructs as interchangeable (Osborn and Ostroukh 2021).

A revived Great Russia will, in the Putinist understanding, overcome the humiliation and trauma of the 1990s by rebuilding traditional Russian exceptionalism and messianism, which have deep roots in both Russian imperial nationalism and Soviet communism (Greenfeld 1993, 585-587; Duncan 2000, 55). US and European support for an allegedly artificial Ukraine feeds into antiWestern xenophobia which has been one of the ideological drivers of Putin’s Russia since the mid-2000s. Russian imperial nationalists blame the West for transforming the allegedly fictitious Ukraine into an Anti-Russia ‘Other’ because of its support for memory politics and identity policies that reinforce a Ukrainian identity

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different to Russian. Western military support to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion adds to these existing beliefs held by Russian imperial nationalists that they are fighting a proxy war against the West in Ukraine. The defeat of Ukraine therefore would, in the eyes of Russian imperial nationalists, also lead to the defeat of the West and the so-called US-led unipolar world, ushering in a return to the pre-1991 multi-polar world where Great Russia would, like the USSR, be recognised and respected as a great power.

The centrality of revolutionary violence at the heart of palingenetic nationalism bear similarities to our use of imperial nationalism, which combines imperialism and ethnic nationalism. It is through revolution—in this case, the assault on ‘Nazi’ Ukrainian identity and assisting purportedly confused Ukrainians to again become a Little Russian branch of the pan-Russian people —that Russia’s ‘golden age’ can be restored and Great Russia revived.

Speaking at his annual televised Direct Line phone-in in December 2024, Putin declared: ‘You know, when all is calm and life is measured and stable, we get bored. This amounts to stagnation, so we crave action. When action begins, time starts whistling by— or bullets do, for that matter’ (2024a). War, expressed in playful, performative, and quasi-ironic tones in political discourse and designed to be endlessly played out for public consumption in viralbaiting soundbites, is central to Putin’s political philosophy. For Putin’s Russia, war expunges ‘boredom’: in consumerist, twenty first century terms, it rejuvenates. As a result, as we have suggested, today’s fascism does not require mass mobilisation or the massed parades that yesterday’s fascism did.

As Shaman put it in his 2022 song, and as Putin’s subjects heard and reiterated as they tuned into and discussed its message online, We—the abstractions and realities of Great Russia, Russians, and Russianness—Will Arise. They will arise in discursive and performative forms online, in popular culture, in education, and in state doctrine and history-making projects. Yet this thoroughly modern expression of fascist intent is accompanied by the harsh physical reality of real violence and kinetic warfare. Putin unleashed war against Chechnya when he first came to power, against Georgia in 2008, and against Syria in 2015. In 2014, Russia invaded

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and annexed Crimea and launched military aggression against eastern Ukraine. A decade later Russia unleashed a full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the home of its anointed ‘Other’ (see Iliyaso and Herrera [2024] for striking similarities in Russian political, military, and media strategies towards the two Chechen wars and Ukraine).

As Putin’s Russia pours itself into this violent and destructive war, the Russian state has, we contend, become a fascist country.

Outline of the Book Our book is divided into three sections. In the first, three chapters debate the nature of Russia’s fascism and question whether the country is in fact fascist. To begin, Alexander J. Motyl revisits work from almost a decade ago to offer a useful discussion of the nature of ‘fascism,’ building on the discussion here. He cuts through the definitional confusion around the term before offering a clear definition of fascism as a political system, proceeding to argue both that Russia fulfils the definitional requirements he has laid out and that labelling Russia as fascist is a useful scholarly and practical exercise. Andreas Umland offers another perspective on the debate.

Umland is less keen to apply an ‘abstract term to a disputed historical phenomenon’ and is cautious about labelling Russia in 2025 as ‘fascist.’ He presents a detailed reading of the debates around the nature of fascism in Russia and abroad, deftly picks apart the issues of affective projection in describing Russia as ‘fascist,’ and challenges our own contention (and the arguments of Maria Domańska and Jaroslava Barbieri in this book) that Putinism seeks to create some sort of revolutionary consciousness within the individual. In the next chapter, Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska explore the process of what they term as ‘fascisation’ in Russia since 2000, when Vladimir Putin first became Russian president, offering a conceptual model to understand how the Russian regime distorts and mirrors realities in ways that further our understanding of how a modern fascism harks back to, and is constructed on, the wreckage of twentieth-century fascism and communism.

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Questions of belief, mobilisation, and consciousness that have proven divisive for scholars questioning both the intent and the products of Putin’s regime vis-à-vis the issue of fascism, dominate the remainder of this book. In the second section, three chapters on Russia dissect aspects of the country’s ‘fascisation.’ Michał Wawrzonek shows how the Russian Orthodox Church has created a ‘nomos’ of empire, drawing on old historical myths about the ‘Russian world’ and playing fast and loose with Christian theology to lay the foundation for an ideology of ‘just war’ against Ukraine to ‘reunite Holy Rus.’ Wawrzonek demonstrates how much of this thinking emerged organically from within the Russian Orthodox Church, since it was re-legalised by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1943 as the dominant Church of the three eastern Slavs (not just Russians).

Wawrzonek suggests, therefore, that the ‘collapse’ of the Soviet Union in 1991 was not so great a spiritual break as is commonly supposed as the Russian Orthodox Church continued to lay claim to the three eastern Slavs as its exclusive canonical territory. This, of course, was shattered by Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew I’s removal in 2018-2019 of Ukraine from the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church and the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, thus disintegrating the mythical concepts of ‘Holy Rus’ and the Russkii mir (Russian World).

Andreas Heinemann-Grüder’s contribution explores how myths of ‘holy war,’ a crucial component of the fascist ethos, are diffused by the Russian military’s propaganda channels across various media platforms. His conclusion challenges the possibility of a Roger Griffin-like ‘rebirth’ in a narrative that has ironically made the prospect of military victory in both Ukraine and in a broader conflict with Russia’s (imagined) enemies not just impossible but undesirable. Subsequently, Maria Domańska builds on and updates a growing body of scholarly work exploring Russia’s increasingly nationalistic educational system. Domańska analyses a range of aspects of Russian education both within and beyond formal institutions to argue that Russia’s youth are exposed to a wholly fascist education system. Domańska, despite many scholarly claims to the contrary, suggests that—even though children may be apathetic to much of the regime’s educational content—there is every chance

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that the state will succeed in growing the ‘school-to-military pipeline’ for fight future wars. Throughout these chapters, the trend is clear: a move from physical to digital information spaces is evident in Russia’s fascisation.

In the book’s final last chapters, two scholars consider how Russia’s fascism operates in occupied Ukraine. First, Jaroslava Barbieri demonstrates how education is being transformed in the occupied territories, revealing through a wide range of empirical evidence how Ukrainian children’s identities are being violently reshaped. Barbieri deftly makes comparisons between Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini’s programmatic (re-)education of Italian schoolchildren and the relationship between state and individual in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine and argues that most Ukrainian children are integrating with, or being integrated into, a Russianised system of ideological education. Next, and finally, Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner explore the discursive and physical ‘reconstruction’ of occupied Mariupol, suggesting that through a process of deconstruction, reconstruction and re-colonisation, the Russianised city is projected to symbolise Russia’s national rebirth as a great power, and acts as a site for Russians to centre their own, inner ‘rebirth’ in line with Putinism. These case studies of Ukraine demonstrate how discursive recreation of the self—and the discursive nature of fascisation highlighted elsewhere—is reinforced by physical violence, de-Ukrainisation and Russification.

As editors, we believe the essence of Russia’s fascism both in spirit and in operation lie in the miasmic nature of the social media age. It is in the virtual world where discourse, narrative, and identity are created and recreated rapidly and seamlessly by a state (and by its supporters) that has made digital policy a central plank of its public engagement work. Although, as the scholars in this volume show, there will remain areas of disagreement about whether fascism is reviving in the twenty-first century, the contours of Putin’s regime and Putinism, and if Russia should be defined as a fascist state. Nevertheless, we are convinced the chapters in this groundbreaking book advance our knowledge by shedding important light on the politics and culture of Putin’s Russia at war with Ukraine, and the West. Finally, we believe our book will be of

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interest to scholars who may have not reached the same conclusions as ourselves and the authors in this book by expanding the scholarly debate about Putin’s Russia and Putinism as a twenty-first century form of fascism.

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Klimenko, E. (2024). Martyrological in Form, Military-Patriotic in Content: The Russian Orthodox Church and the Memory of the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 57(3), 125-146.

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Laruelle, M. (2024). Russia’s Ideological Construction in the Context of the War in Ukraine. Ifri Reports, 46. French Institute of International Relations. https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/etudes-de-lifri/rus sieeurasiereports/russias-ideological-construction-context-war Lewis, D. (2024, January 18). The Quiet Transformation of Occupied Ukraine. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ quiet-transformation-occupied-ukraine#:~:text=A%20nominal%20t ransition%20period%20runs,rights%20abuses%20that%20accompan y%20it McGlynn. J. (2023). Russian Propaganda Tactics in Wartime Ukraine. The Russia Program at George Washington University. https://drive.google. com/file/d/1xdmk4Mn2G-jNSWhljjuv7sCqMbE-LT3Y/view McGlynn, J. (2024, April 23). Russia is Committing Cultural Genocide in Ukraine. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/23/rus sia-ukraine-cultural-genocide-looting-indoctrination-deporatation/ Medvedev, S. (2023). A War Made in Russia. London: Polity.

Motyl, A. J. (2016). Putin’s Russia as a Fascist Political System. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 49(1), 25-36.

Ob istoricheskom edinstve russkikh i ukraintsev. (2023). Compiled by V. A. Arakcheev, D. A. Bezyev, E. M. Grigoriev, N. A. Kirill, P.P. Sadykov, A. K. Skorospelov, A. K. Sorokin, A. S. Stepanov, T. V. Tsarevskaya-Dyakieskin, and A. V. Yurasov (Moscow: ‘Communication of Epochs’ Foundation). https://rusarchives.ru/novosti-rosarhiva/2306-2023-sbornik-dokumentov-ob-istoricheskom-edinstve-russkih-iukraincev Osborn, A., & Ostroukh, A. (2021, December 12). Putin Rues Soviet Collapse as Demise of ‘Historical Russia.’ Reuters. https://www.reuters. com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-collapse-demise-historical-ru ssia-2021-12-12/ Parfitt, T. (2024, December 30). Stalinist Denunciations Revived as Putin Encourages Snitching. The Times. https://www.thetimes.com/world /russia-ukraine-war/article/stalinist-denunciations-revived-putinrussia-ukraine-276lf77th Patrikarakos, D. (2022, 22). Vladimir Putin’s Fascist Fetish. The Spectre of Franco Haunts Ukraine. Unherd. https://unherd.com/2022/07/ vladimir-putins-fascist-fetish/ Paxton, R. O. (2005). The Anatomy of Fascism. London: Penguin.

Payne, S. G. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Putin, V. (2021, 12). On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

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Putin, V. (2024a, December 19). Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75909 Putin, V. (2024b, December 28). Decree on ‘Strategy to Counter Extremism in Russia.’ http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/76020 Rasmussen, M. B. (2022). Late Capitalist Fascism. London: Polity.

Reznikova, E. & Korostelev, A. (2024, February 27). A Study into Repression under Putin. Proekt. https://www.proekt.media/en/guide-en/ repressions-in-russia-study/ Russia’s Patriarch Kirill Says Ukrainians Dying Because Of ‘Sins’. (2022, September 26. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. www.rferl.org/a/russ ia-patriarch-kirill-dying-ukraine-sins/32052380.html Snegovaya, M. (2017). Is It Time to Drop the F-Bomb on Russia? Why Putin Is Almost A Fascist. World Policy Journal, 34(1), 48–53.

Snegovaya, M., Kimmage, M., & McGlynn, J. (2023). The Ideology of Putinism: Is it Sustainable? Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/ideology-putinism-it-sustainable Snyder, T. (2014, March 20). Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine. New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/03/20/fascismrussia-and-ukraine/ Snyder, T. (2018, March 16). Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s Philosopher of Russian Fascism. New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/online/ 2018/03/16/ivan-ilyin-putins-philosopher-of-russian-fascism/ Snyder, T. (2022, May 19). We Should Say it. Russia is Fascist. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/russia-fasc ism-ukraine-putin.html Soldatov, A., & Borogan, I. (2022, 27). Putin’s New Police State. In the Shadow of War, the FSB Embraces Stalin’s Methods. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putins-newpolice-state Semyzhenko, A., & Kobernyk, K. (2023). Interview with Jason Stanley. Babel. https://babel.ua/en/texts/97131-yale-university-professor-jaso n-stanley-has-been-researching-fascism-for-years-he-assures-that-m odern-russia-is-very-similar-to-nazi-germany-only-the-basis-of-itsideology-isn-t-race-but-language-and Tolz, V. (2021). Russia. Reinventing the Nation. London: Arnold Publishers.

The Economist. (2022, 28). Vladimir Putin is in Thrall to A Distinctive Brand of Russian Fascism. The Economist. https://www.economist. com/briefing/2022/07/28/vladimir-putin-is-in-thrall-to-a-distincti ve-brand-of-russian-fascism

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Will, G. F. (2022, August 5). Putin is Doing His Best to Out-Fascist Mussolini. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini ons/2022/08/05/putin-follows-mussolini-example/ Wood, E. A. (2011). Performing Memory: Vladimir Putin and the Celebration of World War II in Russia. The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 38(2), 172-200.

Zerofsky, E. (2024, October 8). Is It Fascism? New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/2024/10/23/magazine/robert-paxton-facism.html Zygar, M. (2016). All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin.

New York: Public Affairs.

Putin’s Russia as a Fascist Political System Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Contentious Concept Alexander J. Motyl Scholars of contemporary Russia generally agree that the political system constructed by Vladimir Putin is authoritarian and that the Russian president plays a dominant role in it. By building and expanding on these two features and engaging in a deconstruction and reconstruction of the concept of fascism, I suggest that the political system of Putin’s Russia may be termed fascist. In a move that some scholars may consider quixotic, I shall first attempt to rescue the concept of fascism from a quagmire of conceptual confusion.

Having formulated a plausible definition of fascism, I shall argue that the Putin system meets fascism’s definitional requirements. Finally, I will explain why calling Putin’s Russia fascist matters for scholars.

My argument takes the form of a syllogism whose premises rest on the one hand on a plausible definition of the concept of fascism and, on the other hand, on the scholarly consensus regarding Putin’s Russia. If my definition of fascism and the consensus regarding Putin’s Russia are valid, then it logically follows that Putin’s Russia may legitimately be termed fascist or, at the very least, ‘fascistoid.’

I argue that four features—full authoritarianism (dictatorship), mass support, a personality cult, and an active, personalistic leadership style (whether wise or vigorous)—are the key components of fascism as a system of rule. According to Stanley G. Payne (1995, 12), a ‘fundamental characteristic’ of fascism is ‘the insistence on what is now termed ‘male chauvinism’ and the tendency to exaggerate the masculine principle in all aspects of activity.’ ‘Only fascists,’ writes Payne, ‘made a perpetual fetish of the ‘virility’ of their movement and its program and style.’ Developing a conceptual framework that situates these defining characteristics within a 49

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typology of political systems is perfectly achievable. That said, it is important to appreciate that no definition and no conceptual framework is perfect (see Gerring 1999). Definitions and frameworks are simplifications that help organise our thinking. Some do it better; some worse. Some are more useful; some less. All are flawed and none captures ‘reality’ in all its complexity. Definitional pluralism and a multitude of competing frameworks are therefore inevitable.

Expecting unanimity, or even lasting consensus, is impossible—especially on a topic as contentious as Russia’s fascism.

Part of the problem is the unhelpful public discourse in North America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union that has seen the word fascist come to denote anyone or anything one dislikes. In the United States, for instance, President Donald Trump was called a fascist by Timothy Snyder (2024) because he enjoyed a personality cult and misconstrued reality (i.e., lied). I agree that both the Trump personality cult and the misconstruing of reality exist, but they alone are not enough to make the American president a fascist.

Missing from Snyder’s (2024) analysis was the fact that Trump had in his first administration practiced his populism and demagoguery within the institutional framework of American democracy. That changed in the aftermath of his inauguration in 2025. His first few weeks in office clearly demonstrated Trump’s determination to dismantle America’s democratic institutions. Although Snyder jumped the gun, we might now be justified in calling Trump a fullfledged fascist or, at minimum, a fascistoid demagogue.

In Putin’s Russia, much of the confusion traces back to the intentional semantic obfuscation of Soviet and Russian ideologists, who used and still use fascist as a synonym for anti-communist or anti-Russian. As a result, any perceived enemy of Putin’s Russia is a fascist, with the bizarre Orwellian result that Ukrainian, Estonian, and other non-Russian democrats are termed fascist by the propaganda apparatus of what in fact is, I argue, a fascist country. Indeed, one of the key reasons for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was the Ukrainian government’s supposedly ‘neo-Nazi’ character. By the same token, Putin’s Russia must be a paragon of democracy and any suggestion to the contrary is immediately met with invective and vituperation. Snyder (2022) puts it well:

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Russian fascism will claim to be anti-fascist. Russia can be a fascist regime even if its leader speaks of opposing ‘fascism’ or ‘Nazism.’ Indeed, the deep self-absorption and grotesque contradiction of Putin’s position confirm that what we have before us is precisely Russian fascism. Fascists celebrate national willfulness and oppose logic…A fascist who calls someone else a ‘fascist’ is no less of a fascist for doing so. He is more of a fascist. He is pursuing fascism’s priority of will over reason to its extreme.

Given this controversy, one might be perfectly justified in suggesting that the term ‘fascism’ has become so broad and controversial as to be meaningless—or, perhaps even worse, useless—and that terming Putin’s Russia fascist in no way clarifies matters. I suggest that the concept of fascism can be salvaged from the conceptual confusion surrounding it, but only after deconstructing and reconstructing the term ‘fascism.’ Even then, given the conceptual chaos within fascism studies, it may still prove impossible to find more than limited acceptance by scholars of fascism of any definition, framework, or typology. Faced with this prospect, one can either shrug and continue or shrug and discontinue. I have chosen the former route. Like many scholars and analysts in both Russia and the West, I suggest that to call Putin’s Russia by any other term than ‘fascist’ is to miss just how different it is from run-of-the-mill authoritarian or illiberal systems.

Scholarly trends within the last few years imply the wisdom of my choice (Andreas Umland [2024], for example, provides a useful overview of fascism’s relevance to Putin’s Russia). Ever more Russians, Ukrainians, Americans, and Europeans have found the term useful for making sense of Putin’s Russia. They differ on definitions—which is no surprise—but their terminological agreement testifies to the fact that Putin’s Russia is no longer a simple authoritarian state, but something more than authoritarian.

Especially significant is Marlene Laruelle’s (2021) campaign to reduce arguments in favour of applying the term ‘fascism’ to Russia to what she terms a ‘strategic narrative’ and ‘propaganda’—and thereby question fascism’s applicability to Putin’s Russia. In devoting so much time, energy, and paper to rejecting fascism’s applicability, Laruelle (2020, 2021) has in fact acknowledged that it can no longer be ignored and must be taken seriously. Laruelle insists that

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an anti-Russian ideological disposition accounts for fascism’s growing popularity in analyses of Putin’s realm. In fact, it is not anti-Russianism or anti-Putinism that made the fascist label plausible, but the reality of politics in Putin’s Russia. States that routinely murder political opponents, imprison thousands, instil fear in tens or hundreds of thousands, dismantle democratic institutions, quash the free press, and initiate genocidal wars must invite comparisons with similar regimes—and not comparisons with European democracies. Putin’s Russia moved from authoritarianism to consolidated authoritarianism in 2000-2019 and after 2020 to dictatorship and fascism (see the introduction and chapter by Garner and Kuzio). Since 2020, collective rule has been replaced by rule by one dictator, a 2020 change to the constitution de facto made Putin president for life as a new tsar, Putin’s regime’s search for internal and external enemies has led to repression at home and military aggression and war crimes abroad, all independent media were closed, and Russia has now jailed more political prisoners than the post-Stalin USSR (see Reznikova and Korostelev 2024).

Conceptual Confusion in Defining Fascism This is not the place to discuss in totum the conceptual chaos about defining fascism (fuller analyses are available in Payne [1980] and Griffin [1993]). Suffice to say that the confusion surrounding the term ‘fascism’ may be greater than that surrounding other ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Gallie 1956; Connolly 1983). Consider the vast differences among the following definitions of fascism: • •

Hans Buchheim (1986, 23): ‘The essence of fascism is rebellion against freedom.’

Paul Corner (2002, 351): ‘Fascist dictatorship ensured, for the vast majority of people, that there were no choices to be made; that this is what constitutes the real totalitarian nature of fascism (and not the greater or lesser level of open and direct repression); and that it is this that makes Italian fascism directly comparable to its justly reviled partner and ally, German Nazism.’

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• •

•

• •

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Juan Linz (1976, 12-13): Fascism is ‘a hyper-nationalist, often pan-nationalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, anticommunist, populist and therefore anti-proletarian, partly anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois, anti-clerical, or at least, non-clerical movement, with the aim of national social integration through a single party and corporative representation not always equally emphasised; with a distinctive style and rhetoric, it relied on activist cadres ready for violent action combined with electoral participation to gain power with totalitarian goals by a combination of legal and violent tactics. The ideology and above all the rhetoric appeal for the incorporation of a national cultural tradition selectively in the new synthesis in response to new social classes, new social and economic problems, and with new organisational conceptions of mobilisation and participation, differentiate them from conservative parties.’

Adrian Lyttleton (1973, 12): ‘Fascism, reduced to its essentials, is the ideology of permanent conflict.’

Michael Mann (2004, 13): ‘Fascism is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.’

Stanley G. Payne (1995, 14): ‘Fascism may be defined as a form of revolutionary ultra-nationalism for national rebirth that is based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, positively values violence as end as well as means and tends to normalize war and/or the military virtues.’

Robert O. Paxton (1998, 17): ‘The fourth stage [of fascism is] the exercise of power.’

Robert O. Paxton (2004, 218): ‘Fascism may be defined as a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elite groups, abandons

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•

•

democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.’

Dylan Riley (2005, 288): ‘I treat Italian fascism and de Rivera’s Spain as instances, respectively, of hegemonic authoritarianism and an economic corporate dictatorship.’

Roger Scruton (1982, 169): ‘Fascism is characterised by the following features (not all of which need to be present in any of its recognised instances): nationalism; hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to the values of the liberal enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and admiration for his special qualities; a respect for collective organization, and a love of the symbols associated with it, such as uniforms, parades, and army discipline.’

Confronted with such a variety of stances, a person might rationally conclude that fascism is meaningless or non-existent. I attempt to minimise confusion by developing a definition of fascism in what I trust is a conceptually transparent, simple, and useful manner. I first delineate what fascism is not (or what it is less usefully conceived as) before suggesting what it is (or what it is more usefully conceived as). That is, I proceed by a process of elimination until, faute de mieux, only one definitional category remains. I propose a definition of fascism that identifies it not as a type of group (movement, party, or organization), disposition (state of mind or set of attitudes), ideology (worldview or belief system), or politics (exercise of power or competition for scarce resources), but as a type of polity (political system, regime, or state).

I submit that these five categories—which refer to agglomerations of individuals (groups), agglomerations of affects (dispositions), agglomerations of ideas (ideology), agglomerations of behaviours (politics), and agglomerations of institutions (polities)— comprise the universe of possible relevant categories of which fascism can be a type. Why can fascism not be all five categories or some combination thereof? For one simple reason. Every definition consists of a definiendum (the thing being defined) and the definiens (the words or phrase that defines the definiendum). Although any

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definiendum may be variously defined (hence the inevitable definitional pluralism that frustrates scholars), a definition may not consist of more than one definiens. For better or for worse, therefore, definitions are not elaborate lists or descriptions of things (à la Linz above), but pithy declarative statements of the ‘A is abcB’ variety (where the definiens, abcB, consists of the modifiers, abc, and a noun, B). It follows that one should be able to substitute a definiens for the definiendum in any sentence without reducing it to gibberish.

Most of the above-stated definitions would, alas, fail this simple test.

Unsurprisingly, the definitions listed above fit under these five categories. Thus, Buchheim’s (1986, 23) notion of fascism as ‘rebellion’ effectively reduces fascism to a rebellious disposition or politics. Linz (1976) specifically calls fascism a movement. Lyttleton calls it an ideology. Mann’s notion of fascism as the ‘pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism’ is, like Buchheim’s (1986), dispositional and political. Payne (1995) views fascism as an ideology (an ultra-nationalist, vitalist philosophy), while Paxton’s (2004) belief that it is ‘a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation’ clearly places it in the realm of disposition and politics as well. Paxton (1998) and Riley (1995) see fascism as a form of rule or regime. Scruton (1982) ascribes elements of ideology, disposition, and politics to fascism.

‘Reality’ is more complex, multifaceted, and messy than definitions. In reality, fascism appears to be many things. In social science, however, we cannot formulate typologies or classifications— or answer the question of whether Putin’s Russia is fascist, fully authoritarian, or something else—without clear, concise, and persuasive definitions that reduce complex phenomena to one key dimension, their ‘essence,’ or what they ‘really’ are. Such simplifications usually strike historians as reductionist, and they are—for historians. Small wonder that many historians of fascism regard the search for a generic definition as pointless (for a critique of a conceptual approach to fascism see Allardyce, 1979). For social scientists, clear definitions, as Giovanni Sartori (1970) has emphasised, are indispensable to clear thinking about causes and effects.

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Why is there such a broad variety of conceptualisations of fascism? Paxton (1998, 2-5, 8) provides five reasons for the lack of consensus: First, a problem of timing. The fascist phenomenon was poorly understood at the beginning in part because it was unexpected… A second difficulty in defining fascism is created by mimicry. In fascism’s heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization…this leads to the third problem with defining fascism, posed by the dauntingly wide disparity among individual cases in space and in time.

They differ in space because each national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity… A fourth and even more redoubtable difficulty stems from the ambiguous relationship between doctrine and action in fascism… [T]he words of fascist intellectuals—even if we accept for the moment that they constitute fundamental philosophical texts—correspond only distantly with what fascist movements do after they have power. Early fascist programs are poor guides to later fascist policy…The fifth and final difficulty with defining fascism is caused by overuse: the word ‘fascist’ has become the most banal of epithets. Everyone is someone’s fascist.

Paxton’s (1998) fourth reason—that scholars too often take fascists at their own word and accept their self-depictions as accurate reflections of the reality—is worth greater attention. Benito Mussolini’s discussion (2004) of fascism is instructive: if we believe him, fascism amounts to everything. Fascists are obviously welcome to believe that, but there is no reason that we should follow in their footsteps. Fascists claim to have totalitarian states, but, despite their self-image, fascist states rarely, if ever, are totalitarian. Hitler Germany came closest, but even it fell short of Stalinist totalitarianism by retaining a market economy, religious autonomy, and significant amounts of rule of law for Aryans.

Although we should approach fascist self-representations with caution, there is one claim that deserves to be taken seriously.

In his famous essay, Mussolini (2004, 310) emphasises that fascism is a state: ‘The keystone of Fascist doctrine is the conception of the State, of its essence, of its tasks, of its ends.’ Mussolini’s use of the word ‘keystone’ is important. Although his essay begins (305-6) by defining fascism as a ‘political conception,’ a ‘spiritualised

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conception,’ an ‘ethical conception,’ a ‘religious conception,’ and a ‘historical conception’—in short, as an all-encompassing way of life that includes groups, dispositions, ideology, and politics—Mussolini recognised that all these conceptions depended on the political core of a state for their coherence.

As Bosworth (2006, 564) notes, ‘Mussolini told [Francisco] Franco in October 1936, what the Spaniard should aim at was a regime that was simultaneously ‘authoritarian,’ ‘social,’ and ‘popular.’ That amalgam, the Duce advised, was the basis of universal fascism.’ Dictionary definitions of fascism also emphasise fascism as a form of rule. Thus, the Oxford Dictionary (2015) defines fascism as, first, ‘an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization,’ and second, as ‘(in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.’ Merriam-Webster (2015) defines fascism as, first, ‘a way of organising a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government’ and second, ‘very harsh control or authority.’

I suggest we take Mussolini’s recognition of the centrality of the state seriously. All fascists want to capture the state and transform it into a peculiar kind of authoritarian entity. Groups, ideologies, dispositions, and politics are not ends in themselves. They are means to the end of seizing power and imposing fascist rule on some population or the consequences of seizing power. The key to understanding what fascism is therefore lies in understanding what fascist rule is.

I argue in the next section that it is unhelpful to think of fascism as a type of group, disposition, politics, or ideology. Moreover, reducing fascism to nationalism is a serious blunder. If fascism is not a group, a disposition, a politics, or an ideology, then it can only be a type of polity. If so—and after explaining why I prefer the term ‘political system’ to ‘regime’ or ‘state’—all that remains is to demonstrate that the defining characteristics of fascism as a political system are identical to those of late Putin’s Russia.

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What is Fascism?

The case against fascism as a group, movement, party, or organisation rests on the claim that there is nothing intrinsically fascist about those phenomena as such. That qualifier is critically important. All groups, whether fascist or non-fascist, have leaders, followers, hierarchies, flags, parades, and marches. All are demagogic and draw on affect as much as, if not more than, reason in striving to mobilise their constituencies. Many groups are also violent. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s comments on organisation and propaganda in Mein Kampf differ little from Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin’s views on these areas in his manifesto What Is to Be Done? (1902). Indeed, both works could easily serve as handbooks for all manner of movements across the entire political spectrum. If we are to distinguish fascist movements, parties, and organisations from their nonfascist counterparts, we have to leave the realm of groups per se and explore their dispositions, ideologies, politics, or preferred polities.

Naturally, to claim that fascism is not a type of group is not to state that fascist groups cannot empirically exist. They obviously can and do exist—not because of their intrinsically fascist ‘groupness,’ but because of their appropriation of fascist programmes.

The notion of fascism as a psychological disposition (state of mind or set of attitudes) appears at first glance to have some conceptual traction. Alfredo Rocco (2004, 313) stated that, ‘It is true that Fascism is, above all, action and sentiment.’ Umberto Eco (1995) suggests that fascists are supposed to be excitable characters prone to various forms of ‘extremism,’ and extremism is a disposition par excellence. However, reducing fascism to a psychological condition—such as lethargy, extremism, or moderation—is unhelpful.

After all, although some fascists may be psychologically excitable and attitudinally extremist, so are most dedicated political activists on the left, right, and centre as well as all devotees of a radical politics. More importantly, as I have already noted, we must distinguish between fascist self-representations and actual fascist behaviour. Although they may claim to be irrational, excitable, and action-oriented, most fascists at most times behave quite rationally, coolly, and calmly—as do, indeed, most serious political activists

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on the left, right, and centre. If they did not, they would never have been able to seize power in the first place. By the same token, this is not to say that temperamental fascists cannot exist. They can and do, but not because temperament is an intrinsic feature of fascism.

Fascism as politics (exercise of power or competition for scarce resources) is open to the same criticism directed against fascism as group. If we conceptualise fascism as a radical, extremist, or rightwing politics (or as any other kind of politics), we will ultimately have to define these modifiers in terms of dispositions, ideologies, or polities. An excitable, vigorous, or tough politics would direct us to dispositions. An ideologically radical, extremist, or right-wing politics would direct us to ideology. A politics that aspired to build a radical, extremist, or right-wing polity would direct us to polities.

In sum, fascism as politics only begs the question: what kind of politics? Once again, a caveat is in order. My claim is not that fascists cannot and do not practice politics. Obviously, they do. Rather, my claim is that their politics is not intrinsically fascist.

The case against fascism as an ideology, worldview, or belief system rests on the empirical fact that no such thing as a coherent fascist ideology exists. There is no fascist Karl Marx or John Stuart Mill. There is no fascist equivalent of Marxism or liberalism. Instead, there are bits and pieces of often contradictory writings and contradictory beliefs produced by self-styled and non-self-styled fascists. There is nothing comprehensive, systematic, and, most important perhaps, obligatory for all fascists. Mussolini’s (2004) writings on fascism are a case in point. They are a jumble of claims about reality, life, politics, society, and the spirit that provide little practical guidance about how to behave and what to do to promote the fascist cause. Paxton (1998, 4) puts it well: Fascism is a political practice appropriate to the mass politics of the twentieth century. Moreover, it bears a different relationship to thought than do the nineteenth-century ‘isms.’ Unlike them, fascism does not rest on formal philosophical positions with claims to universal validity. There was no ‘Fascist Manifesto,’ no founding fascist thinker. Although one can deduct from fascist language implicit Social Darwinist assumptions about human nature, the need for community and authority in human society, and the destiny of nations in history, fascism does not base its claims to validity on their truth.

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Griffin (1993) attempts to salvage the fascism-as-ideology project by arguing that fascism is nationalism. As he puts it (1993, 26), ‘fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism.’ Payne (1995) makes similar arguments, and David Roberts (2000) takes fascist ideology equally seriously. The primary flaw with Griffin’s analysis is that nationalism—whether understood as the exaltation of one’s nation or a desire for national liberation (see Motyl, 1990)—is ubiquitous in today’s world. Who, in the modern world, does not support national ‘palingenesis’—or the rebirth, regeneration, or revival of one’s nation? Modern political discourse, in both democracies and non-democracies, is suffused with claims about reviving and regenerating a nation’s pride, glory, prosperity, stature, or status. According to Griffin (1993, 32-33), ‘the term “palingenesis” …refers to the sense of a new start or of regeneration after a phase of crisis or decline.’

Every nation, whether communist, liberal, or fascist, has a flag that it regards with pride, a pantheon of heroes that it venerates, a national narrative that it reproduces in textbooks, and national holidays that it uses to stage parades. Every regime, political system, or state contains some national characteristic—be it the claim that ‘the nation’ is a monolith, the claim that ‘the nation’ is the source of popular sovereignty, or the claim that ‘the nation’ must be embedded in proletarian internationalism. Nation exaltation has become quotidian. Michael Billig (1995) suggests using the term banal, since nationalist has become a synonym for human being. But in nationalism-heavy readings of fascism, if everyone is a nationalist, so everyone must also be a proto-fascist. Moreover, since ultra-nationalism is, as an ultra-form of nationalism, immanent in nationalism, and fascism is ultra-nationalism, fascism must be immanent in nationalism. The fascist bacillus is thus present in every form of national exaltation, no matter how innocent, liberal, tolerant, and progressive. Every society is thus proto-fascist—a claim that seems excessive, to say the least.

Griffin (1993, 37-38) does not adequately distinguish between nationalism and ultra-nationalism. While he says that ultra-nationalism refers to ‘forms of nationalism which ‘go beyond,’ and hence

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reject, anything compatible with liberal institutions or with the tradition of Enlightenment humanism which underpins them,’ he also speaks of ‘[n]ationalism (by which scholars clearly mean a profoundly illiberal form which corresponds to what we have called ultra-nationalism)’ (Griffin 1993, 37-38). The first claim suggests ultra-nationalism is an ultra-form of nationalism; the second suggests they are identical. In fact, what scholars really mean by ultra-nationalism is, I suspect, chauvinism. If so, appending the modifier ‘ultra’ to the term ‘nationalism’ is a sleight of hand that creates a putative connection between nationalism and chauvinism when none such connection need exist, whether conceptually or empirically.

Although flawed, Griffin’s (1993) conflation of nationalism and fascism does enable us to achieve an improved conceptual handle on fascism. In contrast to nationalism, fascism’s two preconditions are an existing state and an existing non-fascist type of regime or political system. Fascists do not build states, regimes, or political systems de novo. Fascism and fascists are always found in existing nation-states with existing non-fascist types of regimes or political systems. Fascism and fascists do not exist simply to assert the ontological reality of fascism as groups, ideologies, dispositions, or politics. They come into being precisely because they aspire to change existing non-fascist regimes or political systems into their fascist counterparts. In contrast to fascism, which is invariably anti-democratic, the regimes to which nationalists aspire are not. Nationalisms and nationalists have ranged across all political ideologies.

John Rawls (2001) suggests that liberalism demands the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination and is thus an intrinsically nationalist project—because their ideology is fundamentally indifferent to the type of regime that characterises the nation-state.

Fascism as a Political System If fascism as group, disposition, politics, or ideology are unpersuasive, then only one option remains: to view fascism as a type of polity (political system, regime, or state). My preference is for fascism as a type of political system. The concept of political system, as defined by David Easton (1953), enables us to go beyond the political

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institutions that comprise regimes and states and incorporate relevant social actors implicated in the system’s repression of its subject population. As a type of political system, fascism therefore concerns the relationships between and among the actors, rules, and institutions that constitute political systems.

To grasp what kind of system fascism is, we need a typological framework that encompasses the major types of political systems, differentiates between and among them along a set of identical criteria, and locates fascism within that typology. Table 1 provides a comparative overview of the defining characteristics of competitive authoritarian, fully authoritarian, democratic, and fascist political systems (I exclude totalitarian systems since they fall beyond the scope of this chapter). In contrast to Zimmerman (2014) and Levitsky and Way (n.d.), who view authoritarianism in terms of the absence of democratic institutions, I have chosen ten dimensions (political institutions, leader, worldview, popular attitude toward the regime, economy, opposition and civil rights, non-state institutions, coercive apparatus, propaganda apparatus, and violence) that, while fully consistent with their schemes, give authoritarianism some positive content. Many other features that are commonly assumed to mark fascist systems are not intrinsic to the concept. Some fascist systems are warlike; others are not. Some are racist and/or antisemitic; others are not. Some build concentration camps; others do not.

Table 1: Political Systems and Their Features Features

Democracy

Political institutions

Multiple parties; genuine elections; autonomous parliament; independent judiciary

Competitive (hybrid) Authoritarianism Dominant party; semi-rigged elections; subordinate parliament; semi-independent judiciary in non-political sphere

Full (Consolidated) Authoritarianism Dominant party; rigged elections; rubber-stamp parliament; semi-independent judiciary in non-political sphere

Fascism Dominant party; rigged elections; rubberstamp parliament; semi-independent judiciary in non-

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Leader

Elected official

Grey eminence or junta

Grey eminence or junta

Worldvie w

Incoherent; State and nation admiration Support

Incoherent; State and nation exaltation

Incoherent; State and nation exaltation

Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Minimal state interference in market economy

State alliance with dominant forces in market economy

State alliance with dominant forces in market economy

Opposition

Substantial

Intimidated

Wholly or mostly neutralised

Civil rights

Respected

Coercive apparatus

Subordinate to government None or minimal

Greatly circumscribed Part of ruling elite

Routinely violated Part of ruling elite

Significant, limited

but

Significant, but limited

Targeted violence, widespread coercion

Targeted violence, widespread coercion

Popular attitude toward regime Economy

Propaganda apparatus Violence and coercion

Sporadic violence and coercion

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political sphere Personalistic dictator Incoherent; State, nation, and leader exaltation Mass support

State alliance with dominant forces in market economy Wholly or mostly neutralised Routinely violated Part of ruling elite

Significant, but limited Targeted violence, widespread coercion

As the typology suggests, fascism is a sub-type of full authoritarianism, differing from it in three respects. Fascist dictators exercise a personalistic leadership style, whereas authoritarian dictators are grey eminences or military juntas. What passes for an authoritarian worldview is centred on the state and nation, while the fascist equivalent also celebrates the wise or vigorous personalistic leader.

Finally, authoritarian populations acquiesce in authoritarian rule, whereas their fascist counterparts willingly submit to fascism in

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exchange for promises of a grand and glorious future. I therefore define fascism as a popular, fully authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leader. In turn, a competitive authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leader may be termed fascistoid—that is, almost but not quite fascist (Motyl 2010).

Importantly, this definition applies to classic fascist political systems such as Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain, and Ustaše Croatia. It also suggests that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya, Hafez-al Assad’s Syria, Idi Amin’s Uganda, Papa Doc Duvalier’s Haiti, and Kemal Atatürk’s Turkey may be classified as fascist at certain times of their existence. In contrast, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, Józef Piłsudski’s Poland, and Juan Peron’s Argentina were not fascism, as they were not fully authoritarian. Although my definition does not (and cannot) capture all the features of all these systems, it does capture their common ‘fascist’ core and therefore enables us to classify and group them as well as compare them. If one wants to differentiate between and among sub-types of fascism, one can easily append any number of modifiers (partial vs. full, authoritarian vs. near-totalitarian, violent vs. coercive, etc.) to isolate the different species within the larger genus. If one imagines totalitarianism as being an extreme form of authoritarianism, then fascism may also be conceptualised as an ‘imperfect’ sub-type of totalitarianism, since it would have all of totalitarianism’s characteristics except for one: full state control of the economy.

Putin’s Russia as a Fully (Consolidated) Authoritarian System Given my definition of fascism as a popular, fully authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leader, I now lay out the case for considering Putin’s Russia as such a political system. As noted above, I rest my case primarily on the scholarly literature on Putin’s Russia. William Zimmerman (2014, 7-8) captured the consensus within the field about the nature of Russia’s political system as early as 2014:

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There was no unanimity in the literature as to how to characterize Russia’s political system in the mid-1990s—democracy (Mikhail G. Myagkov), electoral democracy (Michael McFaul), competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way). Most Western specialists, however, who classified Russia in the mid-1990s, agreed with Levitsky and Way’s statement à propos Russia at that juncture, ‘[t]he regime was quite open in the early and mid-1990s’ with ‘highly competitive elections,’ a ‘legislature [that] wielded considerable power, and private mass media [that] regularly criticised Yeltsin and provided a platform for opposition.

Zimmerman (2014, 7-8) continues: At the same time, whether using McFaul, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, or Freedom House as their basis for judgment about how to categorise postSoviet Russian politics, few scholars would dispute the within-system changes in the Russian political system in the dozen years after the 1996 election. Over that time, the trend was away from what had been—warts and all—a highly competitive system. Instead, in the period between the 1996 Yeltsin electoral victory and 2008 when Vladimir Putin selected Dmitry Medvedev as his replacement as president, presidential elections became decreasingly open, decreasingly competitive, and increasingly meaningless.…This was much of the basis why, of the thirty-five states Levitsky and Way coded as competitive authoritarian in 1990–95, Russia and Belarus were the two that were coded as ‘full authoritarian’ in 2008.

Levitsky and Way (2010, 186, 190, 200) came to a similar conclusion four years earlier, writing in 2010: Russia was a stable competitive authoritarian regime through 2008…Under Vladimir Putin (1999-2008), increased state and party capacity helped eliminate many potential sources of regime instability, and the regime—largely immune from outside pressure—consolidated…As we shall see, increased state and party capacity helps to explain Russia’s transformation from a relatively fragile regime under Yeltsin to an increasingly stable and closed one under Putin…Putin succeeded in consolidating authoritarian rule mainly by eliminating key organizational sources of vulnerability. In a context of very low leverage and a weak opposition, he met virtually no resistance as he eliminated the last vestiges of democracy.

Zimmerman (2014) and Levitsky and Way (2010) believed that Putin’s Russia was moving from competitive authoritarianism toward, if not necessarily quite reaching, full authoritarianism. Vladimir Gel’man (2015, 7), on the other hand, claimed that Putin’s regime deserved to be defined as a competitive authoritarian regime in 2015.

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In sum, scholars generally agreed even over a decade ago that Putin’s Russia was authoritarian. I see no reason to dispute that assessment. If anything, the system has become a fully consolidated authoritarianism in the last decade, especially after constitutional changes adopted in 2020 enabled Putin to rule in what amounts to perpetuity. As public opinion surveys also show, the Putin regime, and especially the Russian president himself, has enjoyed immense popularity and popular support for much of the last three decades (see Parfitt 2014; Statista 2024; White and McAllister 2013; Volkov 2014).

While Putin has been eviscerating democratic institutions throughout his entire tenure in office, that process became most pronounced after the 2011-2012 anti-regime protests in Russia and the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-2014 in Ukraine, reaching its apex during Russia’s war with Ukraine in 2014-2015 and 2022-2024.

A sharp turn toward full authoritarianism in 2014-2015 and thereafter should not surprise us. Internal threats, bloody wars, genocide, and economic decline—and Russia partook of all four because of the Euromaidan Revolution and its two invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022—generally lead to a concentration of power in the hands of the executive, intolerance of dissent, and increased progovernment propaganda.

Significantly, it is within the initial timeframe (2014-2015) that a variety of Russian analysts (see Iampolskii 2015; Ikhlov 2015; Shiropaev 2014; Zubov 2015; Inozemstev 2015a) first claimed that Putin’s regime was fascist—thereby disproving Laruelle’s (2020, 2021) assertion that the argument for Russia’s being fascist is almost a form of Western propaganda. Ilya Gerasimov (2015, 67) openly stated that Putin’s Russia is ‘a classical fascist regime of a corporate state.’ Vladislav Inozemtsev (2015a) agreed: ‘The state that is currently being formed in [Russia] in many respects accords with the scholarly definition of a ‘fascist’ state.’ Evgenii Ikhlov (2015) found that fascism is at the core of Putinism, which ‘reactivated the fascist tendency in full gear. At that time, there were no more anti-market or Soviet-cosmopolitan components in the state ideology. Thus, Brezhnevite ‘left-wing fascism’ became classic ‘right-wing [fascism].’ And it is even more becoming the essence of Putinism.’

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Finally, while emphasising the uniqueness of Putin’s political system, Andrei Zubov (2015) insisted that Russia’s is comparable to that of a variety of authoritarian states, including those that were fascist: Contemporary Russia is highly reminiscent of Latin American dictatorships.

Or of Thailand in the 1940s-1950s. But it is not at all reminiscent of anything in Russian history. Putin is constructing an unprecedented state. On the one hand, he evinces tendencies toward authoritarianism, with a controlled pluralistic economy: a seeming corporative economic system reminiscent of Italian fascism under Mussolini with its nationalism and alliance with the church. Although, I repeat, there is no complete similarity. In a word, what is currently transpiring in Russia is, I believe, quite unique. Although it has already been found in the history of other countries in the twentieth century.

What is currently being built, simply put, is a corporative state of the fascist type wrapped up in Soviet ideology, the ideology of Stalinism.

We need not agree with the Russian analysts, of course—just as we need not agree with Putin’s supporters, who might claim that the system is becoming ever more democratic—but their willingness to use a term, ‘fascism,’ that has so many distinctly negative (and provocative) connotations within the Russian context is significant.

These analysts clearly believed that something qualitatively different had transpired in Russia, that Putin had concentrated substantial power in his hands and succeeded in eliminating the remaining democratic residue from the system. A new vocabulary was necessary to capture this change.

Putin as a Personalistic Dictator Following Aristotle, we expect an authoritarian system to exhibit a strong concentration of power in the hands of one or a few individuals. The few who rule are juntas, cliques, and camarillas; the one who rules by himself is a dictator, autocrat, monarch, leader, or emperor. Fully authoritarian systems ruled by juntas, cliques, and camarillas differ from fully authoritarian systems ruled by individuals. In the former, some degree of consensus is necessary for decision-making to take place, and consensus presupposes some forms of compromise, horse-trading, and negotiating. In the latter, the ruler dictates and therefore imposes his will on the elites. The

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dictator may or may not be an autocrat—the only one who makes decisions—but he or she is always the primus without pares.

In turn, rule by one can be divided into two types: rule by a grey eminence or rule by a personality. A grey eminence is withdrawn, making decisions in the privacy of his or her cabinet. A personality plays a direct, hands-on, activist, ever-present role in policymaking. He is not some unapproachable philosopher king or an anonymous general in uniform. On the contrary, the personality is always and everywhere actively present, openly and publicly ruling the people by virtue of one of two, or both, assets—his vigour or his wisdom.

Naturally, these comments apply to leaders in all types of political systems. Democracies tend to produce grey eminences bound by the rules of office. Competitive and fully authoritarian states connote images of dour old men such as Augusto Pinochet ruling a sullen population. Totalitarian states connote images of wise patriarchs. In contrast, fascist leaders are always personalistic, though there is no reason that wise or vigorous personalistic leaders cannot rule democratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian systems. Vigour was or is the trademark of Mussolini, Juan Peron, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Hugo Chavez, John F. Kennedy, and George W. Bush.

Wisdom was the trademark of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Józef Piłsudski, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Donald Trump, meanwhile, claims to possess both vigour and wisdom.

These two forms of leadership style—grey eminence vs. personalistic rule—have their own advantages and disadvantages. The grey eminence’s legitimacy and authority rest to a large degree on his ability to achieve the right policies. The advantage is that a smart autocrat with a sense of realism may be able to generate a ‘winning streak’ that makes him or her look good. The danger is that, if policies fail or appear to fail, only the autocrat is to blame, and elite and popular support may erode. The personality attempts to legitimise policy by means of active outreach to the people and elites. The ability of the personality to produce and sustain the appropriate image, whether of the wise or vigorous ruler, is thus of extreme importance. The advantage of such an approach is that the

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personality can sustain legitimacy by means of the clever manipulation of image and representation by a vast propaganda apparatus.

The danger is that images and representations can easily fall out of sync with actual lived facts. A wise leader may not commit blunders. A vigorous leader may not grow old.

Putin is a good example of a personalistic dictator with a vigorous leadership style that has, over time, morphed into a wise leadership variant. Scholars capture Putin’s central role by calling him an autocrat, dictator, or a tsar, and by terming Russia’s political system ‘Putinist’ (Applebaum 2008), a tyranny, or autocracy (Carafano et al. 2015). Dmitri Trenin (2015), for instance, writes that ‘Russia’s political system is clearly Czarist, and Putin is the leader closest to a present-day absolute monarch.’ A decade ago, Masha Lipman (2015) declared that Putin’s ‘power is unchallenged and unchecked. Everyone recognises his superior authority, and everyone pledges allegiance.’

A ‘clearly czarist’ system with an absolute monarch is obviously fully authoritarian. The all-powerful Putin is the supreme leader who determines which policies he will oversee directly (chiefly, in practice this means foreign policy, security, and defence) and which he will devolve to his inner circle. He ‘dictates’ in the sense of having the final word on all matters. He stands above the law (indeed, Putin was elected, in 2012 and in every subsequent ballot, in violation of the law). But Putin is not just an all-powerful ‘new tsar,’ as Steven Lee Myers (2015) calls him. If he were, there would be no grounds for claiming that Russia is anything but fully authoritarian.

Two more features of Putin’s leadership style need underlining. First, as a variety of scholars have pointed out, his rule rests on a cult of personality. The cult is not as ubiquitous and mandatory as Stalin’s, but Putin is a constant presence in the Russian media, schools, public spaces, and major national events (so much so, in fact, that it has been suggested—without evidence—that Putin must have doubles). Second, Putin’s leadership style is personalistic: initially it was vigorous, eventually it became wise. Instead of settling for the role of a grey eminence, he almost immediately went about constructing a cult of vigorous leadership (Cassiday and

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Johnson 2010; Schroeder 2014, 9), one that, like Mussolini’s, emphasised his hyper-masculinity and bare-chested strength (Sperling 2015). Like Mussolini, Putin favoured stylish black clothing that connoted toughness. Like Mussolini, Putin liked being photographed with weapons. And, like Il Duce, Putin showed off his physical prowess.

As Putin has visibly aged and acquired a bloated appearance that connotes anything but vigour, he has changed his cult from one emphasising vigour to one based on wisdom. The older Putin has assumed all the qualities of a wise elder. Sagacious and placid, he presides over a realm that he claims is flourishing as no other Russian state has done before. Thanks to his impeccable guidance of the ship of state, Putin’s Russia is supposedly winning the war against Ukraine despite personnel losses of approximately one million. Like the Oracle at Delphi, Putin smiles enigmatically. He opines on everything. He scolds his subordinates. He writes historical tracts that are testimony both to his ignorance and his apparent belief that he is Russia’s historian par excellence. In a word, Putin defines reality and in so doing he defines what is truth and what is falsehood. Putin has effectively taken control of Laruelle’s (2020, 2021) ‘strategic narrative’ and thus defines what is and is not wise.

Like God, Putin is infallible.

It should be clear by now that, if the above argument has been accepted, Putin’s Russia may be termed fascist. All ten characteristics of fully authoritarian systems listed in Table One clearly apply to Putin’s Russia (for detailed discussions of most of these points from an entire decade ago, see Schroeder 2014 and HabdankKołaczkowska 2015). At the same time, the three characteristics that distinguish fascist systems from fully authoritarian ones—a personalistic dictator, a leader cult, and mass popular support—apply wholly to Putin’s Russia as well. In a word, Putin’s Russia is a fascist political system because it shares the defining characteristics of fascism as a sub-type of full authoritarianism.

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Why Calling Russia Fascist Matters Assume for the sake of argument that the above analysis is persuasive. Does terming Putin’s Russia fascist matter? The value of such a move is several-fold. First, conceptual clarity is an end in and of itself. It is important to be able to explain why we use the concepts we use and what they mean. In the absence of rigorous and sensible definitions, words become empty signifiers. We want to avoid Humpty Dumpty’s conclusion: ‘When I use a word…it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ To follow that approach, indeed, is to imitate Vladimir Putin’s approach to writing reality and history. Clarity may not convince everyone, but it is presumably preferable to its opposite—confusion. The former may not be a guarantee of clear thinking, but the latter is a guarantee of muddled thinking.

Second, conceptual clarity matters because it enables us to group political systems—in this case Russia’s—with other similar such systems and thereby generate generalizations that have direct or indirect theoretical implications. If Putin’s Russia is fascist, then it may be compared with other fascist systems. Questions regarding the rise and fall and stability and instability of such systems—not only modern Russia’s system—may then be addressed. Naturally, historians will object by stating that all countries are unique. That may be so, but we can—and do—find salient features that groups of countries hold in common and organize them accordingly. No one would object to asking questions about democracies, even though no self-styled democracy fully meets the definition, and no two self-styled democracies are identical.

Third, by labelling Putin’s Russia fascist and not just authoritarian or illiberal, we are in the position to reflect critically and in an interdisciplinary fashion about Russia’s long-standing love affair with extreme forms of autocracy, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and dictatorship. A fascist Russia compels us to look squarely at Russia’s history and confront the sad fact that one-person rule by a powerful leader is the Russian norm, and not the exception. Obviously, we can ask this question without terming Putin Russia fascist. Nonetheless, doing so forces historians to ask why the Russian

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past resembles the present and challenges their political scientist colleagues to ask why the Russian present resembles its past.

Fourth, calling Putin’s Russia fascist does in fact have the consequence of, as Laruelle (2021) suggests, creating a Russian ‘Other’ that is inherently different from the West. Laruelle (2021) finds this troubling: ‘Labelling Russia as fascist…often performs the simple role of reducing the country to being the other of the West, embodying everything that is not desirable for ‘us.’ But the source of the trouble lies not in the concept, in any putative ideology or ‘propaganda’ infusing it, or in desirability per se. The source lies in Putin’s Russia itself. The political system that Vladimir Putin has created is radically different from those extant in the West today. Integrating his Russian institutions into Western ones will be impossible if his political system is the antithesis of those in the West. Russia’s conclusion of a mutual defence treaty with North Korea in 2024 surely suggests that Putin has opted to embody ‘everything that is not desirable for ‘us.’

As I already argued, the terminology did not create the difference between Russia and the West. It is the difference that created the terminology. Indeed, by subsuming Putin’s Russia under the category of ‘illiberalism,’ Laruelle (2020) employs the same differentiating strategy she criticises: after all, if Russia is illiberal and the West is liberal, then integrating the former into the latter will be impossible as long as it remains illiberal. In stating that proponents of calling Putin’s Russia fascist have an anti-Russian ideological agenda, Laruelle (2020, 2021) opens herself to the tu quoque charge.

Accusing scores of Russian and non-Russian scholars of having an ideological agenda works only if one can plausibly claim to occupy a value-neutral vantage point. But that, of course, is impossible, with the result that Laruelle’s (2020, 2021) charges apply with equal force to their own author. If Putin’s critics call him fascist for ideological reasons, then logically opponents of the fascist label must have an ideological motive as well. Internally, the logic is sound— even if the conclusions are unfair and flawed in practice.

In viewing Russia as ‘part of a continuum with the West,’ Laruelle (2020, 2021) effectively claims that Putin Russia’s crimes today—genocides, wars, killings, and so on—are comparable with

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Western crimes today. Western countries have committed their share of wars and genocides in the past. But Laruelle (2020, 2021) is not concerned with the past. She places Russia on a continuum with the West in the present. Accordingly, Putin is just a bit worse than, say, an average Western leader.

Fifth, and finally, values do matter. It is important in this complex day and age to be firmly on the side of liberalism and democracy and to be on the lookout for authoritarian tendencies and personalistic demagogues, whether in Russia, Hungary, Slovakia, or the United States. We do a disservice to our supposed values by terming a murderous, warmongering, imperialistic, and genocidal regime such as Putin’s Russia merely illiberal. The absurdity of such a move becomes apparent if we were to call Nazi Germany merely illiberal. Yes, it was that—as is Putin’s Russia—but it was also so much more that ignoring that the difference amounts to an apologia for crimes against humanity. Acknowledging Russia’s differences with Western systems, on the other hand, is the starting point for asking how to change Russia’s future.

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Inozemtsev, V. (2015a, June 22). Vstavai, strana ogromnaia: kak fashizm vozvrashchaetsia 70 let spustia. RBK. http://daily.rbc.ru/opinions/ politics/22/06/2015/5582da729a794713ec1a6b91 Inozemtsev, V. (2015b, August 5). Obyknovennyi fashizm: Pravda o Vladimire Putine. Novoe vremia. http://nv.ua/opinion/Inozemtsev/obyk novennyy-fashizm-pravda-o-vladimire-putine-58980.html Kryshtanovskaya, O., & White, S. (2003). Putin’s Militocracy. Post-Soviet Affairs, 19(4), 289-306.

Laruelle, M. (2020). Making Sense of Russia’s Illiberalism. Journal of Democracy, 31(3), 115-129.

Laruelle, M. (2021). Is Russia Fascist? Unravelling Propaganda East and West.

New York: Cornell University Press.

Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (n.d). Competitive Authoritarianism: The Origins and Dynamics of Hybrid Regimes in the Post-Cold War Era [PDF]. http://iisdb.stanford.edu/evnts/4396/Levitsky-Way-Stanford.pdf Linz, J. J. (1976). Some Notes toward a Comparative Study of Fascism in Sociological Historical Perspective. In W. Laqueur (Ed.), Fascism: A Reader’s Guide. (pp. 3-121) Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lipman, M. (2015, December 20). Putin’s Shaky Tsardom. The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/putins-shaky-tsard om Lyttleton, A. (Ed.). (1973). Italian Fascisms: From Pareto to Gentile. New York: Harper and Row. Mann, M. (2004). Fascists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (2015). Fascism. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism Meyers, S. L. (2015). The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. New York: Knopf.

Motyl, A. J. (2010, March 1-14). Russia’s Systemic Transformations since Perestroika: From Totalitarianism to Authoritarianism to Democracy—to Fascism? The Harriman Review. https://academiccommons. columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-2tvc-7s58 Motyl, A. J. (1990). Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR. Columbia University Press.

Mussolini, B. (2004). The Doctrine of Fascism. In T. Ball & R. Dagger (Eds.), Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader (pp. 305-311). London: Pearson Longman.

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Oxford Dictionaries. (2015). Fascism. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com /definition/english/fascism Parfitt, T. (2014, November 27). Seven Reasons to Explain Vladimir Putin’s Popularity Cult. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/vladimir-putin/11257362/Seven-reasons-to-explain-Vl adimir-Putins-popularity-cult.html Paxton, R. O. (1998). The Five Stages of Fascism. The Journal of Modern History, 70(1), 1-23.

Paxton, R. O. (2004). The Anatomy of Fascism. London: Allen Lane.

Payne, S. G. (1980). Fascism: Comparison and Definition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Payne, S. G. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Rawls, J. (2001). The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Reznikova, E., & Korostelev, A. (2024, February 22). A Study into Repression Under Putin. Proekt Media. https://www.proekt.media/en/gui de-en/repressions-in-russia-study/ Riley, D. (2005). Civic Associations and Authoritarian Regimes in Interwar Europe: Italy and Spain in Comparative Perspective. American Sociological Review, 70(2), 288-310.

Rocco, A. (2004). The Political Theory of Fascism. In T. Ball & R. Dagger (Eds.), Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader (5th ed., pp. 312-317). London: Pearson Longman.

Roberts, D. D. (2000). How Not to Think about Fascism and Ideology: Intellectual Antecedents and Historical Meaning. Journal of Contemporary History, 35(2), 185-211.

Sartori, G. (1970). Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics. American Political Science Review, 64(4), 1033-1053.

Schroeder, H-H. (2014, July 18). ‘Volk’ und ‘Macht’. Die schwache Verankerung des Systems Putin in der Gesellschaft. Russland-Analysen. http://www.laender-analysen.de/russland/pdf/RusslandAna lysen281.pdf Scruton, R. (1982). A Dictionary of Political Thought. New York: Harper and Row. Shelin, S. (2015, December 12). Nash put’—varvarizatsiia. Rosbalt. http://www.rosbalt.ru/blogs/2015/12/12/1470681.html Shevtsova, L. (2015). The Authoritarian Resurgence: Forward to the Past in Russia. Journal of Democracy, 26(2), 22-37.

Shiropaev, A. (2014, September 8). Pobedobesie. Rufabula. http://rufabu la.com/articles/2014/09/08/russia-in-the-war-with-ukraine

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Snyder, T. (2022, May 9). 9 Theses on Putin’s Fascism for May 9. Substack. https://snyder.substack.com/p/may-9-in-russia Sperling, V. (2015). Sex, Politics, and Putin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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How Fascist Is Putinism?

Three Uses of the Concept of Generic Fascism for Understanding Russia’s War Against Ukraine Andreas Umland Largely ignored by the wider public, the scholarly debate about whether Putinism is fascist or not has been raging already for two decades.1 The most prominent academic participants of the controversy were long two US-based political analysts and experts on Eastern Europe: Alexander J. Motyl, on the one side, and Marlene Laruelle, on the other. Motyl (2007a, 2007b, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2022) has for nearly twenty years argued that Putin’s regime is proto-fascist, fascistoid, or fascist.2 In 2021, Laruelle published, after numerous analyses of historical and current Russian nationalism, 3 a widely noted book titled Is Russia Fascist? which argued that Russia was not fascist. In 2022, the journal Nationalities Papers organised an informative discussion of Laruelle’s book. 4 In 2024, a German

1

2 3

4

Brief summaries of this chapter were earlier published in different languages by, among other outlets, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Nowa Europa Wschodnia, The Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, Contributors.ro, Observador, Desk Russie, Aftenposten, etc. A closely related debate to that of Russia’s fascism is that about similarities and dissimilarities between early post-Soviet Russia and Germany’s Weimar Republic. See, for instance, Yanov (1995), Hanson and Kopstein (1997), Shenfield (1998), Ferguson and Granville (2000), Hanson (2006, 2010), Luks (2008), and Kailitz and Umland (2016, 2017). Another related debate is that on the nature of Putinism. See, for instance, Gudkov (2011), van Herpen (2013), Fish (2017), Taylor (2018), McFaul (2020), and Kragh and Umland (2023). Yet, another related literature is that on Russian concepts of generic fascism, and Russian debates on post-Soviet Russian fascism (e.g., Umland 2007, 2009b; Sokolov 2010).

For replies to Motyl’s earlier assertions, see Umland (2008a), Luks (2009) and Coalson (2022).

See, Lariuel’ (2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d, 2015) and Laruelle (2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2012, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a, 2016b).

See Herrera (2022), Orenstein (2022), Shekhovtsov (2022), and Laruelle (2022).

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edition of the text was released with a new afterword. In the latter text, written after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Laruelle qualified her still negative answer as to whether Putinism is a form of fascism. A year later, she published a book on ideology in Russia and recognized the presence of ‘fragmentary fascism’ in Putin’s regime (Laruelle 2025).

Since 2022, the prominent historian Timothy D. Snyder has become the most outspoken and frequently quoted historian of central-eastern Europe who classifies Russia’s regime as unequivocally fascist (e.g., Snyder 2022). After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Taras Kuzio (2022b) joined this discussion. In 2023, Kuzio published, in collaboration with the journalist Stefan Jajecznyk-Kelman (2023), the first comprehensive monograph explicitly linking Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022 to the concepts of fascism and genocide.5 Numerous other experts on central-eastern Europe—including some Russian—have, since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, also taken this or that position on the issue of whether Putin’s Russia is fascist, most of them more or less affirmatively (see Epstein 2022; Inosemzew 2022; Straus 2022).

What Is in a Word?

Language can attempt to describe and interpret but cannot capture the essence of the developments around us. Applying even the most established scientific notion to empirical facts is a matter of consensus rather than truth or falsehood. The decision to use a certain word to label a phenomenon in the real world always has an element of arbitrariness. Verbal categorisations are neither right nor wrong per se. Instead, the terminology with which we conceptualise our observations is only more or less useful for their comprehension, classification, and communication.

This also goes for the notion of fascism and its use after it appeared, roughly a century ago, as a generic scholarly concept in comparative analysis—rather than as a mere self-description of Benito Mussolini’s followers. Since the 1920s, ‘fascism’ has meant

5

See Chapter 8 by Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner in this volume.

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many things to many observers and suffered—as other popular generic terms like ‘democracy,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’—from public overuse, political instrumentalisation, and semantic inflation. For decades, there was widespread confusion and hot discussion among scholars and non-scholars about what exactly the fascist label denotes or what its intension and extension are (as documented in, among other, anthologies: Griffin 1995, 1998; Griffin and Feldman 2003; Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006).

This was one of the reasons that only roughly one hundred years after the appearance of Mussolini’s Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria (Bundles of Revolutionary Action) in 1914, the cross-cultural study of fascism obtained its own academic journal and scholarly society. Since the mid-1990s, there has emerged a widening consensus, among researchers from throughout the world and various disciplines, on a definition of fascism—often drawn from a seminal book on fascism’s nature by Roger Griffin (1991, 1993)—as a palingenetic (implying the idea of a new birth and rejuvenation), or revolutionary form of populist ultra-nationalism.6 Against this background, in 2012 a group of historians, political scientists, and representatives of other disciplines established the half-yearly scholarly periodical Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies and, in 2015, the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies COMFAS. It is interesting to note that neither the journal Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies nor the COMFAS website have thus far published anything on the question of fascist traits in Putin’s ideology, regime, and policies. That is, perhaps, because scholars understand the many complications and repercussions of assigning an abstract term to a disputed empirical phenomenon. For academics, the question is less whether Russia is fascist or not, but rather what function such a designation can fulfil and what intellectual risks the stretching of a generic concept into a new empirical realm runs. For the Russian case, there is, moreover, the problem that,

6

See also Feldman (2008), Griffin (2007, 2014, 2018, 2020), Griffin and Feldman (2003), and Griffin, Loh and Umland (2006), as well as Chapter 8 by T. Kuzio and I. Garner in this volume.

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despite a recent surge of publications on the topic, the amount of scholarly literature on the country’s putative ultra-nationalism and fascism—especially concerning the most recent and relevant trends that have appeared since Vladimir Putin’s turn to imperial nationalism after returning to the presidency in 2012—is still comparatively small.7 The public and scholarly usage of the term fascism in connection to today’s Russian state and actions has, at least, three dimensions. First, it is a historical analogy for guiding citizens’ interpretation of current events in the light of well-known developments of the recent past. Second, it is a label to express a lived Ukrainian experience which is communicated for the purpose of, among others, generating international empathy. Third, it is a generic concept for academic classification and conducting targeted comparisons across time and space. In the following sections of this chapter, I explore the meaning and significance of each of these discursive vectors.

Fascism as a Historical Analogy Most of the public labelling of Putin’s regime as fascist (e.g., Motyl 2022; Snyder, 2022; Kuzio 2023) creates a diachronic analogy and metaphorical familiarisation to explain Putinism in Russia and Russian policies in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Such historical equalisation and verbal visualisation of a current phenomenon with events in the past can serve, especially for lay people, to identify key political issues and challenges in Russia today. Attributing ‘fascism’ to Putin’s regime here illustrates and interprets what is

7

Apart from the books and papers listed above and below, see, for instance, in alphabetical order: Arnold (2016), Arnold and Romanova (2013), Arnold and Umland (2018), Berglund (2002), Borenstein (2019), Brown and Sheiko (2014), Clover (2016), Duncan (2000), Griffiths (2022), Kozhevnikova, Shekhovtsov and Verkhovskii (2009), Kragh, Andermo and Makashova (2020), Laqueur (1993), Likhachev (2002), Likhachev and Pribylovskii (2005), Mikhailovskaia, Pribylovskii and Verkhovskii (1998, 1999), Østbø (2015), Papp, Pribylovskii and Verkhovskii (1996), Parland (2005), Plokhy (2018), Pribylovskii (1995a, 1995b, 1995c), Pribylovskii and Verkhovskii (1995, 1997), Rogachevskii (2004), Shenfield (2001), Torbakov (2018), as well as Yablokov (2018).

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happening inside Russia and in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

Motyl (2022), Snyder (2022), Kuzio (2023), and other scholars argue there are numerous parallels between the domestic and foreign rhetoric and behaviour of Putin’s Russia, on the one side, and Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, on the other. By early 2025, these political, social, ideological, and institutional similarities have indeed become legion. They range from the Russian regime’s increasingly dictatorial and partly totalitarian domestic characteristics to clearly revanchist and progressively genocidal features of the Kremlin’s pathological pan-nationalism toward Ukraine and Ukrainians. Snyder (2018a, 2018b, 2022) has, moreover, drawn attention to the fact that Russian official historical memory and political iconography have become—in some covert sense, at least—profascist.

In fact, in the early phase of Putin’s rule, imperial nationalism was already in evidence in the emerging regime’s public embrace of Eurasianism. The creation of a Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 as a putative alternative to the EU cemented this abstract notion into a codified organisation (Umland 2014, 2017). The White Russian intellectual émigré school of classical Eurasianism of the 1920s and 1930s has, as another leading historian of Eastern Europe and fascism, Leonid Luks (1986, 2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2018), pointed out, many similarities to the German ‘Conservative Revolution’ of the same period.

During the inter-war years, the proto-fascist ‘conservative revolutionaries’ constituted a category of prominent German intellectuals—among them Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt and Ernst Jünger—who were not Nazis. Nonetheless, their writings contributed directly to the erosion of the Weimar Republic and, indirectly, to Hitler’s rise to power. The anti-liberal and anti-Western ideas of the ‘Conservative Revolution’ (which included elitism, statism, collectivism, and imperialism) were structurally similar to those of interwar White Russian émigré Eurasianism, as Luks (1986, 2005, 2018) and others have shown (e.g., Baissvenger 2009). Many Russian officials, propagandists, and academics today hold classical

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Russian Eurasianism of the 1920s and 1930s in high esteem (Luks 2004; Moroz 2010; Rossman 2009).

The Eurasianists of the 1920s-1930s were, like their German contemporaries, radically anti-liberal, and promoted a specifically Russian ‘ideocratic’ (i.e., ideology-ruled) order combining Asian and European traits (Schlacks and Vinkovetsky 1996; Bassin, Glebov, and Laruelle 2015). From this perspective, the Eurasianists partly approved of the Bolsheviks’ Soviet experiment. In some regards, White Russian émigré Eurasianism was reminiscent of Stalinist National Bolshevism or Revolutionary Patriotism, also a reference for those who are shaping today’s Putinism (Brandenberger 2002, 2010; van Ree 2003; Umland 2010; Prozorov 2016; Zaitsev 2023).

In recent years, Snyder and other scholars have drawn attention to another White Russian émigré intellectual of the inter- and post-war periods, Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954), who was an admirer of Italian Fascism and early Nazism (Barbashin and Thoburn 2015; Snyder 2018a, 2018b; Pynnöniemi 2021; Nykl 2024). In his ruminations about a post-communist, dictatorial, and nationalist Russia, Ilyin has provided, in Snyder’s (2018b) words, ‘a metaphysical and moral justification for political totalitarianism, which he expressed in practical outlines for a fascist state. Today, his ideas have been revived and celebrated by Vladimir Putin.’ As Anton Barbashin (2018) added: ‘Ivan Ilyin is quoted and mentioned not only by the president of Russia, but by the [former] prime-minister Medvedev, foreign minister Lavrov, several of Russia’s governors, [Russian Orthodox Church] Patriarch Kirill, various leaders of the [ruling] United Russia Party and many others besides.’

In late September 2022, Putin (2022) concluded his speech at the official ceremony of the (illegal) annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions by citing Ilyin: ‘If I [Ilyin] consider Russia my Motherland, then this means that I love in Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people. His spirit is my spirit; his fate is my fate; his suffering is my grief; its flowering is my joy.’

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The link between Putinism, White Russian émigré imperial nationalism, and post-Soviet fascism became manifest in 2023 with the foundation of the Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics at the Russian State University for the Humanities. The appointment in 2024 of the self-professed fascist and Eurasianist Aleksandr Dugin— more on him below—as head of the school only cemented this connection (Sineokaya 2024). Dugin—even more so than Ilyin and Putin—views Western ideas and liberalism as antithetical to Russian ‘traditional values,’ and sees Russia as a self-standing statecivilisation. Dugin has publicly claimed that he aims to expunge liberal values from Russia’s education system.8 By spring 2025, the domestic and foreign policies of Putin’s Russia have many parallels with those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022—and thanks to the war’s many subsequent effects on Russia’s external and internal affairs—the use of the fascist label to explain the character of Putin’s regime has fulfilled educational and heuristic functions for political debates within mass media, civil society, and governmental contexts. If one adds several recent references by Putin and his entourage to historical Russian proto- or pro-fascism, such as the inter-war Eurasianists and White Russian émigrés like Ilyin, it now seems more legitimate than it was before 2022 to characterise Putinism as Russian fascism.9 Many comparative historians and political scientists would, as shown below, still insist that Putinism is not strictly fascist. These arguments notwithstanding, the regimes of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany as well as their policies are chronologically and substantively sufficiently close to those of Putin’s Russia to justify their comprehensive comparison and partial equation. Italian Fascism and German Nazism are today the most widely known

8 9

Andrey Pertsev, ‘Alexander Dugin’s Plan to Remake Political Science.’ Meduza, February 25, 2025. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/02/25/alexander-du gin-s-plan-to-remake-political-science A more complicated issue—not dealt with here, but certainly worth considering—is the role of the ideas of Lev Gumilev (1912-1992) for post-Soviet Russia and Putin’s regime. See Naarden (1996), Kochanek (1998), Paradowski (1999), Lariuel’ (2009b), Bassin (2016), and Umland (2023).

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historical examples with which one can illustrate—for a wider public—the nature and direction of Putin’s regime and imperial nationalism towards Russia’s neighbours and the wider world.

Fascism as a Lived Experience The application, by foreign observers, of the term ‘fascism’ to Putin’s regime aims to impress upon audiences outside Ukraine a clearer understanding of political affairs in Russia and especially in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In contrast, the Ukrainian use of the term fascism and neologism ‘Ruscism’—a combination of ‘Russia’ and ‘fascism’ pronounced rashizm—is, above all, an expressive act. Within Ukraine, the fascist label applied to Russia articulates collective shock, grief, and desperation in the face of the morbid cynicism, demonstrative ruthlessness, and, sometimes, outright sadism of the Kremlin’s policies vis-à-vis ordinary Ukrainians, especially since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For the Ukrainian government and civil society, the term is something like a battle cry that mobilises domestic and international support for resistance against Russian military aggression.

Even before the start of the full-scale invasion, many outrageous statements by Russian governmental representatives, parliamentarians, and state-media workers illustrated the intentions of Russia regarding Ukraine (see Davis 2024). This discourse indicated that Moscow’s aims went beyond redrawing of state borders, reasserting regional hegemony, and refuting a purported westernisation of central-eastern Europe. Since 2014, the Kremlin has in Crimea and the Donbas conducted a systematic campaign of eradication of Ukrainian identity, culture, and patriotism. Simultaneously, the occupied territories have been subject to violent Russification (see Hurska 2019, 2023, 2024a, 2024b; McGlynn 2023; Oliinyk 2023; Hird 2024). Especially since 2022, adjectives such as ‘fascist’ and ‘Ruscist’ signify that Russia’s military aggression seeks the destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation-state and Ukrainians as a cultural community separate from Russians (Finkel 2023; Davis 2024). The words and deeds of the Russian president, government, military, and state media are today largely congruent in this regard

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(as Chapter 5 by Andreas Heinemann-Grüder discusses in this volume).

Simply equating Putin’s Russia’s Ukrainophobia with the Nazis’ biological racism and eliminationist antisemitism would, to be sure, go too far. The current Russian behaviour resembles that of war-time Germans only in certain respects, such as in the deportation and de-nationalisation of Ukrainian children (Umland 2024) that recalls Nazi policies toward, among others, Polish children.

Moscow’s irredentist war aims to eradicate the Ukrainian nation as a self-conscious polity and society and claims to return Ukrainians to their alleged ‘Little Russian’ roots, rather than to physically eliminate all Ukrainians, as the Third Reich attempted to do with the Jews. Nevertheless, the Russian agenda in Ukraine does not only mean displacement, harassment, deportation, re-education, and brainwashing of Ukrainians. It also includes mass expropriation, terrorisation, incarceration, torture, and murder of those Ukrainians who resist, in word or deed, Russia’s attempted military expansion, political rule, and cultural dominance over Ukraine. Russia’s behaviour may not be wholly obliterative, as was Germany’s, but it remains phenomenally and criminally violent.

The Kremlin’s genocidal agenda in Ukraine is presented as a plan to ‘de-nazify’ Ukraine. The term ‘de-nazification’ has historic meaning as a name of the anti-Hitler coalition’s policies in occupied Germany in the post-war years. The Kremlin’s use of the term ‘denazification’ in relation to its aims in occupied Ukraine represents something different. It constitutes a revival, in Putin’s Russia, of the extensive Soviet-era propaganda campaigns against purported Ukrainian ‘bourgeois nationalists,’ fascists, and Nazi collaborators.

Moreover, it functions to paint the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ as a re-run of the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Within the peculiar context of the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian discourse on fascism, labelling Russia’s Russification policy in Ukraine as ‘de-nazification’ has a certain logic. In both the Soviet Union and Russian Federation, terms like ‘Nazi’ and ‘fascist’ have not just been used to classify Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. Instead, ‘fascism’ was (mis)used in the USSR to attack any Ukrainian who defended the Ukrainian language and culture,

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protested Russification, and sought greater autonomy for the Ukrainian SSR or independence for Ukraine. Similarly, in Putin’s Russia ‘fascist’ is used against any Ukrainian who holds an identity distinct from Russian and seeks a Ukrainian future outside the ‘Russian World.’ More recently, Kremlin disinformation campaigns have started to use the Nazi term also against the EU, the UK, and others accused of ‘Russophobia.’10 In the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Snyder (2022), Epstein (2022) and others have classified the Russian use of ‘fascism,’ ‘Nazism,’ and ‘de-nazification’ as ‘schizo-fascist’ (see the Introduction by Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio). 11 Russian state officials and propagandists, whose worldviews are similar to those of inter-war fascists, use the terms ‘Nazism’ and ‘fascism’ to denigrate Ukrainians who possess an identity distinct from Russians and do not uphold a ‘Little Russian’ or pan-Russian identity. The Kremlin and its media channels do so to justify the ferocity of Russia’s violent antiUkrainian campaign to both domestic and foreign audiences. Calling Ukraine ‘fascist’ justifies the Kremlin’s large-scale terror against Ukrainian civilians, deportation of thousands of unaccompanied children (see Umland 2024), mass torture of prisoners of war, and attacks on cultural institutions such as libraries, churches, schools, and theatres. Supposedly, Moscow’s harsh measures are part of a mere Russian defence against the Nazi ‘Kyiv regime,’ which is a Western puppet state (Kragh and Umland 2024). To respond to the supposed threat of a return of Nazism, Russian troops’ violence against Ukrainian prisoners of war as well as civilians becomes justified and necessary. As a result, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has, by March 2025, documented evidence of over 150,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine in just over three years of the full-scale war.12 10

11 12

‘80 Years After Auschwitz—The Kremlin’s Manipulative Use of the Holocaust.’

EUvsDisinfo, April, 25 2025. https://euvsdisinfo.eu/80-years-after-aus chwitz-the-kremlins-manipulative-use-of-the-holocaust/.

‘Warum so wütend, Herr Snyder?’ Die Zeit, 2022. https://www.zeit.de/2022/ 21/timothy-snyder-ukraine-krieg-deutschland/seite-3.

Mike Eckel and Serhiy Stetsenko, ‘Ukraine Alleges 150,000 Possible Russian War Crimes. Here Are 5 Of the Worst.’ Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, March 5, 2025. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-crimes/33336084.html.

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Given the extent of Russia’s violence and terror against POWs and civilians, there is little wonder that many Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are labelling Russian genocidal behaviour as ‘fascist.’

Millions of Ukrainians who have remained in Ukraine or returned home after fleeing abroad in 2022 directly experience the Kremlin’s war on a quotidian basis. Many Russian missiles, glide-bombs, and drone attacks on Ukraine do not target military objects or armament factories. Instead, they are deliberately directed towards civilian buildings or places—including apartment blocks, supermarkets, hospitals, and educational institutions—that have no military function. In just one week in March 2025, Russia launched, for instance, 1,200 bombs, 870 drones and over 80 missiles against Ukraine.13 Professional historians of war may argue that intentional attacks on civilian populations and infrastructure are not unique to fascist warfare. Nevertheless, the label of fascism quickly springs to the mind of many Ukrainians when conceptualising such attacks.

Indeed, some older Ukrainians still remember the Nazi war against the USSR and interpret the present through the prism of the past.

For example, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in January 2025, a Jewish-Ukrainian Holocaust survivor from Odesa, Roman Shvartsman, told the German Bundestag that, ‘Hitler wanted to kill me as a Jew. Putin is trying to kill me because I’m Ukrainian.’14 Political comparativists may still, with justification, argue that the ideology of Nazism is different from that of Putinism. The political ideas behind Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014 are indeed not, as the Third Reich’s were in 1939, rooted in biological racism or eliminationist anti-Semitism. However, the material repercussions of these dissimilar agendas are sufficiently comparable to

13

14

Kateryna Denisova, ‘Russia Launched Nearly 1,200 Bombs, 870 Drones, Over 80 Missiles Against Ukraine This Week, Zelensky Says.’ The Kyiv Independent, March 9, 2025. https://kyivindependent.com/russia-launched-nearly-1-200-bombs-870 -drones-over-80-missiles-against-ukraine-this-week-zelensky-says/.

As quoted by Halya Coynash, ‘Ukrainian Holocaust Survivor: Hitler Wanted to Kill Me as a Jew. Putin is Trying to Kill me Because I’m Ukrainian.’ Human Rights in Ukraine, February 3, 2025. hhttps://khpg.org/en/1608814373.

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most Ukrainians to warrant for them the labelling of their experience with Moscow’s warfare against Ukraine as ‘Russian fascism.’

Fascism as a Scholarly Concept Despite the growing number of scholars on central-eastern Europe who define Putin’s Russia as fascist, most comparative historians and political scientists who study twentieth century fascism from a cross-cultural perspective either avoid or dispute the use of ‘fascism’ to categorise Putinism. This has much to do with the usually narrow definitions of generic fascism that many academics continue to use.

Perhaps the most widely recognised of the scholarly concepts of fascism is that of Roger Griffin (1991, 1993) who defined generic fascism as a ‘palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism.’ According to Griffin and other comparativists, the core trait distinguishing fascists from other right-wing activists is their aim of a political, social, cultural, and anthropological revolution. A thorough palingenesis or rebirth of the contemporary, degenerated nation will lead a fundamental rejuvenation, cleansing, and transformation of the nation into a newborn collective. This palingenesis creates a new fascist man (and sometimes woman) ready to suffer, fight, kill, and die for his (or her) national community—whether defined in ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, civilisational, or other terms. Fascists often refer to an alleged ‘Golden Age’ in their nation’s distant history and use ideas as well as symbols from past periods. However, they do not want to preserve or return to a bygone era, but rather create an entirely novel national community, state and/or empire. Fascists are on the extreme right, yet they are revolutionaries rather than ultra-conservatives.

Griffin’s (1991, 1993) concept and similarly sharp notions by other scholars set clear limits to the denotation of fascism and number of fascist regimes as well as fascist movements in human history. Their definitions imply that there have only been two truly fascist states: Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. In addition, the Nazis installed dependent fascist governments, such as those of the Hungarian Arrow Cross and Croatian Ustasa. Finally, since the

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late nineteenth century many clearly fascist parties and numerous intellectual, semi-political, and terror groups—not to mention hundreds of small ‘groupuscules’—that can be classified as proto- or fully fascist have existed (see Griffin 1995, 1998, 2003, 2019, 2020).

Restrictive conceptualisations of generic fascism, such as that

by Griffin (1991, 1993), purposefully exclude such putatively fascist(ic) regimes as those of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Francisco Franco in Spain, António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, or Juan Peron in Argentina. While populist, nationalist, and non-democratic—like the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler—Kemalism, Francoism, Salazarism, and Peronism were not sufficiently palingenetic to warrant the fascist label. Many comparativists of international fascism could and would make the same argument about Putinism today. Putin’s Russia seeks a restoration of the Russian empire— but perhaps not the creation of a rejuvenated Russian state, nation, or man (for an alternative view see Chapter 8 by Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner).15 On the other hand, during the last twenty-five years, the goals, rhetoric, policies, and actions of Putinism have evolved. When Putin launched his political career in the 1990s, he operated in the circles of Russia’s two most prominent pro-Western democrats: Anatolii Sobchak, the first mayor of post-Soviet St. Peterburg; and Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation. In the early 2000s, the first variety of ‘Putinism’—if we can call it that in this period—still contained liberal and pro-European traits. Under Putin in the 2000s and into the early 2010s, Russia remained a member of the Council of Europe, NATO-Russia Council, and the G8.

Moscow even negotiated an extended partnership agreement with the European Union before the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Nonetheless, Putin’s Russia has—initially in response to the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine—moved ideologically ever further toward the nationalist right and, structurally, towards para-totalitarianism. In the 2000s, for example, Moscow launched the Russkii mir (Russian World) Foundation and the TV propaganda 15

See Chapter 8 by Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio for an alternative view.

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network Russia Today (later RT), re-unified the domestic and émigré Russian Orthodox Churches, and moved Ilyin’s remains from Zurich for reburial in Moscow. Russia’s domestic regression from proto-democracy to dictatorship had begun with Putin’s entry into high politics in 1999, but it was only eight years later when Putin announced officially Russia’s turn away from the West in his speech to the 2007 Munich Security Conference. Since then, Putinism has become more illiberal, anti-Western, imperialist, nationalist, and bellicose by the year. The only blip in this evolution occurred during Dmitrii Medvedev’s ‘palliative presidency’ of 20082012. Even so, it was during this period when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and de facto annexed the Tskhinvali Region (‘South Ossetia’) and Abkhazia. A year later, Medvedev sent a threatening, undiplomatic list of demands to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (see Kuzio 2025).

Subsequently, the Russian para-democratic pseudo-federation transformed from a hybrid into a fully-fledged authoritarian regime and its discourse became increasingly imperialistic—as documented in numerous studies (e.g., Åslund 2008; Bacon 2015; Barkanov 2020; Bassin and Suslov 2016; Blakkisrud and Kolstø 2016, 2018; Casula and Tipaldou 2019; Eltchaninoff 2016; Gorenburg, Pain, and Umland 2012a, 2012b; Horvath 2012; Kragh and Umland 2024; Mitrofanova 2005; Shekhovtsov 2017a; Umland 2009a, 2018; van Herpen 2013; Zygar 2016). After the 2020 change of Russia’s constitution made Putin de facto life president and mass repression swept the country, Russia became a dictatorship. Moscow’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and parallel turn to the East were, at that point in time, extrapolations rather than reversals of a transformation that had been taking place since the mid-2000s.

For most comparativist scholars, these and similar changes, during the last quarter of a century, would continue to be insufficient to classify Putinism as fascism; after all, a regime can be dictatorial and militaristic without being fascist. Nevertheless, the transmutation of Russian domestic and foreign affairs has had a clear direction and is becoming ever more profound. It has meant—and continues to mean—a constant increase of rhetorical aggression, internal repression, external escalation, and general radicalisation,

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culminating in Russia’s thinly-disguised nuclear threats towards what Putinist actors term the ‘Collective West’ and the ‘Kyiv regime.’

One of the symptoms of this tendency is the rise to public prominence of the above-mentioned war propagandist and amateur philosopher Dugin. In the 1990s, Dugin (e.g., 1992) repeatedly admitted his allegiance to fascism. He declared in the 1997 article ‘Fascism—Borderless and Red’ that, after inconsistent implementation of the fascist idea during the inter-war and World War II periods in Italy and Germany, post-Soviet Russia would finally create a ‘genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism.’16 Over the following quarter of a century, Dugin’s star waxed and waned in the Russian mass media, intellectual debates, and political discourse.17 His influence over the Russian government was often overstated—he was never, as some put it, ‘Putin’s brain’ (Barbashin and Thoburn 2014). More often than not, Dugin’s influence on Putin’s Russia and its policies was overstated until 2014 (Shekhovtsov 2014; Kalinin 2019). Since then, and especially from 2022, however, Dugin’s presence in Russian public life has increased. While he is still no chief ideologist of Putinism, Dugin has recently become a semi-official apologist and theoretician of the Russian leadership’s deepening anti-Western turn.

This development is linked to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which the self-proclaimed ‘neo-Eurasianist’ had promoted already in the 1990s, in his textbook The Foundations of Geopolitics (Dugin 1997, 2000). Dugin’s recent rise is likely also a result of, among others, a failed 2022 assassination attempt on his life, which killed his 30year-old daughter and far-right media personality Daria Dugina.

16

17

‘Fascism—Borderless and Red.’ Stephen Hicks, Ph. D. https://www.stephenhi cks.org/2024/05/27/fascism-borderless-and-red-alexander-dugin-philosophe rs-explained-series-by-stephen-hicks/.

Apart from the books and papers listed above and below, see, for instance: Bassin (2008), Clover (2016), Cucută (2015), Danlop (2010), Höllwerth (2007), Ingram (2001), Kalinin (2019), Khel’vert (2013), Luks (2000, 2002, 2004), Mathyl (1997/1998, 2000, 2002, 2003), Mitrofanova (2009), Rossman (2002, 2009), Sedgwick (2004), Senderov (2009a, 2009b), Shekhovtsov (2008, 2009, 2015), Shekhovtsov and Umland (2009), and Umland (2004, 2005a, 2010a, 2023).

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Shortly afterward, President Putin referred, in his speech at Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s four mainland oblasts, to the enemies of Russia who ‘encroach on our philosophers’ (Putin 2022)— an obvious reference to the assassination attempt. In spring 2024, Dugin was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and their conversation had been viewed by over a million YouTube users by the end of 2024.18 Since then, Dugin has become a frequent interviewee and reference point in US ultra-conservative mass and social media, and in spring 2025, he even appeared in a CNN interview. 19 Dugin’s new-found prominence both inside and outside Russia and his aforementioned appointment at the Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics are indicative of larger trends within Russian political and civil society. While it would have been misleading to speak of fascist trends within Putin’s regime twenty years ago, the rise of Dugin and some other new features of Russian official ideology, rhetoric, propaganda, and policy have brought Putinism closer to fascism. It may be still misleading to classify Putin as a domestic revolutionary ultra-nationalist. Yet, his regime is increasingly incorporating right-wing extremist ideas and now unashamedly includes coded fascist references in its official vocabulary.

Moreover, the Kremlin’s policies in Russian-occupied Ukrainian lands could be categorised as quasi-fascist in a more direct sense. Before 2022 and even before 2014, the issue of Ukraine’s fate had already played a major role in Russian imperialism and pannationalism (e.g., Finkel 2024; Gretskiy 2020; Kuzio 2022a; Pakhlevska 2011a, 2011b; Plokhy 2018). As various scholars have shown (e.g., Mitrokhin 2015, 2019; Hauter 2023), Russian ultra-nationalist ideologues and activists were closely involved in the launch of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014.

18 19

‘Klaus Schwab, Transgenderism, and AI | Russian Philosopher Aleksandr Dugin.’ Tucker Carlson, April 30, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= GIULmTprQ6o.

‘Putin’s philosopher” compares “Trump’s America” with “Putin’s Russia”.’

CNN, March 30, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/30/world/video/d onald-trump-vladimir-putin-comparison-russia-us-philosopher-alexander-du gin-zakaria-gps-digvid/

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Since then, the Russian state has been conducting a ruthless de-Ukrainisation and Russification campaign in those parts of Ukraine it controls via mass terror, forced re-education and material incentives (see Hurska 2019, 2023, 2024a, 2024b; McGlynn 2023; Oliinyk 2023; Finkel 2024; The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook 2024; and Chapter 7 by Jaroslava Barbieri). Millions of Ukrainian civilians—including and especially children and teenagers—from the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine are targeted by Moscow’s administrators, cultural workers, pseudo-journalists, professors, and teachers for de-Ukrainisation and Russification. This often occurs after their displacement or deportation. Such irredentist, colonising, and culturally homogenising policies need not necessarily be termed ‘fascist’ within the comparative study of imperialism. 20 Nonetheless, the instruments Russia deploys in implementing these policies and the results it envisages are often similar to those of the attempted fascist revolutions in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.

The Kremlin seeks to fundamentally remake Russian-occupied Ukraine and to ‘return’ Ukrainians to their allegedly Russian roots, claiming that an independent Ukrainian national identity is an artificial construct imported by Western conspirators seeking to divide the larger ‘Russian people.’ Pan-Russian nationalists thus see Ukraine—with the exception of eastern Galicia (i.e., the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk Regions)—as ‘Russian’ lands, referring to them as ‘New’ and ‘Little Russia’ (Novorossiia, Malaia Rossiia).21 Ukrainians are, according to Russian pan-nationalists, merely one of three branches of a triune pan-Russian people or ‘Holy Rus’ composed of Great, Little, and White Russians (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians respectively). The Ukrainian language is, for these Russian pan-nationalists, merely a dialect of

20 21

In Chapter 8, Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio argue also that a ‘new Russian’ consciousness is being forged through destruction and reconstruction around the war.

‘The Fall of the Pan-Russian Utopia,’ Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation, n.d. https:// www.kmafoundation.ca/news-1/the-fall-of-the-pan-russian-utopia%3A-ser hii-plokhy-delivered-an-opening-lecture-for-the-freshman-class-of-kyiv-moh yla-academy!

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the Russian language. According to the pan-Russianist ideology, Ukrainian literature, music, painting, philosophy, and religion constitute a regional folklore rather than a distinct national culture.

The people living ‘na Ukraine’ (i.e., ‘on [a landscape called] Ukraine’) are understood, by Russian pan-nationalists as inhabitants on the edge (okraina) of Greater Russia (Dugin 1997, 2000).

From their point of view, Ukraine is a Russian border region rather than an independent country. The West Russian ‘borderlanders’ have been, in this narrative of east European history, misled by antiRussian forces in the West—starting with Austrians and Poles in the late nineteenth century, and today the US and EU—to believe that they are an independent nation. Western conspirators and Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who foolishly ‘gave’ Ukrainians a Soviet republic, have divided the larger ‘(pan-)Russian’ people and thereby estranged the ‘Little Russians’ (malorossy) from the ‘Great Russians’ (velikorossy).

Russian occupational policies to reverse this allegedly foreigninduced intra-civilisational alienation could be conceptualised as an attempt to conduct a rebirth or palingenesis of Greater Russia as a triune pan-Russian people, a step to reconstituting what had been the eastern Slavic core of the Soviet Union (see Chapter 8 by Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio). The Kremlin’s aim in occupied Ukraine can be thus understood as an attempt to fashion a political, social, cultural, and anthropological revolution. Campaigns to homogenise populations are, to be sure, a common feature in the history of nation-states and empires; they are not exclusive to fascism. Nevertheless, the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s south and east as well as those regions’ de-Ukrainisation and Russification, can be seen as sufficiently similar to classical fascist domestic and occupation policies to label them as quasi-fascist.

Conclusion ‘Fascism’ is, in the English language, a succession of seven letters.

When, where, and how to use the word appropriately is in the eye of the beholder. The key question is not so much whether the term is used or not, but how it is conceptualised and defined by the

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observer. Russia—or any other object—‘is’ neither fascist, nor nonfascist, nor semi-fascist. What matters is what different users of ‘fascism’ understand when they apply the term this or that case.

Some historical and political analysts seek to establish a historical analogy between Putinism and inter-war Italian Fascism as well as German Nazism. In Chapter 8, Garner and Kuzio modernise, as they see it, fascism as a term that can be applied to twenty first century Russia by re-considering Griffin’s emphasis on the idea of a palingenesis. Many Ukrainians refer to fascism as the closest example from their lands’ recent historical experience to what their country is going through today. Most comparativists aim to classify Putinism within a wider semantic field containing not only ‘fascism,’ but also such concepts as authoritarianism, conservatism, reaction, irredentism, nationalism, etc.

In view of the historic events since 2022, the gap in the use of ‘fascism’ to describe Putin’s Russia between the two camps mentioned above, i.e., between Motyl (see his Chapter 1) as well as other experts on Eastern Europe, on the one side, and Laruelle (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) as well as many comparativists, on the other, has become closer. In her latest extensive outline on ideology under Putin, Laruelle (2025, 142) admits: With the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the nature of the regime has changed; one can now identify a fragmentary fascism. On the one hand, the so-called party of war—the siloviki apparatus, the military bloggers, the paramilitary and militia realms—calls for a total war with Ukraine (conquering Kyiv and not just the currently occupied territories), for an open war with the West, and for a full mobilization of Russian society that would put culture and economy alike entirely on a war footing. These groups do share a fascist imaginary: they believe in regeneration through violence, with all the aesthetics that fascism implies. But in opposition to them, one can still identify a large part of the political establishment (the technocratic part) that wants the special operation to remain just that, ‘special’—that is, without any implications for the country as a whole.

As a result of this ambivalence in the leadership, even after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its various after-effects on domestic matters, Russian internal social, political, and cultural affairs still remain far from ideal-typical fascism. Putin and most of his entourage are not futuristically driven revolutionaries

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but nostalgia-inspired representatives of the pre-1991 ancien regime.

They seek a far-reaching restoration of the old Tsarist and Soviet orders, not the birth of an entirely novel empire and world that Dugin and other Russian fascists envisage. In this sense, Putin is not Russia’s Hitler but more similar to Germany’s last Reichspräsident (Imperial President) Paul von Hindenburg who represented pre-1918 Imperial Germany and made Hitler Reichskanzler (Imperial Chancellor) on January 30, 1933 (see Kailitz and Umland 2016, 2019). Considering Russia’s genocidal policies in the territories it has occupied in Ukraine, one may remember that the classical fascists did not invent genocide. Among others, Belgium in the Congo in the late nineteenth century and imperial Germany in Namibia in the early twentieth century committed genocide against colonised native peoples.

On the other hand, within the larger ideological camp of Russian imperial nationalism, Ukraine is not a foreign country or strange colony. It is pictured as one of three branches of a triune pan-Russian people. Most outside observers regard the Kremlin’s military, occupational, and cultural policies towards Ukraine as an external affair. Yet many Russians would regard them as their own country’s internal matter.

Russian viciousness, radicalness, and lawlessness towards Ukrainians has much to do with most Russians’ assumption that this is a family affair and that the Ukrainians are, above all, ‘traitors’ of Russia. International legal rules and human rights standards do not apply to Russia’s western borderland that has mistakenly become the state of Ukraine. In the absence—except for a brief period in the 1990s—of adequate historical and memory policies, post-Soviet Russia has not yet come to terms with the mass crimes committed by the Tsarist and Soviet states in the name of the Orthodox or communist Russian people, mission, and empire.

To many victims and observers of Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine, academic comparativists’ relative silence on or open rejection of the fascist label for Putin’s Russia appears inappropriate, disingenuous, and even immoral. Russia’s armed forces and occupation administration in Ukraine behave, especially since 2022, in a manifestly terroristic, genocidal, and sometimes outrightly sadist

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manner. Against this dreadful background, it seems strange to insist that Russia’s policies and the pathological ideas behind them are clearly, absolutely, and unquestionably non-fascist.

To be sure, there are no Russian equivalents to the Nazis’ gas chambers and extermination camps (as there were also no such Italian equivalents). Yet, how does one categorise Russia’s genocidal intentions behind the mass murders in Bucha or Mariupol in 2022, the explosion of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023, and the many other Russian exceptional aggressions against Ukrainian civilians including thousands of children (e.g., Umland 2024)? Why are almost ninety percent of Ukrainian POWs in Russian custody, as the UN reported in 2024, being tortured?22 These and similar crimes constitute neither cases of collateral damage from military operations nor permutations of ordinary colonial policies to be found under all occupational regimes. A cautious labelling of the mentality or ideology behind Russia’s annihilation war in Ukraine as ‘illiberal,’ ‘conservative,’ ‘traditionalist,’ or ‘backward-looking’ seems insufficient. It can be seen as even misleading by most students familiar with the details of Moscow’s socalled ‘de-nazification’ of Russian-occupied Ukraine.

On the other hand, an unequivocal classification of Putinism as simply a Russian form of fascism may also be unhelpful (see Laruelle 2021, 2024). Explaining Moscow’s motivation for its policies in Ukraine and elsewhere in ultra-nationalist terms alone limits a comprehensive understanding of the motivations behind Russia’s war against Ukraine. There are indubitably numerous fascists in the political and intellectual elites of today’s Russia. Yet, most of the country’s key policymakers are amoral detractors who follow a particularly unfettered form of Machiavellianism rather than ideological fanatics who are driven by megalomaniac revisionism (Zygar 2016; Laruelle 2025).

A major—if not the crucial—driver behind Putin Russia’s foreign gambits before 2022 was their political ease, strategic

22

‘Nearly all Ukrainian POWs Tortured in Russian Captivity.’ NV.ua, August 7, 2024. https://english.nv.ua/nation/over-95-of-ukrainian-soldiers-tortured-inrussian-captivity-un-mission-head-50441076.html.

100 ANDREAS UMLAND predictability, military successfulness, economic inconsequentiality, and domestic popularity (Greene and Robertson 2022). Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, as well as the military intervention in Syria of 2015 were so successful because there was little push back from those affected and from the international community. As shown by Vicente Ferraro (2023) and others, these military adventures were thus politically as well as financially cheap and even had a stabilising effect on Putin’s regime (see also Snegovaya 2019, 2020).

Given such positive repercussions, the Kremlin decided, on both ideological and pragmatic grounds, to launch a full-scale invasion in 2022. Putin presumably believed there would be again no significant push back from Ukrainians and that many ‘Little Russians’ would even greet the Russian army as liberators while the West, as it had in 2008 and 2014, would do little. The Kremlin was wrong on all three counts.

Russia’s escalated war against Ukraine has since 2022 led to a fundamental conflict about the future of Europe. The initial impulse for the full-scale invasion was, nevertheless, less growing ultra-nationalist revolutionary fervour than misinformed power-political cynicism within Putin’s regime. The once regional armed conflict’s ballooning into an epic all-European conflagration with global dimensions was presumably not intended by most of the Russian decision-makers in 2022.

While there was a prevalence of non-fascist factors determining the start of the full-scale invasion, fascist tendencies in Russia’s society and polity have been strengthening by the year since 2022.

Aleksandr Dugin’s rising public presence in both Russian and international media is one of many indicators illustrating that, in Laruelle’s (2025) words, ‘fragmentary fascism’ is increasing within Putin’s regime. Against the background of Russia’s political, social and cultural development since the war started in 2014, one can hypothesize that the longer the Russian assault on Ukraine lasts, the more fascist actors, ideas, and networks will wield influence in Moscow and beyond.

HOW FASCIST IS PUTINISM? 101

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Narrative Reversal and the Aggression Against Ukraine Testing and Understanding Russia’s Fascisation Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska The idea that the spirit of fascism is being openly manifested in Russia is not new. Indeed, both Russian and Western authors have touched on the topic (de Lazari 2022). In 2019, for example, Russian opposition writer Dmitry Bykov explained it through historical and contemporary internal conditions. Tracing the origins of the domestic ‘fascisation process’ to the 15th–16th centuries, Bykov identified its first clear expression in the liquidation of the Novgorod Republic’s sovereignty, which was followed by Novgorod’s incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Moscow that was accompanied by the Novgorod Massacre—a demonstrative slaughter of civilians—the plunder of property, transfer of cultural artifacts including the Great Bell to Moscow, and destruction of cultural memory through the removal of histories written on birch bark. According to Bykov, Russia’s fascisation has been a cyclical process based on three recurring components: the principle of national exceptionalism, according to which Russians are guided by God; the drive to identify and eliminate internal enemies; and the omnipotence of special services as the main pillar of power (Przebinda 2022). Successive Russian rulers reinforced the religious roots of fascism, contributing to the consolidation of the regime’s archaic foundations (particularly a mythological way of thinking that became embedded in society). This process excludes effective political and social reforms.

It seems difficult to take issue with Bykov’s opinion. Throughout history, the political and social situation in Russia has been characterised by a high level of acceptance of authority, a passive and atomised society susceptible to social engineering, tolerance for 115

116 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA the use of violence in the name of a mythical raison d’état and the defence of Lebensraum, and the reproduction of visions of a hostile West and foreign interventions through the ‘besieged fortress’ syndrome (see Yablokov 2018). These factors were systematically reinforced by propaganda that stigmatised critical, independent thinking, portraying it as destructive, anti-state, or even as a ‘betrayal of the nation.’ Russian consciousness, even under the Tsars (Wortman 1995), has been deeply ingrained with the belief in the power of ‘Holy Rus’ and its liberating mission.

Vladimir Putin’s quarter of a century rule of Russia has exploited this context to create optimal conditions for Russia’s fascisation. The president’s actions have led to the breakdown of nascent liberal-democratic institutions, the degeneration of the rule of law (and its replacement by the ‘dictatorship of law’), and the separation of powers (‘sovereign democracy’), particularly through the restriction of freedom of speech with the aim of strict control of the ‘unified information space.’ The destructive capacity of Putinism is reinforced by state myths, especially the myth of Russia’s uniqueness in building the Russkii mir (Russian World) in defiance of the West’s supposed efforts to dismantle it. These myths also testify to the durability of social engineering methods and tools, including the eternal mythologisation of ‘holy war’ and the military involvement of God, saints, and Orthodox clergy in interpreting the current war against Ukraine.

Russian history contains organisations and movements considered fascist, but they have historically been restricted to the margins of Russian political life. For example, there were quasi- and proto-fascist parties established among anti-communist White Russian émigrés. The Russian Fascist Party, founded in Manchuria in the late 1920s by Konstantin Rodzaevsky (under whose editorship the 1934 ‘Fascism Primer’ was published and repeatedly reissued), had branches in Europe, Latin America, the United States, Canada, and Australia, but its total membership never exceeded thirty thousand. The Soviet authorities ruthlessly crushed pre-fascist organisations operating within Russia, such as the Black Hundreds, the Russian Monarchist Party, the Union of the Russian People, and the Union of the Archangel Michael. These groups perpetuated in the

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 117 twentieth century the ideology of the nineteenth century Slavophile movement and its pan-Slavic evolution as they sought to impose Russian supremacy over all Slavic nations. At the time, the proposed Russia was called the ‘Great Eastern Empire,’ its existence justified by the cultural unity of the ‘Slavic world.’ A similar notion of unity—the so-called Russian World—now officially justifies Putin’s war in Ukraine as a struggle for a ‘Greater Historical Russia.’

Although Russian fascist groups, movements and parties were often marginal, their ideas, writings, and programmes penetrated the mainstream. The early Soviet regime repressed Russian fascist and imperial nationalist groups, movements and parties while at the same time integrating their ideas within the ruling ideology from the mid-1930s and especially following victory over the Nazis in the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Stalin’s national Bolshevism and White Russian émigré Eurasianism drew on similar imperialistic and fascistic concepts and ideas. The apogee of this was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s famous toast at the victory banquet on May 24, 1945, where he said: ‘I drink, first and foremost, to the health of the Russian people, because it is the most outstanding nation among all the nations that make up the Soviet Union.’ Similarly, fascist (‘brown’) political forces supported the failed August 1991 and Autumn 1993 hardline coups against Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin respectively, and they became temporarily marginalised. Nevertheless, fascist and imperial nationalist views became a tool to strengthen Putin’s system during the two decades prior to the 2022 full-scale invasion. For example, Aleksandr Dugin, whose career evolved from underground Nazi groups and the Black Hundred Pamiat’ (Memory) in the Soviet Union to the National Bolshevik and Eurasia Parties in the 1990s, became a lecturer to senior Russian military officers and even Dean of the Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics (Sineokaya 2024). Students protested that Ilyin ‘actively condoned the activities of the Nazi regime, justified Hitler’s crimes by its confrontation with Bolshevism, and wrote about the need for Russian fascism.’ From the mid-2000s, White Russian émigré writings were republished and circulated in the Russian education system, and distributed among state officials,

118 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA the military, and the security services. The remains of White Russian émigrés were reburied in Russia under the supervision of Putin. Putin cites fascist and Ukrainophoic White Russian émigré Ivan Ilyin in his speeches.

Scholarly discussion on the fascisation of the contemporary Russian regime was transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many previous conceptual models proposed at various times by researchers to describe Russian political realities (i.e., electoral authoritarianism, informational dictatorship, plebiscitary democracy, neo-imperial state, mafia state) proved, or seemed, insufficient considering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. New research paradigms are necessary, including reconsidering the question of Russia’s purported fascism.

The fundamental problem in describing the phenomenon, however, is that there is no single, strict, and universally accepted definition of fascism in the academic literature. Fascism is not a monolithic ideology but rather ‘a collage of various political and philosophical ideas, a patchwork of contradictions’ situated between ‘revolution, ideology, worldview, and culture’ (Eco 1999, 3440; Traverso 2014; Depczyński et al. 2022). This explains the multitude of synonymous terms for what we contend is Russian fascism in contemporary political debate. It is variably described as ‘Rashism,’ ‘Rosnazism,’ a ‘neo-totalitarian’ project, and ‘Putinism’ (Analiza OSPP 2022; Zakharov 2022; Domańska 2023; Thom 2023; Epstein 2022a; Epstein 2022b). The concept of ‘schizo-fascism’ has also gained popularity, especially since it began to be used by the antiPutin opposition. Timothy Snyder (2022), for example, admits that ‘fascism is difficult to define satisfactorily’ and notes that thanks to Soviet political practices (primarily Stalinism), ‘fascism became a shell that could be filled with any content.’ Nonetheless, Snyder (2022) suggests recognising today’s Russia as a fascist state, as pithily expressed in the title of his essay for The New York Times: ‘We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.’

When describing the fascist state—that is, a system of dictatorial power, fascist imagination, culture, and ideology—scholars emphasise that the primary goal of fascism has always been national rebirth, understood specifically as the restoration and

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 119 maintenance of cultural dominance over other nations. Among its fundamental characteristics, researchers typically identify the fourteen features outlined in Umberto Eco’s (1999) essay Ur-Fascism. In the context of the Russian system, this list has been refined by the Ukrainian political scientist Serhiy Haidai (2022), who formulated eight defining traits of this regime: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

The dictatorship of an irremovable leader—the Duce, the father of the nation.

Statism—the primacy of the state over the rights and freedoms of citizens, along with the conviction that the state should control all spheres of social and private life.

Prohibitions, repression, and terror against the opposition (whose activity is treated as treason). The replacement of pluralism of opinion and freedom of speech with propaganda.

The ideological dictatorship of the authorities.

Aggressive nationalism and imperialism through the pursuit of territorial expansion under the pretext of returning territory to the ‘motherland.’

The cult of strength and violence.

Fascism’s orientation toward the past, mythologising the victories of fathers and grandfathers while demonising enemies.

State intervention in the economy where private property remains under state control and may be nationalised or subordinated to the plans of the leader and his inner circle.

Taking these observations as a starting point for analysing Putin’s Russia, we emphasise that the aim of this chapter is not so much to seek the essence of fascism as to identify and understand the mechanisms of its emergence. This entails a dynamic examination of prefascist factors, their functioning, and the relationships among them.

Individual symptoms, when they appear in isolation, do not necessarily lead to fascism. Rather, it arises when these elements begin to coexist—a process that, according to the philosopher Krzysztof Wolański, can occur ‘within a specific psycho-political horizon, that is, at the twilight of a given hegemonic cultural formation, when its

120 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA own dogmas, values, and norms, entangled in overt contradictions, begin to undermine it’ (Wolański 2019, 97).

Describing this phenomenon in the Russian context presents challenges as Soviet anti-fascist propaganda and the cult of victory over fascism blurred and distorted the very political concepts they described. In the USSR and Russia, anti-fascist rhetoric has masked the crimes of totalitarianism, while simultaneously separating totalitarianism from fascism and preventing establishing a similarity between the two systems. Even today, as we will show, Russian political scientists react with outrage to discussions of fascist Russia, treating them as relics of the Cold War and manifestations of the West’s information warfare. Anti-fascist language remains in use, numbing Russian society’s sensitivity to real manifestations of fascism and justifying the invasion of Ukraine as its ‘de-nazification.’

We contend, however, that Russian fascism not only exists but that it is manifested not just physically but discursively in a concept that these political scientists engage in; that is, a process of constant narrative reversal seeks to rewrite reality, turning it upside down and inside out to argue that fascist Russia is anti-fascist, that fiction is fact, and that war is peace.

Fascisation: The Long Road to Fascism For the cultural analysis of fascism, the concept of fascisation understood as the process of revealing elements of fascism already embedded in a nation’s culture, proves useful (see Getka and Darczewska 2023, 32-35). This approach rests on the assumption that the conditions that fostered twentieth century fascism have not been eradicated, and that the fascist imagination persists. This phenomenon is not necessarily limited to Russia but extends to other societies, both within and beyond Europe. Numerous scholarly texts explore the transnational nature of fascist imagination and memory (Albright 2018; Witkowski 2023; Laruelle 2021). Their authors identify the mechanisms of fascisation in contemporary farright political identities, shifts in language, and transformations in societal consciousness and culture. Recognising these mechanisms enables a critical perspective on a reality that is undergoing

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 121 fascisation, marked by historical distortion (or rewriting), oversimplification of reality in the spirit of conspiracy theories, and a ‘siege mentality’ syndrome, wherein national identity is perceived as being under existential threat (Stanley 2018). This perspective is not exclusive to the extreme nationalist right; rather, it finds resonance across a much broader social spectrum. Indeed, few individuals openly identify as fascists, yet manifestations of fascisation can be encountered in everyday life, making the unpacking of social attitudes essential (Kwiatkowska 2019).

Fascisation is not a revolutionary transformation but a protracted process in which authoritarian elements, at first imperceptibly, gradually infiltrate and supplant democratic structures. The semblance of democracy is maintained through party pluralism, elections, and other formal mechanisms (Getka and Darczewska 2023). However, democratic institutions function merely as a façade: while constitutionally defined offices, property rights, and judicial bodies remain in place (the so-called ‘normative state’), in practice, they operate within an authoritarian framework (the ‘prerogative state’). The principles governing this system are not codified or regulated by law. Instead, officials, who gradually colonise the various levels of democratic institutions, act arbitrarily, exercising discretionary powers in the name of a mythical ‘national good’ (Fraenkel 2017).

Zbigniew Brzeziński (2004) was among the first to note the fascisation of contemporary Russia, observing that Putin’s regime resembled Mussolini’s fascism by blending the traditions of the Soviet Cheka with Stalin’s militarised rule. This dual combination was overlaid with ideological elements drawn from Russian imperial traditions, including both the Russian Orthodox Church’s ambition to claim Moscow’s status as ‘Third Rome’ and the obsession with Russia’s leadership over a single state encompassing a triune (tripartite) pan-Russian people of Great Russians (Russians), Little Russians (Ukrainians), and White Russians (Belarusians) (see Brzeziński, 2004). In a similar vein, other American analysts and politicians in the 2000s predicted the emergence of a de facto fascist state in Russia (Radio Free Europe 2005; Rucker 2014).

122 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA The process of Russia’s fascisation, culminating in Putinism, has become an important topic for debate within academic discourse (Snyder 2016; Snyder 2022; Motyl 2016). Putin’s regime has, for example, been described as a ‘light version’ of fascism (van Herpen 2013; van Herpen 2014). Scholars promulgating that contention draw parallels with Mussolini’s Italy and the Weimar Republic.

Among the key shared features is machismo, borrowed from Italian fascism—manifested in the cult of the strong leader and represented in Russia by images of an uber-macho Putin with a bare torso disseminated in the 2000s and now seen in images and texts of hyper-masculine militarisation across culture (Wood 2024). Another characteristic is the rhetorical strategy of rejecting arguments about Russia’s fascisation while accusing critics of Russia and Putin of being fascists themselves.

In 2014, Marcel van Herpen identified Russia’s increasing fascisation and militarisation as a precursor to further armed aggression against republics attempting to break free from Moscow’s sphere of influence—an escalation that followed the relatively minor war with Georgia in August 2008. In explaining this development, van Herpen drew on Roger Griffin’s theory, which defines the essence of fascist systems through the concept of minimum fascism, an ideology of palingenetic rebirth and ultra populism (see Eatwell 1996). In philosophy and political science, palingenesis—a concept that is central to Griffin’s theory—refers to the cyclical recurrence of certain historical phenomena. Following Griffin, van Herpen (2013) identified national rebirth as a fundamental component of fascist ideology (see Chapter 8 by Kuzio and Garner). Andreas Umland (2006, 2010) also applied Griffin’s conceptual framework in his analysis of three variants of post-Soviet (quasi-)fascism: Russian National Unity, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Alexander Dugin’s Eurasianist movement.

In contemporary Russia, fascisation manifests itself through the promotion of a strong state, the myth of the trinational superethnos, the elevation of an all-powerful leader, and the glorification of violence. However, these elements are concealed behind specific ideological constructs such as ‘anti-fascism,’ ‘national Bolshevism,’

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 123 ‘national patriotism,’ ‘state patriotism,’ and ‘turbo-patriotism.’ The socio-political formation that emerged under Putin’s rule has been described using various, often equally internally contradictory terms—such as façade of democracy, democratura, oligarchic system, autocratic system, state capitalism, militocracy of siloviki (‘strong men’), and oligarchy of the presidential administration.

One of the most popular terms, originating within Russia itself, is ‘managed democracy.’ However, the vague qualifier ‘managed’ implies that some form of democracy still exists, thereby obscuring the problem by creating the illusion of a democratic system in Russia and suggesting that its foundational principles were open to negotiation—even though democracy, by definition, has clearly defined rules. All of this contributes to the difficulty of pinpointing the precise moment when Russia transitioned from democracy to authoritarianism.

From this perspective, an analysis of Russia’s socio-political situation reveals that, over time, successive elements of its formally declared democratic system progressively ‘disappeared,’ transforming it into democratorship—a caricature of democracy. The government, for example, initially justified restrictive measures as being in the ‘interest of the state,’ as seen in the introduction of the socalled ‘foreign agents’ law, which targeted organisations receiving financial support from abroad (including NGOs applying for international grants, as well as media outlets). However, in the case of constitutional amendments, the true purpose was securing another presidential term for Putin. At the same time, the regime created a façade of civil society, establishing pseudo-NGOs (GONGO’s) that were in fact funded by the Kremlin and served its agenda.

Within this context, fascisation can be understood as a process of unearthing and amplifying fascist elements already embedded in Russian culture. From today’s perspective, it is evident that Russia’s fascisation deepened through the legitimisation of brutal state terror—starting with the fight against so-called international terrorism during the two Chechen wars—and through the rehabilitation of Stalinism, which involved relativising Stalinist crimes and seeking patriotic justifications for mass murder. This process was further reinforced by militarism and the public glorification of

124 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA Putinism through the slogan ‘Without Putin, there is no Russia.’ Its consequences became strikingly apparent in the second and third decades of the twenty first century, particularly with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A rich source for analysing these developments is official propaganda texts, which observers have identified as manifestos of Russian fascism, as well as Putin’s speeches and articles, which are widely disseminated through state-controlled media.

‘Turning the Tables’: The Influence of Russian Academic Discourse on Western Perceptions of Fascism The contorted narrative shifts and distortions of Russian official discourse about its own nature contribute to the challenge of describing the country’s fascisation. The contemporary discourse on fascism as both an ideology and a political practice in modern Russia is largely shaped by reflections that emerged in the early 1990s following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Inspired by Francis Fukuyama’s thesis of ‘The End of History’ and ending of Cold War confrontation, many scholars at the time proclaimed the decline of ideology. Instead, they emphasised cultural heritage and identity, as well as the unifying role of global challenges such as international crime, environmental protection, economic interests, and the expansion of information technology as key factors in shaping the new world order.

During this period, there was a widespread belief that totalitarianism had manifested itself in three distinct forms: Italian fascism and German Nazism—both considered Western creations— and communism, which was seen as their Eastern counterpart.

Communism as a system emerged in Soviet Russia in 1917 and endured for 74 years until 1991. The era of fascism was somewhat shorter: in Italy, the fascist movement transformed into a political system in 1922; in Germany, racism and antisemitism became official policy under the National Socialist government in 1933. Both regimes collapsed with the end of World War II. Nonetheless, the authoritarian, anti-communist, nationalistic, and militaristic

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 125 regimes in Portugal and Spain under António de Oliveira Salazar and Francisco Franco respectively could be described as forms of fascism and they existed until 1974 and 1975 respectively.

Scholars of totalitarian systems have frequently fallen into various conceptual traps. For instance, Hitler’s crimes were often deemed incomparable to any others, leading to the rhetorical contrast between ‘Hitler’s crimes’ and ‘Stalin’s mistakes’ (the debate around this topic has been especially widespread, see Courtois et al. 1999). Similarly, fascism and communism were treated as systemically opposed, while their ideological similarities were overlooked. In fact, Snyder’s 2010 book The Bloodlands showed how the Nazis and Stalinists learnt from one another. European institutions issued seven resolutions denouncing communism and fascist totalitarianisms as equally criminal. According to a perspective widely promoted and maintained by Russian scholars, communism was framed as the antithesis of the collective West—regardless of how that West was characterised, whether in negative terms (as consumerist and decadent) or in competitive terms (as a system that needed to be ‘caught up with and surpassed’).

Initial euphoria in the West following the disintegration of the Soviet Union—when many believed that the era of totalitarianism had ended irreversibly—was quickly replaced by scepticism regarding Russia’s prospects for democratisation. By the autumn of 1993, the Kremlin’s proclaimed pro-Western orientation had already begun to be perceived as mere posturing, particularly considering the constitutional crisis and the looming spectre of a ‘redblack-brown’ reaction—a politically diverse radical opposition comprising communist, fascist-leaning, and ultranationalist factions. This Russian opposition framed the disintegration of Soviet communism as equivalent to the consequences of a Third World War and speculated about the emergence of a ‘Russian fascism’ without clearly defining whether they meant an ideology or a political system. Nonetheless, two of the main political forces which supported the 1993 hardline coup attempt in Russia were Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo (Russian National Unity [RNO]) and the Stalinist-Fascist Viktor Anpilov (see Shenfield 2016).

126 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA The broader discourse on this topic was significantly shaped

by Russian self-interpretation, which strongly influenced the overall perception of and debates around the fascisation phenomenon, both domestically and abroad. In Russian discourse, fascism became embedded within the framework of memory wars—propaganda-driven historical disputes between Russia and central-eastern European countries, characterised by competing interpretations of the origins and outcomes of World War II. Fascism thus became a strategic narrative tool for the Kremlin, aimed at two distinct audiences: the domestic and the foreign. On the domestic front, the regime promotes the memory of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ reinforcing societal cohesion around the Kremlin. On the international stage, it projects the image of victory over fascism, a narrative that serves to suppress discussions of Stalinist crimes, strengthen Russia’s great-power status, and justify Moscow’s claim to a role in shaping European security policy. Hence Russian authorities routinely label their critics as fascists, reinforcing their vision of the international system as a confrontation between the Russian World and its hostile ‘Other,’ the West.

Western critiques of this approach are dismissed in Russia as ‘rewriting history’ (Laruelle 2021). Russian participants in this discourse emphasise that Russia’s historical and cultural impact on Europe extends beyond the defeat of Nazism, frequently citing, for instance, the Napoleonic Wars, Russia’s allied contributions in World War I, and its achievements in science and culture (i.e., space exploration, literature, and ballet). Foreign scholars who link the issue of Russia’s European identity to discussions of fascism face sharp rebukes from critics in Moscow (see Sputnik 2023). Russian commentators argue that the European debate on World War II is not actually concerned with historical facts and interpretations but rather with political and ethical frameworks. The debate, they contend, typically culminates in calls for moral and political accountability for past crimes—an approach that fuels scholars from centraleastern Europe who see themselves as double victims (of both Nazi and Stalinist occupations) and, in turn, challenge Russia’s right to be a fully recognised participant in these discussions.

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 127 Russian scholars propose an alternative approach to analysing fascism. Beginning from the premise that fascism is a system rather than an ideology, they advocate studies focused on the embedded rhetoric of political confrontation rather than on differences in historical narratives or ‘deep’ cultural divergences. According to these scholars, the West’s fundamental problem lies in its lack of a coherent framework for understanding contemporary Russia. Since the West has no clear conceptual model, it remains fixated on defining who qualifies as a fascist and, in turn, applies the label to Russia (Pakhaliuk 2021). By highlighting what they see as Western scholars’ failure to grasp the nature of ongoing political processes—echoing Fyodor Tyutchev’s famous incantation that ‘Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone’—Russian scholars attempt to redirect the vectors of international academic discourse.

Many Russian scholars argue that the term ‘fascism’ has long been used as an invective by Western scholars in politicised research. Accusations that modern Russia embodies fascism, colonialism, and imperialism, they argue, stem from a broader twentiethcentury tradition of political labelling. This approach—centred on the theory of totalitarianism—was rooted in the ideological conflicts of the Cold War and developed by scholars such as Brzeziński, Karl Friedrich, and Hannah Arendt, all of whom emphasised the anti-democratic nature of Stalin’s dictatorship. Russian scholars contend that contemporary researchers who treat fascism as a heterogeneous phenomenon have abandoned precise definitions in favour of highlighting its ideological characteristics. Attempts to define fascism primarily through ideology, they argue, are counterproductive.

For example, historian Sergey Solov’ev (2021) suggests that ideology in fascist regimes primarily serves a manipulative function. While he acknowledges the possibility of some form of revived fascism in the modern world, Solov’ev argues that it should be classified under a different name to initiate a theoretical breakthrough.

This drive toward theorisation—creating new categories for phenomena that have already been thoroughly analysed—is a frequent tactic in Russian academia. By framing fascism within Cold War psychological warfare schemas, Russian scholars relativise and

128 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA dilute its meaning, ultimately desensitising audiences to its actual manifestations and the real threats it poses.

A notable example of such desensitisation within academic discourse is the work of Russian-American historian and political scientist Alexander Yanov (see Kuzio 2022). Yanov first wrote about the integration of Russian nationalism and Soviet communism during the last three decades of the USSR (see Kuzio 2022). In the immediate post-Soviet era, Yanov was therefore eminently qualified to recognise a Weimar syndrome—a pre-fascist dynamic—emerging in contemporary Russia. Yanov offered interpretations of two failed hardline coups in August 1991 and October 1993 and, most significantly, the rise of nationalist sentiments as indicators of Russia’s fascisation, that drew on parallels to the Munich Putsch of 1933. In his After Yeltsin: Weimar Russia, Yanov (1995) did not explicitly define Russian fascism but identified several of its key components: a nihilistic attempt to restore Russian imperial power; historical determinism—viewing history through the lens of Russia’s struggle as a distinct civilisation against others based on different cultural models; the anti-Western nature of Russian nationalism; a deep-seated imperial tradition; militarism as an expression of imperial revanche; and aggressive patriotism. The processes Yanov (1995) described as taking root in Russia after the disintegration of the USSR can be integrated within broad definitions of fascism.

However, Yanov (1995) conceptualised it primarily as a system—a model of governance—rather than an ideological construct or a manifestation of fascist imagination.

Yanov’s (1995) arguments about the fertile ground for fascism in Russia initially met with strong opposition, both within Russia and in the West. Under the weight of criticism, he retracted his earlier claims and published a pamphlet titled ‘The History of a Renunciation: Why There Will Be No Fascism in Russia’ (Yanov 2012).

In this work, he argued that while Russian nationalism—manifested in displays of ‘patriotic hysteria’ and at times taking on fascist or fascist-leaning characteristics—is deeply rooted in Russian history, it does not necessarily equate with or lead to a fascist political system. According to Yanov (2012), fascist ideology could never triumph in Russia due to the country’s multiethnic and multi-

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 129 religious composition. For this reason, he contended, the Kremlin had failed to impose a coherent ‘Russian idea’ or any single, consistent ideology. Furthermore, post-Soviet Russia was incapable of providing its citizens with a European standard of living. Finally, suggested Yanov (2012), there was no charismatic leader on the horizon capable of persuasively making a declaration akin to Hitler’s statement that ‘Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany.’

Having abandoned any illusions about Russia’s democratisation, Yanov (2012) ultimately argued that the entrenched nature of authoritarian rule in Russia precluded the emergence of fascism. The country’s long-standing tradition of political oversight, including the licensing of opposition parties, allowed the regime to instrumentalise them for its own purposes, leading to, as Yanov (2012) describes it, ‘managed nationalism,’ a term that was first recorded in the 2000s (see Sova 2006). What Yanov (2012) ultimately warned against was not fascism, but the transformation of Russian authoritarianism from soft to hard rule.

However, Yanov’s (2012) dismissal of his original hypothesis now appears to have been premature. Over a quarter-century of Putinism, further layers of fascist characteristics have built up around—and been built by—the regime. These layers include elements of fascism both as a political system and as an ideology.

These elements are most clearly reflected in the quasi-official Russian World doctrine and in Russia’s militarised political culture, which glorifies war as a symbol of state power and a core expression of national patriotism. Under Putin, Russian fascism has taken on a cultural form—a state-imposed ideological code designed to serve the interests of the ruling elite. As a result, we are dealing with a total reversal of narrative vectors: what Hasan Huseinov (2015) has called the fascisation of anti-fascism.

130 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA

‘The Benevolence that is Liberating a Nation from Nazism’: ‘De-nazification’ and Manifestos of Russian Fascism This Putinist doctrine is embraced not only by supporters of the president but also by some of his declared opponents. A striking example is Manifesto of the Russian World by Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov (2022)—the organiser of an attempted ‘people’s uprising’ or, as he described it, ‘a Black-Hundred march of Russia’s periphery against the foreign occupiers in Moscow’ in 2009, for which he was sentenced to thirteen years in a penal colony. In the Manifesto, Kvachkov (2022) called for ‘the organisation of a national ideological resistance movement against the global liberal-fascist dictatorship and digital enslavement.’ The publication and promotion of Kvachkov’s (2022) written manifesto in Russia and Belarus were made possible only by a shift in the Kremlin’s rhetoric that saw an internal enemy replaced with an external one.

To better understand the processes unfolding in contemporary Russia—the process that has permitted texts like Kvachkov’s (2022) to be published and even enter the mainstream—it is necessary to examine the foundations of state doctrine, the propaganda that accompanies it, and the public statements of Russian decisionmakers who designed and approved the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine. The most spectacular manifestations of fascisation remain the manifestos of Kremlin propaganda, which include the de-humanisation of Ukraine, Ukrainians, and the ‘collective West’ in the Russian media. Articles published on the official websites of state-controlled media like Russia Today reach a far broader audience than Kvachkov (2022), reinforcing the ideological foundations of Putinist fascism in the wider public consciousness.

Independent observers have identified documents circulating on mass media platforms as manifestos of Russian fascism. One such example is the official propagandist Petr Akopov’s (2022a) article ‘Russia’s Offensive and the New World,’ published just three days into the invasion on the website of the RIA Novosti news agency and associated platforms of the state-controlled media conglomerate Russia Today. The title of the article is ambiguous—

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 131 'offensive’ could also be translated as ‘arrival’—suggesting a preordained historical shift. Akopov’s (2022a) text was clearly prepared in advance and, although it was removed just hours after publication, it is still available both in Russia and abroad on websites that archived it and commented on it.

The works of Timofei Sergeitsev (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c), which are devoted to ‘solving the Ukrainian problem,’ also seems to belong to the canonical texts of Russian fascism (see also Zaripov 2022). By propagating the wording of this phrase, Russian state media may avoid the explicit historical parallels that the term ‘final solution’ would invite, but the ideological template is unmistakable. Indeed, Sergeitsev’s (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c) texts reiterate longstanding propaganda themes, such as the assertion that Ukrainian independence and Ukrainian national identity are aberrations that threaten the very foundations of the Russian nation. They portray Ukraine’s future in three dimensions: the return of Ukraine to Russia; the redefinition of Russia’s relationship with the West; and the acceleration of a new global order.

Akopov (2022a) echoes Sergeitsev’s (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c) themes explicitly, stating that Russia’s military offensive aims to ‘resolve the Ukrainian question,’ ‘eliminate Ukraine as an Anti-Russia,’ and ‘unite the lands of the Russian world.’ This, he argues, would ‘weaken Anglo-Saxon pressure’ and restore Russia’s influence in Europe. Russian claims to dictate Europe’s political order are framed as historically justified, as Russia shaped the continent at the Congress of Vienna, raised the Soviet flag over Berlin in 1945, and enriched European cultural heritage through its literature and art. In contrast, the Anglo-Saxon world—embodied by the US, which ‘has no right to decide Europe’s fate because it does not belong to the continent’ and is anyway, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a ‘neocolonial’ power that mistreats Russia has stripped Russia not only of its voice in European affairs but also of its rightful control over Ukraine which is indisputably within its sphere of influence. The Kremlin’s narrative thus portrays Ukraine as an ‘Anti-Russia’

132 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA project engineered solely as a Western tool for exerting pressure on Moscow.

However, the primary justification for Russia’s so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ was not simply the liquidation of this Anglo-Saxon bridgehead in Ukraine. The deeper rationale lay in what Akopov (2022a) describes as the complex of a divided nation, or, alternatively, the complex of national humiliation. According to this narrative, the mythical Russian home lost its Kyivan foundation and was subsequently forced to accept the existence of two separate states—thus dividing the Russian people, erasing their history, and legitimising the absurd idea that ‘only Ukraine is the true Rus.’ Russia’s ‘loss of Ukraine’ is framed as an existential crisis; its reclamation is deemed essential for the continued coherence of Russian state ideology. The task of returning Ukraine to Russia had to be accomplished swiftly, as ‘with every passing decade, the reprogramming and de-Russification of Russians, and the reorientation of Ukrainian Little Russians against Russia, will only accelerate’ (Akopov 2022a).

According to Russian propaganda, the Anglo-Saxons are different from so-called ‘true’ Europeans. Europeans, the narrative claims, must quickly recognise that the non-sovereign (i.e., US-dependent) European project is doomed to collapse in the medium term. The era of Western global dominance has essentially ended, and the dismantling of the Atlantic order is already underway. The new world order will be shaped by numerous civilisations and centres of power—including cooperation with the West (whether united or fragmented)—but the West could no longer dictate terms and impose its rules. Analyses of the decaying (i.e., weak, degenerate) West have been published in Russia for years, reinforcing this worldview (see Sergeitsev 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c).

From this perspective, Ukraine is not a victim of Russian expansionism but of Western greed and shortsightedness. It is not Russia that threatens Europe but rather the West, which shamelessly violated Russia’s borders during a moment of temporary weakness, only to brand Russia the aggressor after it mounted a counteroffensive. This propaganda construct is rooted in the belief

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 133 that Ukraine is an inseparable part of the Russian world. As propagandists argue, while one may reject this claim and invoke international law, or ridicule Russian imperialism, all such objections are ultimately meaningless. The only opinion that matters is that of the Russians themselves, who ‘know their roots and history; they see the threats and challenges ahead’ (Akopov 2022a).

Akopov (2022b) emphasises that the West never expected a strategic victory in the Ukrainian adventure. After 2014, he argues, the ‘Atlanticists’ managing the Ukraine project were focused solely on prolonging the rift between Ukraine and Russia for as long as possible. With undisguised schadenfreude, he points to the West’s hypocrisy—as evidenced, he claims, by the evacuation of diplomatic missions from Kyiv to Lviv during Russian military exercises in February 2022. According to Akopov (2022b), this event marked the instant collapse of the anti-Russian construct that ‘Ukraine is Europe.’ He further asserts that Europeans fully understand that they have been taken hostage by Anglo-Saxon geopolitical ambitions and are aware that the future of the global order is being decided in Ukraine (Akopov 2023).

In this narrative, Ukrainians are placed on the same level as national minorities living in the Russian Federation, such as Adyghe and Yakuts where Ukraine, like Yakutia or Adygea, is portrayed as a historical part of Russia and thus Ukrainian people are Russians. Both land and people must therefore be an integral part of the great Russian nation (Akopov 2023). Any Russian acceptance of Ukraine’s transfer or movement to the West would, therefore, mark the beginning of a larger plan to fragment the Russian people, ultimately leading to the dissolution of ‘Russians’ as a unified whole.

The theory of the ‘fragmentation of the Russian nation’ is merely a softened version of the ‘Ukrainian question.’ Its ‘solution,’ as proposed by Sergeitsev (2022b), necessitates Russia undertaking the processes of ‘de-nazification’ and de-Ukrainisation of Ukraine.

Sergeitsev (2022b) outlined ‘What Russia Should Do with Ukraine’ in April 2022 where he justified the need for the extermination of Ukrainians:

134 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA •

•

• •

•

• •

The so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ has revealed that not only Ukraine’s political leadership but most of its population are Nazis. All Ukrainians who have taken up arms must be eliminated, as they bear responsibility for the genocide of Russians.

Ukrainians conceal their Nazism by disguising it as a ‘struggle for independence’ or ‘European path of development.’

‘Ukro-nazism,’ due to its adaptability, poses a greater threat to Russia and the world than German Nazism.

‘De-nazification’ must mean de-Ukrainisation, as Ukraine is an artificial, anti-Russian construct that cannot be sustained based on an identity that does not exist. History has proven that the existence of Ukraine as a nation-state is impossible and that every attempt to build such a state inevitably leads to Nazism.

Ukrainianness lacks any independent civilisational substance and serves merely as an instrument of a foreign civilisation. De-Banderisation alone is insufficient for ‘denazification’—Bandera’s ideology is merely a façade, a camouflage for the European project of a Nazi Ukraine, just like Ukraine’s distinct historical memory. Therefore, ‘denazification’ must inevitably entail de-Europeanisation.

The Banderite leadership of Ukraine must be eliminated, as its re-education is impossible.

‘De-nazification’ of Ukraine is simultaneously its decolonisation, a reality the Ukrainian population will understand once it begins to free itself from the temptations and dependencies of the so-called ‘European choice.’

Denying Ukraine’s very right to exist, Sergeitsev (2022b) defines ‘de-nazification’ as: • • • •

A military victory over the Kyiv regime.

The liberation of territories from armed supporters of Nazification.

The elimination of irreconcilable Nazis.

The extermination of war criminals.

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 135 • •

The ‘creation of systemic conditions for the continuation of ‘de-nazification’ during peacetime.’

The process of ‘de-nazification’ would need to last at least twenty-five years (another binary, as the slow process of ‘de-nazification’ mirrors the slow fascisation of Russia).

Its initial stages would include: •

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

The elimination of Nazi military formations (i.e., all security forces of Ukraine, including the Ukrainian armed forces) and the destruction of the military, informational, and educational infrastructure that supports them.

The creation of public self-government bodies and militias in the liberated territories to protect the population from the terror of underground Nazi groups.

The implementation of a ‘Russian informational space.’

The removal of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programme’s containing Nazi ideological guidelines.

Extensive investigations to determine personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the spread of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime.

Lustration, the public disclosure of the names of collaborators with the Nazi regime, and their assignment to forced labour in rebuilding destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (for those not subject to the death penalty or imprisonment).

The adoption of local regulatory acts, under Russian supervision, to guide the ‘de-nazification’ process from the ground up and to prohibit all forms of Nazi ideological revival.

The installation of commemorative plaques and monuments to the victims of Ukrainian Nazism, enshrining the memory of those who fought against it.

The inclusion of anti-fascist and ‘de-nazification’ provisions in the constitutions of the newly formed people’s republics.

The establishment of permanent ‘de-nazification’ institutions operating for no less than 25 years.

136 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA Sergeitsev (2022b) emphasises that Russia will have no allies in the ‘de-nazification’ of Ukraine, which would be an exclusively Russian matter. Only Russia, he claims, is capable of eradicating Stepan Bandera’s version of Ukrainian Nazism, dismantling the Westernimposed totalitarianism, and neutralising the mechanisms of civilisational degradation and disintegration designed to subjugate Ukraine to the West, particularly the United States. The Kremlin thus adds to the fascist contours of its political system through the narrative reversal and ‘schizo-fascist’ denial Russia was ever a colonial power while at the same time attacking the West for continuing to practice colonialism through the US-led unipolar world. Despite having a level of Church attendance like the European average, Orthodox Russia is portrayed as the last bastion protecting and preserving the historical and Christian values of the ‘true Europe.’

According to this narrative, the West has abandoned these values and lost the struggle for its own survival. The battle of values, Sergeitsev (2022b) claims, has been ongoing throughout the twentieth century, most notably in World War II, when Russia crushed German Nazism, which was itself part of the monstrous legacy of the crisis of Western civilisation.

This projection of Russia’s historical mission leads the author to the conclusion that Russia has made a definitive break with the West. He asserts that Russia will chart its own path, unconcerned with the fate of the West, and will instead rely on another aspect of its historical heritage—leadership in the global process of de-colonisation. According to this vision, Russia has immense potential to forge partnerships ‘with nations that have been oppressed by the West for centuries and will not allow themselves to be subjugated again. Without Russia’s ‘sacrifices and struggle,’ the author claims, ‘these countries would never have been liberated’ (Sergeitsev 2022b). In yet another twist of historical narrative and present reality, Russia thus reclaims its Soviet-era self-proclaimed role as decoloniser-in-chief and de facto leader of the Global South—or as the Kremlin prefers, and as Sergeitsev (2022b) puts it today, the ‘Global Majority.’

The guidelines presented here, which bear unmistakable parallels to the ideological tenets of Nazi Germany, might appear

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 137 insignificant if confined to a niche group of online consumers specifically seeking such content. However, these ideas are widely disseminated across various mass media platforms in Russia. They are not only targeted at adults but also embedded in materials designed for children, youth, and military conscripts and volunteers, shaping their worldview from an early age. This indoctrination even takes place in the seemingly innocent form of animated cartoons, often accompanied by recommendations to ‘show this to your children’ (Getka and Darczewska 2023, 26).

The scale of the challenge posed by Russia’s actions is starkly reflected in the grim reality found on Russian-occupied territories in southeast Ukraine. An intensified process of Russification is underway, involving not only accelerated indoctrination through the saturation of urban spaces, schools, and kindergartens with Russian symbols but also using propaganda slogans such as ‘We are together’ and ‘Russia is here forever,’ Soviet-era music, and speeches by Russian politicians broadcast via mobile propaganda units (Coynash 2022; Barbieri 2024). Alongside these de-Ukrainisation and Russification policies, brutal repression is being undertaken with Ukrainian prosecutors documenting sites of mass execution, detention centres, and torture chambers where Ukrainian activists, including minors, are held. In addition, there is evidence of the mass and forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Sergeitsev’s (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c) articles attracted international attention that led to a wide public and media backlash. This prompted him to publish a followup propaganda article entitled ‘Why the West Fears the De-nazification of Ukraine’ (Sergeitsev 2022b). Rejecting Western criticism, he reversed its logic: in his view, the outrage expressed by Western public opinion was merely a cover for thinly veiled frustration, fear, and guilt over indifference to the purported victims in the Donbas and the suffering of the Ukrainian people. However, Sergeitsev (2022b) did not modify his assessments—indeed, he could not do so, as his article replicated Kremlin propaganda narratives, which had been reinforced by Putin himself in state-sanctioned discourse that also saturates Russian state-controlled television. These ideas had been systematically promoted in the primetime TV host and

138 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA propagandist Vladimir Solov’ev’s documentary films World Order (2015, 2018) and by Putin himself in a lengthy essay devoted to the ‘Historical Unity of Ukraine and Russia.’ According to the state’s framework, ‘the Ukrainian nation’ and ‘Ukrainian identity’ are artificial constructs created to impose forced Ukrainisation on those who may not want it. They are depicted as purely political tools designed to incite hatred against Russia and the Russian people, with no genuine connection to ethnicity or cultural belonging— while Russia’s opposing narrative, despite its inverted logic, is painted as real and organic.

Sergeitsev (2022b) furthermore did not soften his demands for Ukraine’s ‘de-nazification’—though he introduced an updated definition that combines practical measures with ideological objectives. Under this revised framework, ‘de-nazification’ involves the eradication of Nazi ideology in all its forms, which means purging all spheres of society of Nazi-affiliated individuals and identifying and punishing Nazi war criminals (Sergeitsev 2022b). A particularly chilling addition to Sergeitsev’s (2022b) new definition is a phrase eerily reminiscent of the inscription Arbeit macht frei (Work Makes One Free) on the gates of Nazi death camps such as Dachau, Auschwitz, and Sachsenhausen. Sergeitsev (2022b) describes ‘denazification’ as ‘a benevolent act, liberating the nation from Nazism’ (see Garner 2023).

Thus, a notable propaganda tactic is the Kremlin’s provocative attempt to seize control of the narrative concerning war crimes committed in Ukraine. In response to Ukraine’s demands for the inclusion of the massacres in Bucha and Mariupol on the list of crimes against humanity that are not subject to a statute of limitations, Russia has proposed the addition of a new category: ‘crimes against truth.’ According to this fabricated legal concept, ‘crimes against truth’ would include engaging in a global information war, distorting and falsifying social facts to manipulate public consciousness, and providing informational support for genocide (Getka and Darczewska 2023, 28).

Predictably, Russia accuses the West and Ukraine of committing these ‘crimes against truth,’ arguing that they have led to a civilisational catastrophe. The writing of Akopov (2022a, 2022b, 2023)

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 139 and Sergeitsev (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c) thus serves as a textbook example of narrative reversal—manipulating concepts, distorting causal relationships, and neutralising established meanings. The Russian system exhibits clear fascist characteristics of ethnocentrism and the elevation of the Russian nation; persecution and targeted assassinations of opposition figures in domestic politics; and an aggressive foreign policy, culminating in the military invasion of Ukraine. Yet, in an Orwellian inversion—a narrative reversal—official Kremlin propaganda presents the regime’s actions as a defensive reaction to an alleged fascist threat from the West and its ‘fifth column’ in Ukraine.

Fascism in an Anti-Fascist Mask The propaganda texts discussed here are deeply marked by fascist ideology. They provide insight into Russia’s official, or at least de facto, ideology. At its core, this ideology proclaims the primacy of force in resolving international disputes, the superiority of Russian cultural identity and traditional values, and an obsession with global dominance—a necessity in a world that allegedly seeks to exclude Russia from decision-making on global affairs. This ideology justifies both the imaginary threats propagated by state propaganda and the real threats posed to the regime, such as the challenge of Ukrainian political culture, which promotes a national spirit of freedom and genuine democratic values.

Moreover, this ideology has proven effective. Russian society’s susceptibility to it was demonstrated by, as described in other chapters in this book, the euphoria that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the tacit acceptance of the full-scale war launched in 2022. Elements of this ideology were already evident during the First Chechen War (1994–1996). At the time, critics of Russia’s fascisation referred to it as ‘Rushnya.’ By 2014, as the process of fascisation (or ‘rashisation’) deepened and accelerated, the term ‘Rasha’ emerged. Regardless of the terminology used to describe the system that implements these ideas (i.e., rosnazism, neototalitarian project, Putinism, ‘schizo-fascism’), its characteristics

140 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA align closely with those identified in scholarly literature as hallmarks of a fascist regime.

The process of fascisation has been and continues to be deliberately concealed through propaganda tactics that revolve around the central performance of narrative reversal. The anti-fascist language of Russian propaganda—such as the clichéd assertion that Russia raised the Soviet flag over Berlin in 1945—has been wielded as a counterargument against accusations of Russian fascisation.

The logic is straightforward: one cannot be on both sides of the barricade at once. The reversal of narrative vectors is a typical feature of Russian political as well as academic discourse. Similar outrage is expressed by Russian scholars when Moscow is placed within the paradigm of colonial studies, countering such claims with the argument that the Soviet Union fought against Western colonial oppression. These arguments suggest that Russia is leading the ‘Global Majority’s’ fight against Western colonialism—without recognising former Soviet republics as genuinely sovereign states and while undertaking genocidal imperialism towards Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks a return not only to the fascist imperative of fighting a constructed enemy but also to a fascist praxis about the belief other nations exist to be colonised and occupied. These kinds of definitive arguments against treating Russia as a colonial or fascist empire are well-established sociotechnical codes, deeply rooted in the fusion of ethnic superiority myths with nationalism, xenophobia, and imperial ideology (Eidman 2022).

While this system might be construed as a ‘caricature of fascism’ (Epstein 2022a), it remains a dangerous and aggressive system characterised by confrontation and paranoia that is manifested in a constant search for external enemies and internal traitors. Fascist Russia is marked by contempt and an occasionally almost hysterical hatred for any form of freedom; hostility toward everything foreign, alien, or simply different, paradoxically combined with a deep-seated inferiority complex (i.e., the eternal drive to ‘catch up with’ and ‘surpass’ the West); combined with a desire to enjoy Western privileges (i.e., owning property abroad, maintaining foreign bank accounts, sending children to study in what is described as ‘Gayropa’ and ‘Pindostan’).

TESTING AND UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA’S FASCISATION 141 Overlaying the cultural aspects of Russian fascism are its political and economic dimensions: anti-capitalism, anti-democracy, and anti-liberalism. In some ways, this system can be seen as a ‘caricature of fascism.’ However, this does not change the fact that it remains a dangerous and aggressive system, one that is confrontational and paranoid—constantly searching for external enemies and internal traitors.

Contemporary fascisation in Russia is also defined by three deeply entrenched cults: that of the leader, centred around Putin; that of death, organised around the memory of the ‘Great Patriotic War’; and that of tradition and the past, glorifying a golden age of imperial greatness, which must be restored through purifying violence, such as the war in Ukraine. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks a return not only to the fascist imperative of fighting a constructed enemy but also to fascist propaganda and practice. In this narrative, which is comprised almost entirely of narrative reversals, Russia is innocent due to its ancient historical legacy, while Ukraine’s existence is framed as nothing more than an international conspiracy.

Alongside a propaganda of violence that echoes that of the Third Reich, the war in Ukraine has revealed even more overt characteristics of fascism, including filtration camps, the deportation of Ukrainian civilians into Russia, kidnapping of children, genocide, attacks on civilian targets, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, rape and other crimes against civilians, and the looting of private property and cultural heritage. Under international law, these crimes are classified as war crimes.

From a cultural perspective, the war has intensified a purportedly eternal conflict between good and evil, between a ‘satanic West’ and Russia as Katechon (Restrainer) and world saviour (see Engström 2014). The fascist state of Russia positions itself in this conflict as the leader of anti-fascism in an imaginary, alternative reality. This is clearly demonstrated through the rehabilitation of fascist newspeak, visually reinforced through public symbolism, the theory of the fragmentation of the Russian nation as a justification for ‘resolving the Ukrainian question,’ and the cult of an imagined past, including the appropriation of Kyivan Rus history and

142 JOANNA GETKA AND JOLANTA DARCZEWSKA territorial claims against Crimea and southeast Ukraine (Novorossiya [New Russia]).

Adopting the lens of fascisation allows for a closer examination of the mechanisms and expansion of Russian fascism—for example, through the deconstruction of official narratives. In twentyfirst century, Russia, ‘anti-fascism’ serves as a tool enabling the Russian leadership to define its enemies as ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’ who oppose them. Ukrainians are labelled ‘Nazis’ because they refuse to accept, they are Russians—that is, part of the mythical pan-Russian people-and they resist. They are seen as executors of a Western project aimed at artificially constructing a Ukrainian identity as a weapon against Russia. Thus, Ukrainians must be ‘de-nazified’ and ‘de-Ukrainianised’—and Russia’s opponents must be ruthlessly eliminated.

The mass graves in Bucha, Mariupol, and every part of Ukraine that has been under Russian occupation are not coincidences—they are the direct consequences of a fascist war. The hate speech directed at Ukrainians thus facilitates their physical extermination (Epstein 2022a). Some scholars interpret this rhetoric of hate as the defining feature of Russia’s approach to Western ‘cancel culture.’ Others see it as a stress test for measuring the fascisation of Russia. For the authors of this chapter, however, the clearest confirmation of Russian fascism is the discursive and physical war against Ukraine.

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The Russian Orthodox Church and Orthodox Imperism Michał Wawrzonek The Russian Orthodox Church is one of the main agents working within the Russian Federation to reinvent and promote what Matteo Benussi (2024, 343) defines as ‘imperism’: a ‘political ontology, a mode of worlding endowed with cosmological, moral, sociological, and aesthetic dimensions.’ For Benussi, ‘imperism’ is a political nomos: a nomos of empire that ‘reproduces and naturalises the idea that a polity’s—here, Russia’s—normal, unmarked, and hence desirable state corresponds to an imperial setup’ (Benussi 2024, 343).

In post-Soviet Russia, imperism has been one of the main drivers of fascisation of both social life and the political system. My main goal in this chapter is to analyse how the Russian Orthodox Church became one of the main promoters and exponents of the nomos of empire in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This chapter examines why the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike Christian communities in other post-communist countries, did not become an actor in the democratisation and pluralisation of social life after the collapse of communism.

The chapter is divided into four parts. The first presents the concepts of ‘imperism’ and ‘nomos of empire.’ The second discusses the recent history of the Russian Orthodox Church. The chapter addresses the Russian Orthodox Church’s political role and attitudes during Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and discuss internal cleavages between emerging wings of reformists and traditionalists (fundamentalists). The chapter’s third section explores the Russian Orthodox Church’s contribution to the development of the Russkii mir (Pan-Russian World) ideology. The final part describes the synergy between the Russian Orthodox Church’s social teaching and the progressive fascisation of Russia’s social life and political system. Through these four sections, the chapter 149

150 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK demonstrates how the Russian Orthodox Church has long developed a social doctrine that prepared the Church to become an ideological stronghold for Putin’s dictatorship and fascist regime.

‘Imperism’ and ‘Nomos of Empire’ The nomos of empire in Russia under Putin is a specific way of imbuing the world with a particular set of myths, prejudices, and stereotypes. In the case of contemporary Russian imperial nationalism, these are myths of a spiritual unity of a triune (tripartite) panRussian people unifying Russians (Great Russians), Ukrainians (Little Russians), and Belarussians (White Russians). In this worldview, this pan-Russian civilisation possesses exceptional moral and ethical values—and is, as such, ontologically fated to clash with the ‘Collective West’ which desecrates such values. This conflict is thus a means of sacralising humanity’s earthly existence.

Presented in culture, these visions are suffused with nostalgia for the Soviet era. Thanks to this nomos of empire, the Russian state’s official policy is determined by expansionism, militarism, cult of war, and eliminationist rhetoric in relation to actors (political forces, states, or nations) who are identified as enemies within the parameters of the Russian nomos of empire.

Benussi (2024, 345) contends that such an ‘imperism’ is ‘a moral-political resource that emerged in key quarters of Russia’s elite and society, successfully establishing itself as politically dominant thanks to effective persuasion campaigns but also thanks to its resonance with widespread cultural assumptions among the Russian public, as well as its ability to give sense to multiple areas of experience in times of creeping anomie.’ Working within this paradigm, I purport that the Russian Orthodox Church administers a base of symbolic capital drawn from and generative of cultural opinions and attitudes widespread among the Russian public.

Therefore, the Russian Orthodox Church possesses—and has long possessed—a persuasive tool highly useful in promoting an imperialist worldview.

Russian state elites and the Russian Orthodox Church have been creating two parallel and complementary imperial narratives

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 151 since the 1990s. Following the disintegration of USSR, President Boris Yeltsin’s advisor Sergei Stankevich laid out a conception of the territory of the former USSR as falling within an exclusive Russian sphere of influence (Nizioł 2004, 159). The term ‘near abroad’ entered the official dictionary of Russian diplomacy as the way to differentiate former Soviet republics from the ‘far abroad.’ Simultaneously, an equivalent notion—that of ‘canonical territory’—emerged from the Russian Orthodox Church. Alicja Curanović (2012, 134) has demonstrated the connection between the Kremlin’s ‘near abroad’ and Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘canonical territory,’ both of which aimed to maintain ‘the post-Soviet space within the Russian sphere of influence.’ The core of the ‘near abroad’ and Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘canonical territory’ is constituted by the countries of the triune: Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

On the surface, the Kremlin, unlike classic fascist regimes, ‘has been careful to steer clear of racial doctrines’: Putinist imperism thus at least appears to function on the civil, rather than the racial, level (Benussi 2024, 360). However, the internal structure of both Putin’s and earlier fascist regimes remains the same. At their core is the belief in the ‘objectively’ conditioned ontological superiority of one group of people (i.e., one political structure) over others. In Putin’s Russia, the Third Reich’s racial superiority is thus replaced by spiritual-moral superiority. The guarantor of this spiritualmoral superiority is the Russian Orthodox Church, which serves as a ‘spiritual guide’ and a guardian of the civilisational community’s cultural identity.

The characteristic feature of the Russian nomos of empire is a specific approach to the issue of territory. In the case of Russia’s territorial expansion, it is interrelated with a desire for a certain kind of enchanting of the space, or with eschatological heroism backed by a vision of paradise to be accomplished. Thanks to this, the physically aggressive subjugation of new territories takes on a quasi-metaphysical meaning.

This ‘imperial metaphysics’ was built over time by drawing on different sets of myths and ideas. In the Tsarist Empire, these included messianism, Pan-Slavism, a notion of ‘Holy Rus’,’ and the triad of ‘Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality.’ The Bolshevik

152 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK Revolution overthrew Tsarism, but the mindset of the new Soviet elites continued to be determined by the nomos of empire and its essential element of using myths to seize and control the Eurasian space. Indeed, the Bolsheviks created their own paradigm of ‘enchanting the World’ by replacing Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality—the constituent elements of Tsarist official nationality— with internationalism, class liberation, and the great eschatological project of achieving freedom through revolution (Voegelin 1975, 242). In time, the vision of the communist paradise was replaced by the idea of the Soviet ‘fatherland’ and of a return to Russian traditions and Soviet patriotism (Voegelin 1975, 252). Accordingly, in the late Soviet period, a new formula of enchanting reality had already begun to take shape. This provided the basis for the Pan-Russian World ideology under Vladimir Putin. This chapter demonstrates how the Russian Orthodox Church became one of the key creators and disseminators of this ideology, strengthening its message through references to the symbolic capital associated with eastern Christian spirituality.

According to the ideology of Bolshevik communism, revolution was not ‘merely’ about overthrowing the government and taking power; it was to be a transformation of the entire society and human existence. Likewise, as Benussi notes (2024, 361), territorial expansion within the paradigm of imperism becomes ‘a holistic world-making or world-remaking gesture, rather than the ‘mere’ (re)acquisition of land or population.’ Indeed, Putin himself has described the annexation of Ukrainian territories as an act of ‘building and creating.’ Within the imperist framework, Benussi (2024, 361) continues, ‘annexation is a means to a greater end of refoundation or rejuvenation of the general order of things.’ As a result, the Kremlin’s expansion into Ukrainian territory is presented as the defence of Russian ‘historical rights’ established and protected by providence.

In Putin’s (2014) Crimean speech, made to the Russian Federal Assembly in March 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, he clearly stated that the annexation was not simply the occupation of a strategically important piece of land. It was the restoration of a Russian place ‘symbolising Russian military glory and outstanding

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 153 valour’—the land ‘where Prince Vladimir was baptised.’ Putin’s discourse, which appeals to historical myths associated with Russia’s purportedly innate Christianity, is a typical example of enchanting reality.

Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill was missing among the guests of the official ceremony of Crimea’s annexation by the Russian Federation. Katarzyna Chawryło (2014, 5) contends that avoiding the event ‘was a tactical solution consulted on with the Kremlin.’ Indeed, by 2014, Patriarch Kirill had explained his surprise absence by claiming his and Putin’s voices were indivisible.

He thanked Putin for giving voice to the ‘consensus presently seen among Russians’ and for ‘formulating thoughts and ideas which unite people.’ He then made an appeal to global public opinion: ‘God grant that Russia be understood today by those who still do not understand it. God grant that everyone understands that Russia is not a source of a military or any other threat to humanity’ (Chawryło 2014, 6). This is also a perfect example of the typical Russian nomos where religiously inflected visions and myths of empire enchant reality.

After 2014, the Moscow Patriarchate did not immediately incorporate Ukrainian Orthodox Church1 parishes in Crimea into its formal structures. However, especially since 2022, that has changed and the Moscow Patriarchate extinguished the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s authority and presence, thereby increasing its control over Russian-occupied Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church established a Crimean metropolis and welcomed its status as a state church in the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. Since 2022, the Russian Orthodox Church has taken control of 1,619 former Ukrainian Orthodox Church parishes, excluding them from the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Kyiv, and created a new diocese in Russian-occupied Kherson oblast’ (Alhorytm 2023). The Russian Orthodox Church has cooperated with the Russian authorities in closing and repressing clergy of the 1

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its main rival is the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which was granted autocephaly (independence) by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople in 2018-2019 from the Russian Orthodox Church.

154 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Ukrainian Evangelical and Protestant Churches, and Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. The churches and parishes of these Ukrainian religious denominations have been directly given to the Russian Orthodox Church. Territorial expansionism associated with the nomos of empire governs the actions of—and benefits—the Moscow Patriarchate as much as it does those of the Kremlin, its imperial nationalist ally.

The Russian Orthodox Church from the Soviet Past to the Putinist Present The role that the Russian Orthodox Church has played and is playing in the process of political transition(s) in Russia and in the postSoviet space is the result of the position and experience that this institution gained from the Soviet period. Reconstructing the genesis of the Russian Orthodox Church in its modern guise therefore helps to explain why the Russian Orthodox Church became one of the key institutions that led to the fascisation of social and political life in Russia.

From the Bolshevik Revolution until the Nazi invasion in 1941, the Soviet state attacked religion, including the Russian Orthodox Church. According to data collected by Anna Dickinson, on the eve of Russia’s entry into World War II, 97.6 per cent of Churches had been closed and the number of Russian Orthodox Church clergy was less than 10 percent of its pre-revolutionary figure with only four hierarchs remaining alive (Dickinson 2000, 330-332). However, this process did not go unaided from within the Church. In 1927, Metropolitan Sergius (Stargoroskii), who performed the duties of the Moscow Patriarch as locum tenens, had sent a message to the faithful. Sergius explained that the route to a normalisation of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state in the USSR was blocked by some of the clergy’s anti-Soviet sentiments.

On behalf of the Patriarchal Synod, Sergius expressed complete political solidarity with the Soviet regime. The enemies of the Soviet regime were thus effectively declared enemies of the Church (Mazyrin 2013).

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 155 Ultimately, the situation was changed sharply in September 1943, when four Russian Orthodox Church bishops who remained alive or not in exile were summoned to the Kremlin for a meeting with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and NKVD Major-General Georgii Karpov. This meeting, which took place as the Red Army was advancing into Europe, was a part of the Soviet institutional preparations for regaining control over the recovered territories of Western Ukraine and over central-eastern European countries with Orthodox believers. 1943 became a ‘historic moment’ in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church (Tsypin 2012, 464). However, the alleged ‘rebirth’ of the Russian Orthodox Church that occurred was not a return to the Church of the prerevolutionary era; it was the de facto creation of a new institution where the state permitted limited belief and ritual.

The Russian Orthodox Church survived in this institutional form until the perestroika era. Sergei Filatov notes that in this period of the eastern Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church’s leaders spoke out on the following limited social issues: preventing all available means for the legalisation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; the elimination of religious ‘competition’ (especially by the Roman Catholic Church and the émigré Russian Orthodox Church); and, after the adoption of the law for freedom of conscience, limiting the rights of the parish in the name of ‘democratic centralism’ (Les risques 1992, 343).

On the surface, the Russian Orthodox Church’s structure remained internally consolidated. However, as Zoe Knox (2005, 92) shows, it experienced significant cleavages between ‘reformists’ and ‘traditionalists’ (fundamentalists). Reformists attempted to pursue a path of inner renewal focused on the ‘Church and perestroika’ movement, whose participants advocated, inter alia, that the Church recognise the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius as an error and condemn both Stalin’s personality cult and cooperation between the clergy and the KGB. As Sophie Kotzer (2020, 143) notes, the samizdat dissident press—much of which pursued the reformist cause—attacked the Russian Orthodox Church leadership’s ‘total subjugation to state authorities and compliance with its foreign policy needs.’ Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church was

156 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK continually denounced for being ‘unable to foster the important mission of religious education and catechisation because of administrative arbitrariness, corruption and lack of social activity’ (Knox 2005, 94).

Reformists came under concerted attack as the USSR began to disintegrate. Father Alexander Men, whose name has come to stand for ‘the non-aggressive, non-politicised, non-ghettoised, non-fundamentalist Russian Orthodoxy’ (Knox 2005, 94) was one of the most prominent representatives of the renewal wing and a supporter of perestroika. He was brutally murdered in September 1990, a few weeks after Patriarch Alexei II had been elected. The Moscow Patriarchate appointed a special commission to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Father Men but shortly afterward another of its leading members, Abbot Lazar (Solnyshko), was also murdered. His successor, Father Seraphim, also died in mysterious circumstances. Following these murders, the patriarchal committee ceased to investigate the mysterious death of Russian Orthodox clergy.

Nonetheless, the reformist strand of thinking did not disappear. Although perestroika supporters in the Russian Orthodox Church were few and far between—theirs was more a dissident movement than a broad social front—some clergy attempted to follow the example of Father Men in their pastoral work. Indeed, some Orthodox laity ‘believed that Orthodoxy as a faith can and should aid the development of democracy in post-Soviet Russia and lamented the fact that the official structures of the Church have not been able to facilitate this positive influence’ (Knox 2005, 96).

Among the most well-known Orthodox activists of this group were Zoia Krakhmalnikova and Aleksandr Ogorodnikov (Knox 2005, 96). Nonetheless, the outlook was bleak.

The opposing wing developed rapidly—and, for the reformists, alarmingly. Krakhmalnikova was by 1994 warning against ‘the threat of Russian fascism, which might don the uniform of the totalitarianism that Russia has not yet overcome, this time outfitted with an aggressive, nationalistic idea. It is no accident that this new type of fascism is trying to create a religious ideology with its

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 157 components ‘patriotic Nazism, antisemitism and pseudo-Orthodoxy’ (Knox 2005, 97).

Representatives of the ‘traditionalist’ wing did not dwell on comparisons between the Soviet and Nazi totalitarian regimes as for them, the subjects of repression and persecution remained of marginal interest. Instead, their approach emphasised the harmonious model of cooperation between the Soviet state and the Russian Orthodox Church that had emerged. The cooperation of the atheistic authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church was laid in a co-created myth of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ that emerged after the 1940s. Within this myth, a narrative about the inviolability of the Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘canonical territory’—and the Soviet defence of it—emerged which served to elevate the Russian Orthodox Church’s political and spiritual importance.

Russian Orthodox fundamentalist extremism, which always shared some elements of a worldview with more explicit manifestations of fascism, grew in the 1990s. Fundamentalists ‘rejected the enlightenment and democracy’ and ‘believed in a world Jewish conspiracy’ (Shenfield 2001, 79). In the early 1990s, the wing’s most famous and influential representative was Metropolitan Yoann (Snychev). According to Steven D. Shenfield (2001, 76), ‘Yoann’s teaching is a clear example of a purely reactionary ideology, resembling that of (early twentieth century ultra-nationalist group) the Black Hundreds, which seeks to reanimate a lost premodern golden age’—that is, it centred a familiar, enchanting myth drawn from the past.

In addition, various secular organisations, called ‘brotherhoods,’ which appealed to the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church and which its hierarchy at least tolerated, became visible in the public sphere from the early 1990s. Formally, these ‘brotherhoods’ promoted Christian values in the social life of post-Soviet Russia, but in reality, their activities achieved little—and were not intended to achieve more than the perpetuation of ‘a sense of religious identity under threat, from the modern world and the enemy ‘Other’ (Rock 2002). The brotherhoods sold their supporters on ‘a nostalgia for a sacred past, and a desire or strategy to construct a future society based on religious identity’ (Rock 2002). Their leaders

158 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK arbitrarily borrowed doctrines, beliefs, and practices from this ‘sacred past,’ including the resuscitation of various anti-Semitic stereotypes (Rock 2002). After the formal unification of the domestic and émigré wings of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2007, traditionalists continued to adopt elements of the pre-revolutionary heritage that were cultivated in the Soviet era by White Russian émigrés, who (as described in other Chapters in this book) inspired fascists and imperial nationalists in post-Soviet Russia. In this context, the return of the White Russian émigré writer Ivan Ilyin’s remains to Russia, for example, took on substantial symbolic meaning (see Kuzio 2022, 99-172).

A broad centre that was ‘theologically conservative and politically loyal to the government of the day’ gradually emerged from the two extreme wings of the Russian Orthodox Church (Shenfield 2001, 64-65). Indeed, Patriarch Alexei II was a representative of this group. However, the centre has over time moved toward what was originally the fundamentalist position—a process that was evident to scholars by the early 2000s. Myroslav Tataryn (2001, 156) noted that xenophobia was becoming increasingly evident in the public pronouncements and behaviours of the Russian Orthodox Church patriarch. Stella Rock (2002) predicted that the ‘theology of rage, resentment and revenge’ propagated by the fundamentalist movement ‘could yet fill the vacuum (of theology and identity) felt by many.’ Zoe Knox (2005) noted the growing ‘xenophobic discourses which wed Orthodoxy with platforms and ideologies incompatible with civil society. National chauvinism is characterised by an intolerance that violates the fundamental tenets of civil society.’

Tataryn (2001), Rock (2002), and Knox’s (2005) observations proved prescient. For example, one of the leading figures of a fledgeling movement to normalise xenophobic and quasi-fascistic discourse in the early 2000s was Leonid Simonovich-Nikshich (Rock 2002). In 2006, Patriarch Alexei II awarded Simonovich-Nikshich an official medal for his work on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church (Ushel, 2022). The medal was presented to him by the then Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad—the man who would become patriarch—Kirill (Gundiaiev). Over time, the ‘centre’ has moved closer to the ‘traditionalist’ wing.

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 159 The progressive imperial radicalisation of Russian state policy after Putin took power and following colour revolutions in the postSoviet area, especially the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, has also had an impact on the situation within the Russian Orthodox Church. As Filatov notes, the situation in Ukraine after the Orange Revolution contributed to the ‘ideological consolidation of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin around the ideals of Russian (Russkaia) civilisation and the Russian (Russkaia) path of development (Pravoslavnaia tserkov’ 2012, 20). The point of reference for these ideals was an exclusivist model for Orthodoxy and the ideology of Pan-Slavism. The Russian Orthodox Church’s drift toward narrow-minded fundamentalism gained momentum under Alexei II’s successor, Partiarch Kirill, when the ideology of the Pan-Russian World would take centre stage in both the Kremlin’s and the Russian Orthodox Church’s rhetoric.

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Pan-Russian World When the institutionalisation of the Russian world ideology gathered momentum after 2007, various representatives of Russian intellectual elites engaged in intense discussion about the concept of ‘Russian civilisation.’ Initially, discussions were genuine and relatively pluralistic, functioning as mirrors of the disputes between traditionalists and reformists within the Russian Orthodox Church.

However, the Kremlin’s new Russkiy mir Foundation—a soft power institution established by Putin’s personal decree in 2007 to promote Russian culture and the Russian language—was to provide the main stage for this debate. This link ensured that the debate would soon become a way to validate neo-Soviet resentments, Russian chauvinism and White Russian émigré fascism and imperial nationalism. Indeed, the Russkiy mir Foundation sought explicitly to rehabilitate Ilyin, reportedly Putin’s favourite author. In time, therefore, the concept of the Pan-Russian World became central to an ‘imitation of public symbolic discourse’ (Getka and Darczewska 2022, 90). This imitation of wide-ranging discourse purported to seek a system of ideas and values but in actual fact, the ideas and

160 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK values highlighted in this process were limited to those that legitimise Putin’s political regime and its domestic and external policies This applied equally to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church as it did to other aspects of Russian spiritual, cultural, and political traditions.

In December 2009 and March 2010, the Russkiy mir Foundation organised a serious of debates about the Russian World. While these were dominated by chauvinism and resentment, alternative voices were heard. Vladimir Malakhov, for example, emphasised the dangers of chauvinism: Chauvinism in general and cultural chauvinism in particular are unacceptable here. Neither is the reduction of Russian culture to its folklore manifestations acceptable. We need to work with a living, actual culture and not the reduction of Russianness to Orthodoxy, that is, the clericalisation of Russian culture. There is no need for Russia to be associated with the Moscow Patriarchate, with people in robes and hoods, because this is perceived as an antimodernist project (Russkii mir 2010, 102).

Sergei Nikolskii was similarly explicit, criticising the promotion of expansionism as central to the Russian World concept as ‘a terrible thing.’ In evidence, he cited the Tsarist Empire’s suppression of the Polish Uprising in 1863-1864, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Nikolskii concluded: ‘Russia should still be a country of culture, a country of creation, not destruction…Until we deal with our own predatory consciousness, no world will need us. The world does not need expansion’ (Russkii mir 2010, 97). Likewise, socialist Boris Kagarlitskii predicted that ‘if the strategy of self-isolation and opposing oneself to the surrounding world begins to dominate the development of the ‘Pan-Russian World,’ it will be a disaster. The ‘dead-end will eliminate the powerful potential that exists in Russian culture and in Russian tradition’ (Russkii mir 2010, 100).

Participants in the discussion presented different opinions on the importance of symbolic capital related to the Soviet period for the concept of the Pan-Russian World. There were advocates for Soviet rehabilitation who proposed to seek harmony between the Soviet and non-Soviet heritages by reshaping the latter to meet contemporary needs. Sergii Nikolskii held a different opinion, stating

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 161 that ‘Generalissimo Stalin and Marshal Beria’ were ‘part of our history’ that could not be suppressed: ‘Is this what we want? Or do we admit that there was such a terrible thing, that there was no escape, but we need to do something about it and somehow overcome it?’

(Russkii mir 2010, 97-98).

In retrospect, the debates can be reduced to a fundamental problem: was the concept of the Pan-Russian World to be a new form of Russian imperialism? When it comes to Russian Orthodox Church’s involvement, one key participant was missing: Patriarch Kirill. However, Kirill’s voice was not entirely absent. A month before the first of the round tables, Kirill (2009) gave a speech at the Third Assembly of the Russian World Foundation where he outlined his vision of the Pan-Russian World as a ‘civilisational community,’ the core of which is Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Kirill (2009) used the Pan-Slavic myths of the unity of ‘historical Rus’’ employing phraseology drawing on notions of Rus as a holy site and on the unity of a common russkaia (Russian) culture and language. Through this speech, Kirill effectively announced the Russian Orthodox Church’s future model of the Pan-Russian World. It was then in effect reduced to a new ideology and became a propaganda tool of Russian imperial nationalism with the Pan-Russian World providing the model for the current official narrative on post-Soviet Russia’s nomos of empire.

Over time, Putin himself became the most important disseminator of discourse on the Pan-Russian World. Messages and narratives created in the Kremlin are replicated and developed by opinion shaping organisations— ‘social organisations,’ ‘foundations,’ and ‘associations’ that are directly or indirectly created and financed by the Kremlin. After 2014, the Russian Orthodox Churchdominated World Russian People Council (WRPC) became one such organisation. The WRPC was created by representatives of various communities and social organisations in the early 1990s. It was initially a discussion platform with a mission to analyse losses and gains in the most important areas of life, to determine the most important goals and values of Russian national existence, to declare Russian understanding of their role in world history, to outline ways to strengthen the unity of the Russian people, to protect the

162 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK rights and interests of compatriots, and to establish civil peace and interethnic peace on Russian soil and intranational harmony’ (Rossiiskaia sobornaia, 1993).

In short, the WRPC aimed to adapt the nomos of empire to the new post-Soviet reality. The political identity of those that created the WRPC, at least judging by the declarations adopted during the first congress in 1993, is best described as eclectic. According to the official version, the ‘inspiration for and spiritual leader of the Council’ was then Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, and since 2009 Patriarch Kirill (Vsemirnyi russkii 2010). Over time, the WRPC has become a forum for crafting a new ideology to legitimise Russia’s political system and leaders. As Chawryło (2024, 2) has observed, the WRPC now ‘brings together not only high-ranking church hierarchs but also politicians, officials, public figures and pro-regime oligarchs with nationalist leanings’ (Chawryło 2024, 2).

The roots of contemporary fascism in Russia, especially in relation to its religious aspects, can be traced to specific figures: to Kirill, to the fundamentalist-traditional wing of the Church, and even to Soviet-era politicians. Gradually, the Russian Orthodox Church has welcomed increasing numbers of formerly marginalised figures. One ‘icon’ of post-Soviet Russian fascism and Eurasianism is Alexander Dugin (see Shenfield 2001, 191-199). For decades, Dugin seemingly remained on the margins of Russian political life. However, Shenfield (2001, 199) predicted that Dugin’s ‘geopolitical ideas are clearly much more influential than are the other, more openly mystical and esoteric, sides of his philosophy.’ Shenfield (2001, 199) predicted that ‘Dugin’s position in Russian society is such that he cannot be dismissed out of hand as a figure of the ‘lunatic fringe.’ If Dugin long remained a rather niche figure in Russia, it was probably because his activities and ideas were addressed to the highest elites. This Russian promoter of fascism also lacked the organisational background that would allow him to act on a wider scale.

The Russian Orthodox Church stepped in to fill this void, offering Dugin resources to foreground his ideas in public discourse—and to place them alongside the Church’s own doctrines and pronouncements. As Pavlo Smytsnyuk (2023, 543) notes, the

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 163 Russian Orthodox Church ‘has been pushing forward many theological-political narratives similar to Dugin’s, and, arguably, even with greater success, since it relies on a much wider network—from grassroot communities to religious diplomacy—to deliver its messages.’ It was no coincidence that in the early 2000s Dugin began using the Russian Orthodox Church’s network and appeared at the 2001 WRPC forum. Two decades later, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dugin was one of the most visible participants in the WRPC forums in 2022, 2023, and 2024. This embrace of fascist and Eurasianist thinkers and extreme beliefs and practices exemplifies the Russian Orthodox Church’s domination by its fundamentalist wing. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church practices an Orthodox variant of imperialism that perpetuates and legitimises militarism, a cult of war, expansionism, and authoritarianism as the core elements of the Russian nomos of empire, legitimising Putin’s fascist regime.

The progressive consolidation of authoritarianism in Russia, the 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine, and the RussianUkrainian war have led to a sacralisation of the nomos of empire.

A new narrative has emerged alongside and above the existing discourse around a ‘clash of civilisations’ between spiritual Russia and satanic West. In this adaptation of the narrative, the conflict between Russia and the ‘Collective West’ takes place on the Manichaean plane in the struggle between good (Pan-Russian civilisation) and evil (liberal or ‘Nazi’ West).

As part of this Manichaean struggle, the Russian Orthodox Church—and particularly the WRPC—invented the notion of a specifically Russian ‘Holy War.’ On the eve of Russia’s full scale invasion on Ukraine, Regina Elsner (2022, 51) stated: ‘Given the connection of war and patriotism on the one hand, and the linking of patriotism and the concept of Holy Rus’ as the bearer of the true faith on the other, it becomes clear that Russian military intervention could be justified by Russian Orthodox arguments as part of the socalled civilisational conflict of values in Ukraine’ (Elsner 2022, 51).

These predictions were manifested in the activities of the WRPC. In March 2024, the WRPC officially approved the ‘Edict of the XXV World Russian People’s Council’ which bore the subtitle, ‘The

164 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK Present and Future of the Pan-Russian World.’ Among the participants of the deliberations that led to this document were—in addition to Patriarch Kirill himself—more than thirty bishops and sixty Russian Orthodox Church priests. The Russian Orthodox Church’s participation in this initiative evokes associations with the activities of the pro-Nazi movement of ‘German Christians’ within Protestant Churches in Germany in the 1930s (Shumylo 2024). The edict itself labels the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine a ‘Holy War.’ According to this document, ‘Russia and its people, defending the unified spiritual space of Holy Russia, fulfil the mission of the Katechon (Restrainer), protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of a West that has fallen into Satanism’ (Shumylo 2024). This is an almost radical apology and religious justification for Russian militarism and Putin Russia’s cult of war.

The second paragraph of the document proclaims the existence of a particular Russian spiritual and cultural ‘civilisation’ distinct from that of other Christian and even Orthodox nations. According to the authors, ‘Russia is the creator, supporter and protector of the Pan-Russian World. The borders of the Pan-Russian World as a spiritual, cultural, and civilisational phenomenon are significantly wider than the state borders of both the current Russian Federation and historical Russia.’ As Serhii Shumylo (2024) has noted, the edict promoted ‘the outdated and completely unscientific pan-Russian imperial myth of the ‘triune unity of the Russian people, according to which the Russian people consist of Great Russians (velikorossy), Little Russians (malorossy), and White Russians (belorossy), which are branches (sub-ethnicities) of one people.’ In addition to giving Russia the mantle of spiritual ‘protector,’ expansionist goals are then introduced and justified under the now familiar rubric of ‘restoration of the unity of the Russian people’ (Shumylo 2024). Russia, then, has a spiritual-moral claim to uniqueness, unity, and—regardless of international law or convention— the right to assert itself across the geographic space inhabited by the triune pan-Russian people.

Each of these spiritual discussions was rapidly used by the Patriarch to comment on the war against Ukraine. During the next

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 165 session of the WRPC in November 2024, Patriarch Kirill stated that the decision of Donbas residents to ‘unite with Russia’ showed ‘what national consciousness means now’; it was, in fact, proof of residents’ ‘loyalty’ to their purported homeland. To applause from the audience, Patriarch Kirill expressed the hope that ‘someday Ukraine will also be united with Russia’ (Kirill 2024a). Moreover, according to Patriarch Kirill, Russia is in fact defending itself against the aggressive expansion of the West. In his opinion, the ‘tragic, fratricidal conflict in Ukraine’ was provoked by Western elites. He also stressed that a ‘just peace’ cannot be achieved at the expense of ‘our brothers and sisters’—residents of southeastern Ukraine—who had purportedly made a choice in favour of unity with Russia.

On another occasion during the same session, Patriarch Kirill declared: Thank God, the leadership of Russia and, above all, the president of the country, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, takes on enormous responsibility, demonstrates wise prudence, composure, and calm in these difficult circumstances, and does not succumb to cynical and impudent provocations, but continues to consistently advance towards the goals that have been laid out: the protection of the legitimate and fair interests of Russia and the Pan-Russian World (Kirill 2024b).

Kirill’s comment is just one example of how the Russian Orthodox Church actively co-creates a narrative aiming to legitimise the Kremlin’s policies and Putin’s regime.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s Social Teaching The current fundamentalist radicalism of the Russian Orthodox Church is a reaction both to the Kremlin’s growing fascism and to current events related to the war in Ukraine. However, the Russian Orthodox Church has long been doctrinally prepared for such an ideological turn thanks to its deep involvement in co-creating the nomos of Russian imperism. While there is no room in this Chapter to analyse the entire social doctrine promoted by the Moscow Patriarchate, an extensive literature on the subject has been published in the last decade (see Anderson 2016; Stoeckl 2014; Stoeckl 2020).

166 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK The Russian Orthodox Church’s social teaching confirms the purported cultural distinctiveness of a pan-Russian civilisation. Scholars have noted the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church’s human rights paradigm, which serves as an alternative to that of Western, liberal-democratic political culture (Stoeckl 2014). Pavlo Smytsnyuk argues, for example, that ‘unlike the classical approach to rights, which articulates collective rights as the protection of minorities and disadvantaged groups from the majority community, the Russian Orthodox Church is concerned with protecting family, religious community and the majority from the individual. By prioritising the collective, the Russian Orthodox Church, in fact, prioritises the state’ (Smytsnyuk 2023, 543-544). In the Russian Orthodox Church’s conception, moreover, ‘rights’ belong to the state-centric world of imperism, while the individual is subject to the state. The Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘spiritual base’ thus provides oil to grease the subject-state relationship.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s social teaching on war thus deviates from individual and Western-centred approaches. It was formulated in the first year of Putin’s rule of Russia (see Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 2000) and is of greater importance with Kirill—before becoming Patriarch—acting as the principal author of this document (Kilp and Pankhurst 2022, 5) where the Russian Orthodox Church builds its bellum iustum doctrine based on ‘the Western Christian tradition, which goes back to St. Augustine.’ However, Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine demonstrates that the Russian Orthodox Church manipulates selected elements of the Christian theological past to formulate conditions in which ‘war in one’s own or others’ territory is admissible’ (Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 2000). To this end, the authors of the ‘Bases’ relativise the distinction between armed aggression and defensive war. They emphasise that ‘in the present system of international relations, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish an aggressive war from a defensive war. In this regard, the question whether the Church should support or deplore the hostilities needs to be given a special consideration every time they are initiated or threaten to begin’ (Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 2000).

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 167 The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been the most important test so far of what the Russian Orthodox Church’s teaching in war means in practice. According to the ‘special consideration’ given by Patriarch Kirill, as well as many other representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine is in fact a defensive war. Searching for the sources and justifications for such a position in contemporary non-Russian Orthodox Christian thinking on just war is futile; however, those sources and justifications are without a doubt contained in the Russian nomos of empire. It is with the nomos of empire, not with any Christian tradition, that the Russian Orthodox Church has in fact based its understanding of bellum iustum today.

In its ‘social doctrine,’ the Russian Orthodox Church legitimises armed aggression as assistance in the name of ‘love of one’s neighbour.’ It allows for war to be waged on the territory of another country, listing the conditions that must be met for such actions to be justified. On February 24, 2022, Putin presented the reasons for launching the so-called ‘Special Military Operation,’ the most important of which was the aim of ‘de-nazification.’ These justifications have been described at length elsewhere as originating in propaganda, imperialism, and Putin’s mafia boss-like desire to exert power. However, the Russian president’s arguments for the socalled ‘Special Military Operation’ were meticulously aligned with the catalogue of requirements for a just war contained in the social teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Contrary to what the Russian Orthodox Church suggests in the ‘Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,’ the doctrine of ‘just war’ has in fact already been abrogated by other Orthodox churches. War, regardless of its purpose and the circumstances in which it is fought, is evil. For example, in January 2020, under the patronage of Constantinople Patriarch Bartolomew I, a set of principles—guidelines in the social doctrine of the Orthodox Church—was published that were formulated by a specially appointed team of theologians. The authors of this document emphasised that ‘the Church has merely recognised the inescapably tragic reality that sin sometimes requires a heartbreaking choice between allowing violence to continue or employing force to bring that

168 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK violence to an end’ (Hart and Chryssavgis 2020). At the same time, however, the authors contend that even in such a case, the use of coercive force is a morally imperfect response to any situation (Hart and Chryssavgis 2020, 62). The document, endorsed by Patriarch Bartolomew I, contains a categorical statement that: ‘The Orthodox Church has also never developed any kind of ‘Just War Theory’ that seeks in advance, and under a set of abstract principles, to justify and morally endorse a state’s use of violence when a set of general criteria are met. Indeed, it could never refer to war as ‘holy’ or ‘just’ (Hart and Chryssavgis 2020, 62). Although the document does not name any specific example of the propagation of a distorted ‘Just War Theory’ the language here repudiates the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church approaches the subject of war in its teaching.

The members of the Constantinople theological commission categorically stated that the use of violence is evil—regardless of the reasons and circumstances. That makes it clear that the rule applies both to violence used by the persecutor and to violence used in self-defence or in defence of some good. The authors of the document noted that, ‘Many victims of assault, but also many soldiers, police officers, and perpetrators of violence, find the experience spiritually devastating, and in consequence find their capacity for faith, hope, and love deeply damaged’ (Hart and Chryssavgis 2020, 64). Looking at the concept of war from this perspective, the Russian Orthodox Church’s teaching on the topic has little to do with any strain of Orthodox theological thought (not least of all going back to St. Augustine) and is—at least in Constantinople’s view— an incitement to sin.

As Alar Kilp and Jerry G. Pankhurst (2022, 5) have noted, ‘Western conceptions of the church’s role in foreign affairs stress universalised and generalised human welfare as the object.’ The same can also be said of the current social doctrine of the Constantinople patriarch. Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church’s doctrine, especially after February 2022, ‘allows for engagement of the Russian Church in defence of Russianness, Russian national identity, and national sovereignty’ with again, the trace of imperism over individualism being evident. Moreover, the Russian Orthodox

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 169 Church’s social teaching on international relations is mainly focused on ‘the supposed moral superiority of Russian culture and civilisation, at least in a defined global region’ (Kilp and Pankhurst 2022, 5). The Russian Orthodox Church at the conceptual level) and in practice during the war against Ukraine relativises the concept of state sovereignty through an elaborate pseudo-theological reflection on ‘a spiritual understanding of unity’ (Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 2000). Chapter XVI of the ‘Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church’ states: ‘Remembering that unity is good, and disunity is bad, the Church welcomes the tendencies for unification of countries and nations, especially those with common history and culture’ (Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 2000). As Regina Elsner 92022, 45) has argued, the Russian Orthodox Church therefore ‘questions the principle of state sovereignty.’ The Russian Orthodox Church’s ideology of the Pan-Russian World implicitly questions the sovereignty of post-Soviet states.

Within the Russian Orthodox Church itself, a ‘culture of war’ has emerged. In 2015, Boris Knorre (2015, 577) drew attention to a new phenomenon of the so-called ‘theology of war’ that revolved around ‘a certain system of axioms, priorities, conclusions and aesthetically coloured formulas.’ In his opinion, this phenomenon was becoming more popular among Russian Orthodox Church clergy.

In this regard, Knorre (2015, 578) stated that ‘we are dealing with a phenomenon of some kind of sacralised militaristic spirituality inherent in post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy…in the context of the Russian Orthodox Church, an entire tradition of justifying war is actively being formed.’ This involves the ersatz production of a stable, independent tradition with its own peculiar theology, religious commitment, and a specific conservative spirituality that is protective of the military (Knorre 2016, 33). The observable products of this ‘tradition’ are speech acts, texts, and physical constructions.

Pavlo Smytsnyuk (2023, 544) also drew attention to the fact that ‘the Russian Orthodox Church is providing a theology to militarism.’

A perfect illustration of this ‘culture of war’ is the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, which was consecrated in 2020 in Kubinka near Moscow. This vast construction is ‘an impressive

170 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK symbol of the justification of war and growing militarisation of the Russian Orthodox Church’ (Elsner 2022, 52). The cathedral, which features decoration hailing not just Biblical figures and saints but military figures and events from Russia’s heroic past, commemorates and sacralises the victory over the Nazis of 1945 as well as the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Hosting politicians, soldiers, and worshippers alike, and blending history with militarisation and religion, the cathedral thus serves ‘as a place for the blessing of soldiers, arms and therefore the very idea of a nation at war’ (Elsner 2022, 52). The cathedral provides the physical manifestation of a theology of war—and a belief in holy and just war—for today’s Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin.

A specific feature of this ‘militaristic spirituality’ centres terroristic weapons in the Russian Orthodox Church’s public discourse. In August 2023, Yevgeny Nikiforov, the co-founder of the Radonezh Orthodox Brotherhood and head of a radio station of the same name, stated on the Russian Orthodox TV channel Spas: ‘The illness in Ukraine is so far gone that you can’t convince them or negotiate with them. You can’t cure them this way! Only surgery will work there. The only response to these statements by the Nazis is a Solntsepek (heavy thermobaric rocket launcher). It must be burned out!’ (Apt 2024, 61). Violence and destruction enacted using the state’s modern military technology appears to be warranted as part of the ‘just war’ against the degenerate and sick West.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s elites, including Patriarch Kirill, use similar language. For example, after the Russian missile attack against Dnipro on November 21, 2024, Russian propaganda claimed the Ukrainian city was hit by a completely new, hypersonic Oreshnik missile which was promoted by the Kremlin as a major military breakthrough. This alleged new Russian wunderwaffe is ‘a terror weapon—a device meant to scare far more people than it injures and kills’ (Axe 2025). The missile was claimed to have an effective operational range of up to five thousand kilometres, so it could potentially be used to strike or terrorise the whole of Europe.

The aim of the attack was therefore to intimidate Ukraine and its Western allies through spectacle, generated in speech as much as to achieve any military purpose.

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 171 Patriarch Kirill joined in the propaganda campaign, stating after the attack on Dnipro that the development of such a weapon meant that ‘Russia ensures its true sovereignty.’ Kirill (2024c) took the chance to express his gratitude to ‘the president, the current authorities [and the] scientists’ who created ‘an incredible, fantastic weapon, causing confusion and some kind of nightmare for those Western strategists who think they can defeat Russia by military force.’ Imperism is made manifest by the state’s war, and its violence, becoming justified by the Church.

Conclusion: The Russian Orthodox Church as Product and Producer of War The origins of the Russian Orthodox Church’s new ideologies and doctrine lie in Soviet imperialism, both in terms of doctrinal reflection on war and of the relations between states and nations. For example, the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘social teaching’ treats the issue of state sovereignty is strikingly like how the Brezhnev Doctrine discussed the topic. In 1968, then General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (1968), explaining the reasons for the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact, stated: ‘The sovereignty of each socialist country cannot be opposed to the interests of the world of socialism, of the world revolutionary movement.

Lenin demanded that all Communists fight against small nation narrow-mindedness, seclusion and isolation, consider the whole and the general, subordinate the particular to the general interest.’

Meanwhile, on December 23, 2013, several weeks into Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution protests, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church declared: ‘The Church will always stand for the eternal moral values given by God, on which the life of our people, the inherits of the historic Rus’ grew and will grow. Only these values give a future to the people of Ukraine. And this is why the historical decision of the Ukrainian people should not lead to a destruction of these eternal and redeeming values’ (Elsner 2022, 45-46).

The phrasing might have changed, but the meaning of both statements is the same—as demonstrated by the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Ukraine in 2022. The phrases ‘interests of the

172 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK world of socialism’ and ‘the world revolutionary movement’ have been replaced by ‘eternal and redeeming values,’ while ‘socialist countries’ are now countries ‘with common history and culture.’

References to passages from the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the Church Fathers in the ‘social teaching’ of the Russian Orthodox Church are merely a façade, just as was the case with references to Marxism and internationalism in the Brezhnev Doctrine. The meaning of today’s ‘teaching’ is the same as that of the Brezhnev doctrine. Now, as in 1968, the doctrine is about legitimising a policy of imperial expansionism under the pretext of ‘assisting’ neighbours. It is worth noting that—in a line that could be drawn from the Russian Orthodox Church’s teaching today—in 1971, Moscow Theological Academy professor Alexei Osipov claimed that violence was in some cases justified if its motivation is love (Elsner 2022, 44).

Moreover, and fundamentally, the Russian Orthodox Church is a product of war. The institution that exists today was effectively built from scratch during the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Stalin revived it not to preach the good news, but to mobilise the ‘Soviet people’ to fight the Nazi German aggressor, and then to make it easier for the Soviet Union to take control of former Polish territories and centraleastern Europe. During the Cold War, the Russian Orthodox Church was a tool for ideological sabotage (borba za mir [‘battle for peace’]) and served as alleged proof of the Soviet Union’s respect for human rights. The mission of the Russian Orthodox Church as an institution of social life was thus not to preach the Gospel but to cultivate the myth of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ which became the subject of a secular state cult after the disintegration of the USSR. Partially thanks to the actions of the Russian Orthodox Church, the ‘Great Patriotic War’ took on a quasi-religious character (Tumarkin 1994). The Russian Orthodox Church still had a role to play in the new post-Soviet reality, and especially under Putin, as the cult of war has not just survived but become exaggerated on an unprecedented level.

The trend of reform—of returning to the evangelical foundations of teaching within the Russian Orthodox Church—has always been weak. It had and probably still has sincere sympathisers, but

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 173 it plays no official role within the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill. Indeed, ‘most official statements by Church leaders since the Cold War lack a genuine theological basis for peace engagement and speak instead about politics’ (Elsner 2022, 42) Hence, within the framework of its ‘social doctrine,’ the Russian Orthodox Church, when it comes to teaching about war, has always had one eye on the cult of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ that proved central to its wartime inception.

As a result, the Russian Orthodox Church adopts the Western concept of a ‘just war,’ which it purports to derive from St. Augustine. The supposed starting point for the authors of the Russian Orthodox Church’s social teaching concept, like that of St. Augustine, is love of one’s neighbour. However, when it comes to the Russian Orthodox Church’s public pronouncements on war, love of one’s neighbour is not understood in the spirit of the Gospel, but in accordance with the paradigm of ‘brotherly aid’ on which the Brezhnev Doctrine was based. After the fall of the USSR and the collapse of the socialist bloc, this was in turn transformed into Pan-Russian World ideology. However, the meaning remains the same: in the light of this ideology, every war waged by Russia must be automatically a just war.

Patrick Michel (2000, 44-6) has suggested that Churches and religion contributed to overthrowing communism and democratising the societies of Central and Eastern Europe. Michel notes that Churches constituted ‘a symbolic factor undermining the legitimacy of the system,’ that served to stimulate social transformations and ‘political re-evaluation.’ He concludes that, in central-eastern Europe, religion and the Church favoured ‘the process of differentiation’: that is, inner democratisation, as opposed to Sovietisation, which was based on the homogenisation of society. According to Michel (2000), religion thus stimulated the fight against communism on the individual (against alienation), social (opposition to totalitarian rule), and national (counteracting the process of Sovietisation) levels.

The Russian Orthodox Church as an institution did not perform the functions which Michel (2000) ascribes to religious communities in late communist and post-communist central-eastern

174 MICHAŁ WAWRZONEK Europe. The Russian Orthodox Church did not act to undermine the legal validity of the Soviet system; quite the opposite as its governing traditionalist faction in fact legitimated Soviet rule. Rather than supporting social transformations initiated by Gorbachev, the Russian Orthodox Church focused on counteracting them. Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church worked to refresh symbolic capital— the body of myths and discourses that pertain to imperism—that anti-liberal socio-political actors have drawn on for legitimising myths since 1991. However, the essence of such re-evaluation was ‘de-internationalisation of the party ideology’ which filled the Russian Orthodox Church’s own symbolic capital and Orthodox identity with Russian imperial nationalist and fascist messages (Yelenskyi, 2003).

The Russian Orthodox Church, unlike other Churches in central-eastern Europe, did not contribute to the pluralisation of life after the collapse of communism and to the construction of civil society. On the contrary, the pluralisation of religious life after the disintegration of the Soviet Union brought new challenges for the Russian Orthodox Church with competing Orthodox jurisdictions, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and foreign Protestant evangelical groups. As Zoe Knox (2005, 188) notes, the Russian Orthodox Church ‘actively—and successfully—campaigned for limits on freedom and diversity in the religious domain.’ The Russian Orthodox Church has shaped an exclusivist model of Orthodoxy with a monopoly on deciding who is Orthodox (the privilege of canonicity) and on delineating exclusive zones of influence in geographical space (canonical territory). Religious pluralism, civil society, and democracy constitute an existential threat to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Pan-Russian World ideology is a reaction to Ukraine’s proWestern orientation and to the threats associated with the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, independent of the Moscow Patriarchate, leading to the destruction of two key elements of the Russian nomos of empire: the near abroad and ‘canonical territory.’

Initially, Pan-Russian World ideology was not absolutely exceptionalist and exclusivist and became so when the Russian Orthodox Church took full control of the narrative. Chawryło (2014, 6) believes that the Russian Orthodox Church provides the ideological

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 175 framework for Putin’s expansionist policy and anti-Western agenda, which cannot be disputed. The main elements of these policies are the ideas and concepts of ‘Holy Rus,’ the Pan-Russian World, and the united pan-Russian people. These abstract goals, perhaps better described as visions, drive Russian imperial nationalist policy. We must also add a third factor, which is outlined in detail in this Chapter, that of the Russian Orthodox Church’s doctrine of ‘just war.’ It is through this doctrine that the Russian Orthodox Church legitimises and sanctifies both the military fantasies of Putin’s elites and the methods of their implementation. The Russian Orthodox Church’s doctrine of ‘just war’ supports the state’s narrative justifying the annexation (‘re-unification’) of Ukrainian territory and legitimises further expansion until all of Ukraine is ‘reunited’ with Russia into ‘Holy Rus.’ Under these conditions, Pan-Russian World ideology has acquired an ‘extreme degree of exceptionalism and exclusivism that could be probably compared with inter-war fascism and Nazism.

In a similar manner, the Russian World ‘became uniform and monolithic, thus monopolising and eliminating any diversity, be it cultural, political, or religious’ (Hovorun 2022, 8). The Russian Orthodox Church has reduced religion to an ideology that could be described as ‘Post-Soviet Political Orthodoxy’ by combining certain sociocultural paradigms with Orthodoxy. As a result, a quasi-religious system and ideology ‘allows Orthodox zealots to demonise their opponents and regard war with them as ‘more than a mere war’ (Knorre 2016, 33). The Russian Orthodox Church aims at ‘promoting a religiously oriented homogeneous civilisation system through military-political means’ and at legitimising ‘militaristic discourse, dictatorship, and actual practices of violence’ (Knorre 2016, 33).

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Military and Propaganda Narratives Justifying Russia’s ‘Holy War’ Against Ukraine Andreas Heinemann-Grüder Despite the flood of scholarly work comparing today’s Russian Federation to both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—and my own suggestion that Russia could be considered fascist (Heinemann-Grüder 2017)— Vladimir Putin’s regime is not a reiteration of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. Unlike older totalitarian models, Russia’s regime a quarter of a century after Putin first came to power lacks rule by one party, mass public mobilisation, and an overarching ideology akin to Soviet Marxism-Leninism, Chinese Maoism, or Nazi ideology.1 Moreover, most totalitarian regimes have legitimised themselves by promising a bright future; communism promised to outperform decaying capitalism and Nazism offered rule by a cleansed and supreme Aryan race. Despite the appearance of the Putinist regime promoting a myth of resurrection through waging war against Ukraine (as a ‘proxy’ of the West), an analysis of propaganda narratives diffused by the Russian armed forces suggest there is and can be no end to military conflict between Russia and the West. Within Russian state discourse, the emergence of clerico-fascist tenets, nuclear apocalypticism, the rise of a plutocracy, and the projection of various imagined pasts into the present and future—a retro-future—create a constant tension between activities in the present, an imagined (and often, in official discourse, undiscussed) future, and a messianic-sacrificial past to which Russia is fated to remain bound.

1

Moreover, as scholars, we should be conscious of those who have criticised the concept of totalitarianism over its descriptive, phenomenological nature, the deficient capture of internal contradictions and dynamics, the misleading image of a monolith, the underestimation of popular support, and the limits to totalitarian control over (potential) dissent (see Wippermann 1989).

179

180 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER Nonetheless, these features of a new totalitarian model were not already present in the discourse of Russia’s political system when Putin first acceded to the presidency in 2000. Initially, Putin’s regime legitimised itself with Boris Yeltsin’s 1900s as its ‘Other’ and through output-legitimacy. That stage was followed by personalistic politics with Putin as a masculine role model and subsequently even a messiah (see Drost and de Graaf 2022). Over time, these forms of legitimisation offered diminishing gains. The quest for regime legitimisation to prevent a loss of autocratic control thus continued. Russia’s regime embraces a retro-future because it lacks output-legitimacy and a real vision of its own future in the twenty first century. Ideology in Putin’s regime is distinct in its integration of imperialism, its claim of civilisational superiority through the Russian World and ‘Holy Rus,’ its clerico-fascist identification of Russia with the myth of a resurrected Jesus Christ, and the militarisation of decision-making, the economy, and societal relations.

Promises of lavish state handouts to ordinary Russians, who benefitted from the 2000s resource boom, were always part of the Putin government’s buying off the population. Since the 2022 fullscale invasion, they have become prominent in a cult of war and in some senses recalling Adolf Hitler’s ‘state of the people’ (see Aly 201; Putin 2024). Nonetheless, today’s ‘social contract’ is apparently no longer based on social handouts in exchange for political acquiescence, but on salvation through killing. The regime is not only grounded in political repression or the promise of material benefits, but also in converting war into a service and an action of endless purification that nonetheless does not and will never negate Russia’s historical obligation to continually wage ‘holy war.’ Russia’s official ideology is therefore best described as religious-fundamentalist.

This chapter demonstrates how the Kremlin’s military and military-aligned propaganda platforms justify the Russian state’s war against Ukraine by propagating discourses with their roots in this religious-fundamentalist ideology. The Russian military employs carefully constructed war narratives that blend historical revanchism, existential threat scenarios, and religious-moral justifications to legitimise military aggression against Ukraine. These

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 181 narratives depict the war as a necessary and defensive struggle, presenting Russia as simultaneously victimised by and superior to a morally corrupt and colonialist ‘Collective West.’ By framing the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ as a ‘holy war’ rooted in historical grievances and civilisational conflict, Russia strategically uses propaganda to suppress domestic dissent, maintain regime legitimacy, and sustain the war effort—despite the lack of coherent military objectives. This chapter thus builds on the work of Timothy Snyder (2018) and Marlene Laruelle (2021), two scholars who have explored the importance of a ‘mythic past’ within discussions about Russia’s fascist nature that Snyder (2018) asserts and Laruelle (2021) repudiates.

The war narratives disseminated by Russia’s armed forces contain a particularly dense accumulation of archetypical religious paradigms about ‘holy war’ featured elsewhere in the state’s propaganda (Griffin 2024). This points to the Russian armed forces as possessing a particular role in disseminating this element of Putinism’s legitimisation of war. Despite what resembles an old-fashioned focus on religious war, whose origins and nature in civil-military relations has been explored by Dmitry Adamsky (2019) and Jüri Saar (2023), the approach to disseminating this narrative, which spans old and new media and relies on various framing devices, is novel. It thus embodies the tension-filled polarity of the ‘retro-future.’

Discursive Arenas and ‘Holy War’ In contemporary politics, the public sphere is structured by discursive arenas (see Mau, Lux, and Westheuser 2024). Indeed, politics is about dominating issue areas through the imposition of strategic narratives. The normative justifications a regime provides are usually multiple and multifunctional. In most Western democracies, as well as in Russia, five main arenas structure the public discourse: 1.

2.

The ‘below versus above’ axis (i.e., class struggle).

The ‘us versus them’ axis (i.e., those fighting for or embodying purity or supremacy versus the despoilers of purity).

182 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER 3.

4.

5.

The ‘insiders versus outsiders’ axis (i.e., sovereignty versus globalisation).

The ‘past versus future’ axis (i.e., conservation versus change).

The ‘God is with us versus infidels’ axis.

Putinism’s discourse has always been characterised by these oppositions. In early Putinism, the authorities waged an ‘anti-elitist’ struggle against Yeltsin’s oligarchs, who represented the West and even anti-Orthodox forces. Today, the Russian ‘We’ is perceived in Putin’s Russia as threatened and potentially infected by a morally decaying West. Russia is thus presented as morally superior and possessing a global mission. The ‘insiders’ of the Russian World must be protected against contamination from ‘the West.’ On the ‘past versus future axis,’ Russia’s propaganda turns to the past not to address the challenges of the future (e.g., climate change, e-mobility, non-fossil energy resources, or post-material values). Rather, Putin’s propaganda fights for a resurrection of an imagined, thousand-year-old past, a mythical ‘thousand-year Russian statehood.’

In this narrative, which privileges several of the aforementioned axes, God is with Russia and its purported ‘holy war’ against decadent Western civilisation. Military propaganda positions Russia in these five arenas as a conservative, anti-liberal, and missionary state engaged in a clash of civilisations with what is termed the ‘Collective West’: an imaginary ‘Other’ that exists on the opposite negative end of these discursive axes.

All wars need legitimisation to instil a sense of purpose among the combatants, to convince the public of a just cause, to sell a story to the outside world, and to de-legitimise resistance among the objects of violence. Recorded human history has developed a standard repertoire of legitimisations of war. Accordingly, one’s own cause is often imbued with the narrative of a divine origin, such as ‘God is with us,’ that comprises three elements. Firstly, one’s own state is holy, while the enemy’s—and the enemy himself—is cruel, barbaric, and morally inferior. The threat against one’s own group is universal. The enemies conspire, they are at the gates, and encirclement is looming. Secondly, one’s own leader is allegedly chosen

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 183 by destiny and is a saviour and a messiah. Thirdly, holy sacrifices of the past command the polity and its subjects, who have purportedly been victimised in the past, to escape victimisation in the present. The past thus obliges those in the present to commit military aggression, and to project an image of victimhood. The purity of one’s own group, defined in terms of nation, religion, blood, and culture, must be defended under the leadership of the saviour against these ever-present and imminent dangers. Legitimisation of war almost always include elements of these archetypical ‘holy’ causes.

Russian narratives legitimising war against Ukraine, which draw on these themes, are thus in one sense universalist. However, they are also highly particular and contradictory because they create the image of an arch enemy that is allegedly the ‘flesh of one’s own flesh’ (Ukrainians are a branch of the mythical pan-Russian people) but at the same time unwilling to acknowledge the oldersuperior-Russian brother. Ukrainians need to be therefore purified to become true Russians again. The Russian military and its auxiliary armed groups kill, destroy, and annihilate in its war against Ukraine. Part of the discriminate and indiscriminate violence is to convert a war of annihilation into an act of personal and collective salvation conveyed as ‘lessons to be taught’ to audiences at home and abroad. Russia’s ‘holy war’ thus comprises antagonistic, mutually exclusive, and highly contradictory messages.

In this chapter I argue that war is a form of communication that implores the Russian audience to fight on—or be annihilated.

Russia’s war narrative engages in a balancing act. On the one hand, the Russian audience is de-politicised. The so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ is being carried out in a faraway territory, so do not worry, carry on shopping, walking your dog, buying national products, watching TV, and enjoying your life. This is a message of marginalisation and atomisation. On the other hand, the war against Ukraine is presented as an existential either-or choice of either we will win in Ukraine or Russia will not survive. Instinctively, the Russian propaganda machine presents the war as a fight for survival. The war narratives of the Russian siloviki—representatives of power ministries and agencies, including the military—thus serve

184 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER the purpose of preserving their creators’ central position in Russia’s militocracy.

Almost no organised violence is imaginable without a legitimising narrative that sites killing and destruction as part of a higher purpose. Master narratives are rarely invented by military personnel or military propagandists by themselves. Instead, the military merely simplifies and popularises worldviews and ideologies developed elsewhere as ‘force multipliers’ whose purpose is to de-humanise the object of violence—here, both Ukraine as an independent state and Ukrainians as a people—to morally underpin military aggression or to render that aggression invisible. Legitimising strategies such as these thus turn violence into an epiphenomenon of normative behaviour (von Trotha 1997).

As such, violence itself seemingly disappears behind a smokescreen of narratives. One elementary function of legitimising violence consists therefore in shifting discourse from violence to normative statements. One’s own violence must be minimised, marginalised, or reduced to defensive purposes. Some authors treat the normative assessment of violence (i.e., the speech acts and performative acts for justification of violence) as an indivisible emanation of violence itself (Benjamin 1999). Normative violence and physical violence are thus co-constitutive. Russia’s war narratives are both violent speech acts, announcements of intentions and their enactment; that is, they are intentions in action.

I contend, however, that strategies for the legitimisation of violence are not merely of a normative or discursive nature. Any questioning of, or expression of discontent with, the official war narrative can be prosecuted in Russia under laws that forbid the ‘discrediting of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation’ (Moscow Times 2023) and result in harsh sentences. These rules and systems exist as if in emulation of medieval anti-heresy laws. Russia’s military narrators—from military bloggers and television propagandists to political technologists and historians—do not approach their operations to win domestic hearts and minds through the lens of an open market of ideas. They violently impose their narrative as if it were fundamentalist dogma, with no expression of alternative views permitted. The militarisation of the mind, beginning

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 185 with children in kindergartens and pupils at school and implemented through curricula, memory, and media politics, is part of a domestic war against any form of dissent. Information and disinformation are seen by the Russian regime as elements of the overall war effort. Politics are not seen as an alternative to war, but as one form of conducting war; in other words, politics is war and war is politics. The logic of war pertains to war narratives as well. After an initial post-Soviet amnesia after 1991—followed by attempts at forming a post-Soviet Russian identity through the integration of Eurasianism, Slavophilia, etatism, and imperialism—Russia’s war and war narratives have become an effective way of forming a collective Russian identity under Putinism.

Laying the Foundations: Russia’s Military as the Guardian of History The Russian state has over the past decade and more supported a whole range of avenues—including filmmaking, theatre, TV productions, literature, popular science, and internet media—designed to ‘save’ historical memory and ‘spiritual-moral values’ (Popp and Shakhnovich 2018; Snegova and Mayer 2023). What is described as ‘historical memory’ is in fact, memory politics; that is, a deliberate attempt to construct an official, dogmatic pattern of that which must be memorialised. Military and military-aligned sources have played an important role in this phenomenon by working to legitimise the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Exploring a range of organisations, structures, and media outputs, this chapter showcases how the Russian armed forces have contributed to a much wider propaganda campaign that aims to replicate narratives across as many media as possible to boost its effectiveness (Simonov and Rao 2022). This strategy is fundamentally ideological, neo-totalitarian and fascist in nature.

In 2018, Putin re-established the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (its predecessor, the GVPU, had been abolished after the failed Soviet hardline coup d’état attempt in August 1991). The Directorate is a vital part of the country’s externally directed information warfare efforts—

186 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER which Moscow views as bound up inextricably with kinetic warfare (see Darczewska 2016; Garner 2024)—but its work is also directed inward as it is tasked with propagating military values and the prestige of the army and military service in Russian society (Svynarenko 2021).

The Directorate’s propaganda activities extend to work within the armed forces, including by supporting a ‘moral-ideological pillar’ amongst soldiers. Critical commentators in the Russian media have suggested that the resurrection of the Directorate would lead to the return of the Soviet era’s infamous politruki (political commissars) who oversaw communist and patriotic indoctrination within the armed forces and the militarily detrimental propaganda rituals and baggage that are associated with them (Ekspert 2018). The Putinist state, however, justified the reactivation of Soviet role models of indoctrination on the grounds of a renewed enmity with the West. Indeed, the first head of the new Military-Political Directorate, Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov, declared that its goal was to form warriors imbued with statism, spirituality, and patriotism (Zamministr oborony 2018). Across its activities, the Directorate is also tasked with preserving patriotic traditions, thus linking the activities of the armed forces in the present to a neo-totalitarian ‘retro-future.’ The Directorate is in effect representative of a form of neo-totalitarian military propaganda work that bridges the civil and military spheres.

The Directorate operates in conjunction with TV propaganda, public events, and educational politics (Torichnyi et al. 2021). The audience may believe its propaganda or not, but the main function of its immersion with narratives is discursive hegemony. When it comes to discussion of the Russian armed forces, alternative narratives are restricted from entering the public sphere. Nonetheless, the evidence from before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine suggests that the Directorate’s work was to some extent effective in revitalising the image of the armed forces in society (Svynarenko 2021). Since 2022, the Directorate has engaged in a wide variety of propaganda work that builds on its purported Soviet-era roots, extending from old communications methods to new media

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 187 technologies that build on the various axes and oppositions that have been outlined above.

The Soviet Military-Historical Journal (Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal), founded in 1939, has long been a source of propaganda for the armed forces (see Leonard 1992). Today, its Russian successor remains the Ministry of Defence’s principal scholarly and internal means for inculcating pride in Russia’s heroic and military past and love for the Russian nation. The journal’s tenor echoes propaganda distributed through other means by the Putinist state. This begins with the falsification of history—a phenomenon that, as Anton Weiss-Wendt (2020) has shown, spans research organisations, historical societies, purportedly grassroots movements, and beyond, and functions to strengthen the power of the regime. Within the Military-Historical Journal, Russia is portrayed as the sole moral inheritor of the sufferings and the victory of the peoples of the Soviet Union, while ‘Europe’ as a whole and Ukraine, Poland, and France collaborated with the Third Reich and falsify history (Kulikov 2022).

The military legitimisation of the war is thus sited within the narrative that the history of Russia is a heroic defence. Indeed, the journal’s military historians denounce any Soviet complicity in launching World War II (e.g., through references to the MolotovRibbentrop Pact) as a ‘falsification’ that should be punishable by law. The journal thus echoes propaganda tropes applied to the Russian-Ukrainian war more widely (see Tolz and Hutchings 2023).

Vladimir Kiknadze (2023), deputy chief editor of the Military-Historical Journal, cited ‘historical truth’ as justification for the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine.

This rhetorical approach is backed up with laws that physically punish ‘falsification’ of history and comparisons of the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany (Putin unterzeichnet 2021; RF zapretila sravnivat’ 2022). Kiknadze (2023) claims, therefore, that Russia’s strength—and, implicitly, the logic of its entire strategy of military aggression—rests on an incontestable historical truth. By citing an apparently self-evident truth, Russia no longer needs to concretely legitimise its war against Ukraine. Defence of ‘historical truth’ is a sufficient justification for war in and of itself. The war against

188 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER Ukraine appears as a defence of Russia’s ‘Victory’ in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ and thus as a ‘holy war’ to defend the collective image of self—rather than a war to achieve defined goals. The narrative is effectively elevated to the status of a religious obligation, creating an unbridgeable divide between those who spread and believe the narrative and those who reject it. This is a discursive axis that recalls neo-totalitarian behaviours elsewhere.

Russia’s Justification of the War Against Ukraine, 2022-2025 Russia’s military is not just addressing the relatively small audience of the Military-Historical Journal. It also exploits a broad array of media—both mainstream and online—to disseminate to the Russian public a range of narratives that build on what is discussed within the military sphere and the axes I have described above. These echoes and amplify propaganda narratives on state TV, radio, and social media channels.

The Ministry of Defence uses its website to communicate realtime information about the war against Ukraine with daily updates about the number of destroyed Ukrainian armaments and defeated Ukrainian forces, utilising multiple new media channels to flood the communications sphere with positive messaging about the war (Orzechowski 2023). Neither the purpose and goals of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ in general, nor concrete military strategies and tactics, are mentioned by this or other outlets of the Russian armed forces. Instead, the focus is on creating a narrative axis, with inevitably victorious Russians on the one side and nefarious Ukrainians on the other. The daily stream of posts thus constantly cites victories and progress but never mentions Russia’s very high military casualties. The Russian arms industry is purportedly providing the army with necessary, hyper-modern weaponry while benefits packages are always handed out to war volunteers, veterans, wounded, and family relatives. Military actions by Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are usually labelled as terrorism (which dovetails with the claim made by non-military propaganda organs that Ukraine is committing ‘genocide’ against ‘Russians’ [see Fortuin

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 189 2022]). The message is twofold: we (the Russians) are winning, and we care for (those presented as) our heroes; while Ukrainians will stop at nothing to—as was the case with the Nazi German invaders in 1941— to obliterate all traces of Russianness. What appears to be a website hosting generic updates about military progress is in fact a tool to perpetuate narratives and techniques across Russian propaganda organs, whether mainstream TV news or the more obscure pages of the Military-Historical Journal.

The military’s output, however, also extends to mainstream media where much of its work is also hosted online (Simonov and Rao 2022). A month after the beginning of the full-scale war, military publicist Ivan Egorov published thirteen answers to questions on the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine on the website of the official Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaia Gazeta (Russian Newspaper). The content was based, according to the author, on his conversations with ‘representatives of the siloviki’ (Egorov 2022). These thirteen answers typify and encapsulate the predominant discourse of Russian military actors—and, presented in the form of an articulated list that ‘answer[s] the questions our readers ask,’ purports to be a definitive guide to the military’s stance on the war against Ukraine.

According to Egorov’s (2022) representation of the military master-narrative, Russia attempted to prevent the war by ‘once again’ proposing an ‘agreement’ to the West on NATO enlargement in December 2021. The agreement would have seen NATO rolled back to its pre-1997 members. In Egorov’s (2022) view, the West refused Russia’s ‘offer,’ while Russia would not repeat the mistake of the period running up to the ‘Great Patriotic War’ when the USSR ‘tried in every possible way’ to stop the war—by trying to pacify the aggressor. Ukraine and the entire West are made to be equivalent to the Third Reich as it prepared to wage war against the Soviet Union ahead of June 1941. Given that ‘Great Patriotic War’ is presented as a fight against the total annihilation of Russians, the West had not merely disrespected Russian interests through NATO’s enlargement but posed an existential threat to the survival of the Russian state. Russia’s war against Ukraine is thus portrayed as the prevention of a war of annihilation by the ‘Collective West,’ here

190 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER embodied by NATO. Moreover, the purportedly definitive answer to the war’s logic is sited in a history that seems inescapable—both Western aggression and Moscow’s peace-making are endlessly repeated, leaving Russia with no option but to fight.

These claims echo Russian state-aligned discourse from nonmilitary sources. As Egorov (2022) points out, Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin has, for example, claimed that tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had for eight years been exterminating people living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Volodin (2022) claimed: ‘And now refugees come, we begin to talk to them, the kids ask questions: what is a theatre, what is a circus? All these eight years they were in the basements virtually around the clock. But at the same time, the world community is deaf and dumb.’ In Volodin’s (2022) tortured logic, the war is thus conducted to pacify Ukraine.

Elsewhere, these claims were inflated to more absurd proportions in the weeks leading up to the full-scale war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (2022) was falsely accused of seeking to revive Ukraine’s nuclear weapons (although his speech made no such claim) (see Robinson, Sardarizadeh, and Horton 2022). Ukraine has also been accused of planning—in collaboration with the West—to deploy biological and chemical weapons (again without any evidence). Russian discourse draws on old antisemitic tropes that have been used since medieval times (Williams 2024) where the enemy is poisoning the innocent through an invisible but all-pervasive weapon. Ukraine’s power—nuclear, chemical, biological—is escalated to absurd and apocalyptic proportions. Obviously, coherence or plausibility was not a concern for the Kremlin’s narrative, but the effect is to suggest that the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ was necessary to stave off Russia’s total obliteration. This rhetoric projects an image of the Russian military as a liberator of deprived, oppressed, and repressed Russian-speaking humanity.

The threat from the West is maximised to the extreme in Egorov’s (2022) article. He paints Russia as a country attempting to prevent a repeat of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ which is often depicted as the most significant traumatic moment in its history (Tumarkin

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 191 1994). On Russia’s ‘historical’ territories in Ukraine, Egorov (2022) claims, an ‘Anti-Russia’ under NATO’s foreign control was established. The narrative therefore makes four important claims: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Ukraine is historically part of Russia.

An ominous ‘Anti-Russia’ threatens Russians and Russian speakers in ‘historically Russian’ land.

The US and NATO controls Ukraine which is their puppet state.

Ukraine is by implication waiting to be liberated from foreign oppression.

Since the US and NATO were not interested in a negotiated settlement, Egorov (2022) claimed Russia had to act to prevent a war planned by these nemeses. By launching the so-called ‘Special Military Operation,’ therefore, Russia averted the outbreak of World War III. Rhetorically, the perpetrator is thus converted into both a victim and the ultimate saviour. By invoking the image of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ is by analogy portrayed as the indisputable ‘never again’ lesson from history.

Once the equivalency between an imminent threat in the present and the Nazi crime of aggression is firmly established, questioning the meaning of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ becomes tantamount to blasphemy. The rhetorical performance establishes a chain of logic that suggests that, if you are against fascism, you must support Russia’s so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ to combat fascism (Nazism).

Since the direct analogy to the beginning of Nazi Germany’s war against the Soviet Union might sound too far-fetched, a second line of argument had to be built up in Egorov’s (2022) narrative.

This argument claimed the US was preparing to launch a war against Russia using 60,000 troops, 200 tanks, and 150 jetfighters, a war in which the ‘Collective West’ had ‘shaped world public opinion that the aggressor was Moscow.’ A brief introductory paragraph outlining the threat of war in the present is followed by a lengthier passage expounding parallels with 1941; thus, history, not critical analysis, explains the present and dictates the actions of the Russian military. The danger in February 2022 was as imminent

192 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER and severe as the Nazi German threat in June 1941 and could only be avoided through preventive action.

Egorov’s narrative resembles the Nazi propaganda claim about a false flag Polish attack on the radio station in Görlitz in late August 1939, which the Third Reich used as a pretext for launching war against Poland. Nazi propaganda claimed that Berlin’s patience had been exhausted so it had no choice but to shoot back, just as Moscow today had taken all reasonable steps to avoid war but was nevertheless left with no choice but to launch the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine. Despite this similarity, however, today’s Russian military—unlike that of Nazi Germany—has its agency discursively excised and replaced by a force with almost divine power. History, not the military or the politicians who direct it, decides how and why war is waged.

The next claim by Egorov (2022) in Rossiiskaia Gazeta holds that Russia’s ‘peace-making operation’ was intended to force a militant Kyiv to make peace. However, in this narrative, Ukraine’s forces did not heed Putin’s call. Russia began the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ to prevent a Ukrainian attack on Donetsk and Luhansk that was supposed to be launched on March 8, 2022. No evidence was provided for this statement, but the claim further cemented the image of Russia undertaking a preventive action. After the 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolution, neo-Nazis had supposedly come to power, dominated the Ukrainian parliament and received posts in the government and the presidential administration. These neo-Nazis had allegedly conducted a war against their own Russian speaking population. Over the three decades since Ukraine’s independence, the country had, according to Egorov (2022), turned into a ‘labour-educational concentration camp’ against Russianspeakers (note how the choice of language rhetorically links to the often-repeated accusation of Ukraine committing genocide against ‘ethnic Russians’ in Ukraine). Russian propaganda held that the Ukrainian government’s war against its own people would resemble the Nazis’ wartime genocidal policy. Claims of concentration camps and genocide were further buttressed by the assertion that the Ukrainian army used civilians as human shields—like the terrorist Islamic State in Syria—in cities like Mariupol. No analogy

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 193 was thus spared to create and project the image of devilish Ukrainian enemies as Nazis, terrorists, Western uber-villains and evil ‘Anti-Russia.’

Furthermore, the so-called ‘Russians’ in Ukraine—over whom Moscow proclaims a moral right to protect—allegedly feared that Russian forces might leave Ukraine after the successful destruction of Ukraine’s military infrastructure. These ‘Russians’ (ethnic Russians or Russian speakers) in Ukraine would then have to continue living alongside the Nazis and ‘banderovtsy’ (followers of wartime Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, whose purported veneration in today’s Ukraine stalks Russian propaganda, see Levinson 2023). But Russia, the Russians were assured, would not leave Ukraine before all its Nazis were killed or brought to justice. Ultimately, therefore, the Russian Army and security forces would be obliged to remain in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission (ODKB/CSTO n.d.). The narrative thus provided a glimpse into the future of Ukraine as a country that would have to remain a Russian protectorate.

The future Ukraine is vaguely described as a state that will emancipate itself from all collaborators with its current ‘criminal’ regime. Ukrainians could elect their government but only choose from those without bloodshed on their hands (Spetsial’naia voennaia operatsiia 2022). The rhetoric recalls language that described the relationship of the former Soviet satellite states in central-eastern Europe with the Soviet Union. Communist member states of the Warsaw Pact were formally independent but controlled by Moscow; indeed, those countries who strayed too far—as in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968—also faced military intervention.

Ukraine is thus presented contradictorily as a subject capable of launching annihilatory attacks on Russia and as an object incapable of resisting Western influence. Russia, meanwhile, is stuck in a historical trap: it cannot defeat an enemy that is innately destructive and aggressive; at the same time, history endlessly repeats itself, leaving Russia on the brink of obliteration and forcing it to wage an equally obliterative war against the enemy. Both Ukraine

194 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER and Russia are, in this narrative of discursive contradictions and clashes, fated to engage in violent military conflict.

The Clash of Civilisations On April 13, 2022, the official Facebook page of the Command of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine published a report on the destruction of the Central Military District’s 4th Battalion Tactical Group mobile command post (Ukrayins’ki desantnyky, 2022). The report mentioned official records and propaganda materials found at the destroyed command post. At least one of those propaganda materials was, purportedly, a Russian-language document entitled ‘The Whole Truth about Ukraine’s Crimes in the Donbass [sic]’ that described in detail the alleged genocide conducted by Kyiv in the Donbas. The path of the document from a small Telegram channel to an official military Facebook page shows the importance of apparently ‘organic’ news development within and by Russia’s armed forces—and how new narratives can rapidly be resurrected or introduced into the military’s propaganda campaigns.

The 48-page ‘Whole Truth’ document was originally published by ‘The Kremlin Laundress,’ a Russian Telegram channel, on 26 February 2022 (Vsia Pravda, 2022). As soon as it was published, dozens of Telegram channels directly and indirectly linked to the Russian state—including that of TV propagandist Vladimir Solov’ev—amplified the publication. By mid-March 2022 the original post had been viewed over one million times. The creation of the document, along with what looked like a coordinated amplification effort, was an operation conducted with the deep involvement of Russian state actors.

Since it was distributed among and to Russian military personnel, the document was presumably intended to ascribe (or used for ascribing) for Russian forces fighting a war against Ukraine. The document frames the conflict—foregrounding Soviet-era tropes— as a clash of the evil, imperialist, colonial West against a Russia that is simply defending itself (Pamyatka voennosluzhashego, 2023).

The history of imperial competition, balancing of power, power-

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 195 sharing, and coexistence is reframed as a ‘Russia versus the West’ conflict (and thus implicitly enlisting and demanding support from the countries of the ‘Global South’ against their former colonial masters in Europe).

Russia’s own imperial expansion and suppression of national minorities and indigenous peoples is absent from this narrative, as if Russia has historically only ever defended its way of life—and its ‘historical territories’—against inroads from an unfriendly West.

Denial, projection, and externalisation characterise this approach.

The West, not a Russia that holds the moral high ground, must deal with its past. The West would be interested in stripping Russia of its resources and planting the seeds of chaos in their place, with Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria serving as templates.

The goals of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ are purportedly ‘protection of the people in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics,’ ‘defence against genocide,’ ‘de-militarisation’ and ‘de-nazification’ of Ukraine, and ‘prosecution of Ukraine’s war criminals.’ Russia’s very existence is—as we have seen with mainstream media portrayals of the war—at stake, and as, we found in material from the Military-Historical Journal, Russia must win because ‘justice’ and ‘truth’ is on Russia’s side.

Ukraine, except for Galicia, is deemed part of the ‘Russian World’ in this document. Novorossiya (New Russia), or southeast Ukraine, is declared to be ‘historically Russian’ territory. The document states—without providing any evidence—that roughly half of Ukraine’s population was pro-Russian. The intended status for ‘the rest’ of Ukraine is omitted in the document. Obviously, it is not clear what soldiers are ultimately fighting for: is this the liquidation of Ukraine as a sovereign state, its pro-Ukrainian population, or just its Nazi government?

The explanations and justifications in ‘The Whole Truth’ are crude and sweeping. They recycle Soviet anti-imperialist and antiWestern propaganda, reduce Ukraine to that of a bridgehead of Western expansionism, and reactivate the absolute truth claims of Soviet-era propaganda where the Communist Party was always right, and Russia upholds the one and only ‘truth.’ The absolute truth claim does not need to participate in any legitimising

196 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER endeavour. Indeed, the document is triumphal in its belief in inevitable victory, just as the USSR triumphed over Nazi Germany. The ‘belief’ is underscored with reminders of the draconian punishments used against defectors and cowards with shock, awe, and fear keeping soldiers stationed at the frontline. ‘The Whole Truth’ may be slapdash, haphazard, and contradictory, but its emergence and rapid spread online—culminating in its use, whether originally intended or not, by the military’s own social media—points to how digital media can play a central role in a neo-totalitarian state.

Conclusion: Do Russians Want War? In 1961, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko famously asked, ‘Do Russians Want War?’ when the memory of 27 million Soviet casualties during World War II was still vivid. More than a hundred years of recent Russian history have turned Russia into a society all too familiar with bloody conflict through the Civil War, collectivisation, Holodomor, Stalin’s Great Terror, and the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Cold War proxy wars, the Soviet-Afghan War, two Chechen wars, war against Georgia and Ukraine, and military intervention in Syria. Together, these wars have caused millions of military and civilian casualties. After a short period of post-Soviet amnesia, war became the language of the Putinist state and war has become crucial to modern Russian state identity.

This chapter has shown the Russian military to be a significant narrative actor in state-aligned discourse about the war against Ukraine. The military’s use of multiple media channels—journals, websites, social media—reiterates a broader collaboration with other state propaganda organs to spread a reified series of narratives about the logic and nature of war. In a neo-totalitarian society where alternative narratives about war are forbidden by law, the parity between military and non-military propaganda narratives is unsurprising. The legitimisation of war against Ukraine, seen in the military propaganda sources this chapter has surveyed, thus rely on narratives about Russia’s spiritual legacy, holy historical mission, and ethno-cultural supremacy. They also reiterate a familiar imperialist denial of Ukraine’s national existence and a Ukrainian

MILITARY AND PROPAGANDA NARRATIVES 197 identity distinct from Russian. Russia’s propaganda cognitively reenacts, as if in a movie taken for reality, an anti-fascist war, and projects the image of all-out encirclement by an adversarial ‘Collective West.’ Conspiracy theories, disinformation, ‘active measures,’ lies, disinformation and the systematic repression of protest and discontent in Russia are all part of the Kremlin’s information war against Ukraine.

Military propaganda spiritualises and securitises history by portraying an image of Russia in a permanent defensive and ‘holy war’ against the ‘Collective West.’ Permanent war necessitates permanent vigilance against internal enemies and a narrative of permanent victory. The Russian military purports to be a defender of historical truth, especially the guardian of an undisputable, dogmatised reading of the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ The canonised Russian reading of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ is projected into the present to the extent that history becomes an issue of national and international security. History is, in essence, subsumed into a grandiose religious mission, becoming an essential accoutrement to the ‘holy war’ against Ukraine and a part of the inescapable neo-totalitarian ‘retro-future’ where both imminent defeat and victory must always by necessity remain present in discourse.

The war narratives analysed in this chapter necessarily revolve around constant clashes between opposites: the past and present, war and peace, good and evil. The result is that, discursively speaking, war is in military discourse inescapable. The sociocultural meaning of war is thus more important than the fact of any real victory and, as a result, the military legitimisations of the war against Ukraine cannot provide tangible goals to be achieved by the war effort or by Russian soldiers. Indeed, Ukrainians do not greet Russian soldiers as liberators but condemn them as war criminals.

This fact must be covered up by claims of eternal truth and perpetual victory.

The Kremlin’s cult of war propaganda has worked to the point that much of the Russian population approvingly accepts the interpretations that are provided. The elder generation (55 and older) is most attracted by official propaganda; at the same time, only 8-11 percent of the Russian population disagreed with the ‘actions’ of

198 ANDREAS HEINEMANN-GRÜDER the Russian military in 2022 (Levada Centre 2022). 33 These narratives sink deeply into Russian consciousness because public deliberations are suppressed. A mix of the paternalistic Homo Sovieticus, the imperial Homo Russicus, cynicism, opportunism, and a profound lack of empathy characterise much of Russian society today.

Fears of Ukrainisation of Russians and Russian-speakers, of losing control over the external and internal empire, lingering Stalinist prejudices, and deep-seated inferiority complexes intermingle.

Turning history into a fundamentalist religion and converting war into a religious service recalls inter-war clerico-fascist movements.

If Russians enjoy their everyday life undisturbed and view the war as a distant series of events, Putin’s warmongers and cynical entourage will not end their military aggression against Ukraine.

Instead, they will rehash their mix of triumph of the will and politics of fear. Only a looming defeat will permit Russians to escape by ending Russian discourse propagating a cult of war and promise of a ‘retro-future.’ In this chapter, I have demonstrated how, with military propaganda created and disseminated by actors, such as the GVPU, quasi-religious narratives entrap Russian military discourse within a temporality that demands constant war. For the time being, however, Russia’s military propagandists have achieved the goal the GVPU was tasked with when it was re-born in 2018. Much of Russia’s public and Russian soldiers accept and perpetuate the discursive and physical violence underpinning the narratives justifying the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. 2

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The Making of a Homo Putinicus Fascist ‘Patriotic Education’ in Putin’s Russia Maria Domańska Since February 24, 2022, Russian children and youth have been targeted by militarist and chauvinist indoctrination on a hitherto unseen scale. In this chapter, I argue that ‘patriotic education’ in Russian kindergartens, schools, and universities is of a fascist character and that it will likely have an adverse, long-term impact on the political and military views and identities of Russia’s younger generation. This project will particularly affect young people’s attitudes towards their neighbours and Russia’s place in the world. Moreover, together with other domestic-political tendencies, this phenomenon marks a qualitatively new stage of the evolution of what has been described as Putinism, which—at least in the sphere of patriotic education—is becoming a form of fascism.

Incorporating evidence from accessible sources of information (news and analytical websites, legal acts, policy documents, school textbooks and journalists’ interviews with Russian officials, child psychologists, and parents), I identify several key features of Russia’s ‘patriotic education’ that suggest it possesses a fascist character. I further analyse tools for propagating fascism among Russian youth, as well as the leading institutions and bodies engaged in the process.

In Russia, militarism and aggressive imperial nationalism go hand in hand with xenophobia towards arbitrarily defined ‘enemies’ and the cult of death on the battlefield. Glorification of the strongman’s rule and the absolute primacy of the state over an individual are accompanied by hegemonic masculinity, misogyny, and contempt for the weak. Moreover, the rejection of ‘degenerate’ Western values leads to the promotion of anti-intellectualism, which directly undermines contemporary understanding of the role of education. Critical reasoning is often replaced by the idea of restoring a bygone ‘golden era’ and glorified historical myths.

203

204 MARIA DOMAŃSKA The goal of the highly ideologised Russian education system is to guarantee unwavering public support for a dictatorial regime (Putinism) and Russian revanchist foreign and security policy by eliminating alternative narratives and worldviews. This, in turn, will maintain support for, and could exacerbate further, today’s cold relations between Russia and the West (i.e., the EU, NATO, and Ukraine).

Fascist Education in Putin’s Neo-Totalitarian Regime Although Putinism differs in many formal aspects from the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century, the totality of the Kremlin’s ambitions in the field of social engineering no longer allows this system to be described as authoritarian. I have thus defined Russia elsewhere—and will do so further in this chapter—as a neo-totalitarian regime (Domańska 2023b). Due to the appearance of advanced technologies, classic totalitarian characteristics for suppressing and manipulating society, such as a mass monolithic party, an officially proclaimed state ideology, mass terror or closed state borders have become superfluous. Instead, the Russian state has created an extensive infrastructure for influencing public opinion through a multitude of pseudo grassroots organisations, mass surveillance (Domańska 2020), censorship (Redaktsiia Verstki 2025c; Kharitonov 2024) or ubiquitous propaganda (Garner 2023) using advanced digital tools. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, increasing repression against the ‘wrong-headed’ has been accompanied by buying the loyalty of selected groups, as the government deliberately cultivates a new social class of war beneficiaries (Menkiszak 2023).

The Russian state is attempting to become the only point of reference for the identity of Russians. It aims to destroy horizontal ties and ethno-national or regional identities by reducing them to mere folklore or denigrating them as ‘extremist.’ The structures of civil society and political opposition were virtually destroyed by 2022. Entire social groups have effectively been outlawed; this is most evident in the case of so-called ‘foreign agents’ and LGBTQ people (Bondarenko, Shubin, Storyev, 2024; Amnesty International

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 205 2023; Associated Press in Moscow 2023; Human Rights Watch 2022). Swathes of the public have also been successfully indoctrinated into believing there is no political alternative to Putin’s rule and citizens have no influence on reality. In this context, attempts to avoid cognitive dissonance led to Russian reluctance to seek independent information, even if it is still available in the country (Laboratoriia Publichnoi Sotsiologii 2024; Redaktsiia Rus.LSM.lv 2022).

In the context of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has declared education to be a priority area of domestic policy and an existentially important aspect of national security. State intervention in this area is considered necessary because ‘wars are won by teachers and priests, not commanders’ (The Moscow Times 2024c; Putin 2023). One of the themes that regularly emerges in official Russian discourse is the cognitive warfare—a war for minds— allegedly waged by NATO and the US to undermine Russian statehood, the nation’s morale, and a national identity based on socalled ‘traditional values’ (Bryc and Domańska 2024). The statesponsored Chekist tradition in Russian academic research, according to which the USSR collapsed due to Western machinations (and not structural dysfunction or nationalities problems), provides the regime ample, if tenuous, justification for this concept and feeds anti-Western conspiracy theories (Darczewska 2019).

The hearts and minds of children and young people are a particularly important battleground for cognitive warfare. The young generation is the least likely to identify with the regime (Golubeva 2021; Re: Russia 2024). At the same time, however, the ageing leadership needs young men to fill the ranks of the army (Chernyshov 2025). The Kremlin is actively developing ‘patriotic education,’ which includes highly ideologised curricula for kindergartens, schools, and universities, extracurricular activities, and a range of further coercive practises. The aim of this patriotic education is to indoctrinate children and young people, isolate them from alternative sources of information, and punish those who refuse to toe the line.

There are some comparisons between current trends in Russian education and the Soviet era and one might simply call today’s

206 MARIA DOMAŃSKA education ‘re-Sovietisation.’ However, there are three important qualitative differences between post-1945 Soviet Union and today’s Russia that suggest one should look to Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy for more appropriate comparative examples. Firstly, Putin’s Russia is a revanchist state. State discourse suggests it nurtures its own ‘Weimar syndrome’—a hangover of the lost Cold War that revolves around a sense of supposed disrespect and mistreatment in the 1990s—and longs for a fundamental overhaul of the global security system that would lead to Russia being (again) treated as an equal to the USA. Secondly, the anti-war immunity that Soviet society had internalised after 1945 (symbolised in the Victory Day slogan ‘Never Again!’) was deliberately replaced after 2008 by a Kremlin-sponsored cult of militarism. Embodied in the phrase Mozhem povtorit’! (‘We can do it again’) this cult fully crystallised after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Thirdly, in contrast to Soviet ideology, which was based on the idea of linear progress, the historical propaganda of Putinism is constructed in the sense of a ‘politics of eternity’ which invokes a cyclical concept of history which includes the myth of recurring moments of glory and existential threats (Snyder 2018; Edwards and Rabbia 2022).

A highly personalised model of rule and the absence of internal control mechanisms, unlike in post-Stalin USSR, also opens a wide space for pathologies and misconduct that might otherwise be avoided or remain marginal. This in turn leads to even greater impunity of the state apparatus and constantly shifting boundaries between what is acceptable and what can be punished as disloyal, extending the regime’s dominance over the Russian public.

Based on the definitions formulated by scholars of fascism (see Eco 1995; Stanley 2018; Griffin 2012), several guiding themes can be identified that determine the fascist character of the indoctrination of children and teenagers in Russia. These themes overlap and reinforce each other in the creation of a coherent Putinist worldview: 1.

2.

A cult of tradition and a mythologised past is presented as a time of lost glory and greatness of the nation that must be revived through war and patriotic sacrifice.

A cult of militarism praises death on the battlefield.

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 207 3.

4.

5.

A strong state and the dictatorial power of the leader are glorified in propaganda and officialdom.

Anti-intellectualism is the norm in public and political discourse.

Russia as the global defender of so-called traditional values, which stand in rhetorical contrast to Western liberal-democratic ‘satanism’ (Mefford 2024), LGBTQ+ values and identities, and multiculturalism, are cultivated and praised.

While scholars sometimes point to the revolutionary character of fascism (Griffin 2000), the Russian case at the macro level has a counter-revolutionary character. Moscow’s fascist ideas aim to preserve the current socio-political order and protect it from liberaldemocratic beliefs. However, the Kremlin still preserves a revolutionary quality in its attitude to the individual. Its overarching goal, I contend, is to create a new Homo Putinicus (an improved version of Homo Sovieticus) who would be an ideal soldier on the frontline of Russia’s imperial wars, a product of an atomised, homogenised society united only by obedience to authority and hatred of the enemy. The target audience is expected to speak the official language fluently and define the world in terms defined by the Kremlin (echoing the behaviour of ‘speaking Bolshevik,’ another important feature of the new Soviet man’s behaviour in the totalitarian past; see Kotkin 1995). The aim is not so much to inspire belief in certain ideas, but rather to create a lasting immunity to those deemed undesirable; to paralyse the will to resist the government and question the very existence of truth.

The idea of developing patriotic education—whether fascist, imperial-nationalist, or both—has been actively promoted by Putin since his return to the presidency in 2012. As early as 2012, he placed the patriotic education of young people in the context of information warfare and a war of values, suggesting that the distortion of national identity leads to the loss of sovereignty (Putin 2012).

Anti-Western, ultra-conservative, and ‘patriotic’ content began to dominate curricula and federal education standards soon after. In the years leading up to 2022, the process accelerated. In mid-2020,

208 MARIA DOMAŃSKA for example, parliament passed a law that made patriotic education a compulsory component of the school curriculum (Coynash 2020).

The government has centralised its system for directing and disseminating military indoctrination targeting children and youth in Russia. The basic assumptions are formulated by the presidential administration. However, the system makes use of an extensive and heterogeneous network of institutions that are generously funded both from state coffers and from the budgets of state and private companies. These include government agencies, such as the Ministries of Education, Science and Defence, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the State Duma and Federation Council, GONGOs (‘government-organised’ NGOs, including Vladimir Medinsky’s notorious Russian Military-Historical Society), Kremlin-backed systemic political parties, and the media. In addition, pop culture and social media spread fascist propaganda using viral means. For example, the full-scale war against Ukraine has spawned a new genre of comics that spread Russian lies about the causes and course of the war in a form that appeals to young people (Prokofeva 2024).

Depending on the Kremlin’s current priorities, different content disseminated at different speeds has been implemented in the system of patriotic education. Historical mythology, militarism, and the cult of a strong state gradually increased and reached their peak as early as the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Antiintellectualism and the promotion of ‘traditional values,’ on the other hand, approached full velocity only after the full-scale invasion in February 2022 when the project to create a Homo Putinicus began to dominate Russia’s education system.

Teaching Fascist Content in Russian Schools Sacred historical myths The views of Medinsky, former minister of culture, de facto Putin’s ‘ideological Rasputin’ and head of the state-funded Russian

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 209 Military-Historical Society,1 are indicative of the Russian government’s approach to history. For years, Medinsky has actively promoted the mythologisation and sacralisation of selected events in the Russian past and openly admits that facts are of little importance in building national pride because, ‘national interests set an absolute standard for the truth and reliability of historical research.’ Medinsky made a name for himself by propagating falsified versions of selected historical events, asserting that ‘sacred legends must not be tampered with’ (Domańska and Rogoża 2021).

The historical propaganda taught in Russia’s schools traditionally relies on the canonisation (and appropriation) of the Soviet victory in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ against Nazi Germany as a key event in the country’s history. During the war, goes the narrative, a national mass sacrifice made it possible to save the world (Garner 2022). Soviet cooperation with the Third Reich during the MolotovRibbentrop Pact period (1939-1941) is either ignored or glossed over, while the post-war occupation of the three Baltic states and central-eastern Europe is presented as their ‘liberation’ (Domańska and Rogoża 2021). The Putinist cult of victory is based on Russian messianism (based on presenting the USSR as ‘Historic Russia’ and as a katechon [restrainer]), which serves to cover up or justify Stalinist terror and Soviet territorial annexations in the 1930s and 1940s.

Russian historical propaganda in education thus reflects a way of managing the past that is typical of undemocratic states that attempt to create an artificial community of interests between regime and society. This attitude is based on two main elements: firstly, highlighting only those aspects of collective memory that invoke the evil that ‘others’ have done to ‘us’; and secondly, denying or suppressing the authorities’ culpability for the injustice inflicted on citizens (Langenbacher 2010). This makes it possible to instil in citizens a belief in Russian victimhood, a sense of moral superiority,

1

The organisation is actively involved in propagating militarism and historical lies in education. Medinsky is the author of several books that present highly biased version of Russia’s history, including the new history textbook published in 2024. In 2017 the top Russian academic council recommended stripping Medinsky of his 2011 doctorate for unscholarly work (Balmforth 2017).

210 MARIA DOMAŃSKA exceptionalism, tribal loyalty, and support for the idea of retribution against others for real or imagined wrongs.

The most consequential manipulation of World War II history is when Putin’s fascism is disguised as anti-fascism, which Timothy Snyder describes as ‘schizo-fascism’ (see the Introduction by Garner and Kuzio). The identity of Russians has been constructed around the dogma that, as the only force in history to have fought German Nazism,2 they are almost genetically immune to fascist ideas (Putin 2024). The resulting sense of moral superiority supposedly gives them the right to define who is a ‘fascist’ or ‘Nazi’ today.3 Since ‘Nazi’ is a synonym for an archetype of the enemy and absolute evil, any method of fighting ‘Nazis’ is thus morally acceptable.

This attitude has manifested itself, among other things, in the genocidal rhetoric of Russian officials and propagandists toward Ukraine (Sergeitsev 2022).4 Both the canon of Russian historical propaganda and the institutional infrastructure for its maintenance was established before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Domańska and Rogoża 2021).

This allowed for an immediate intensification of indoctrination in Russian schools, kindergartens, and universities after February 24, 2022. Almost from the first day of the full-scale invasion, falsehoods about why the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ was launched were spread in an organised manner. Military aggression against Ukraine was presented as the next chapter in the ‘fight against Nazism,’ as the unfinished work of the ‘Great Patriotic War,’ and as an opportunity to reverse the unfavourable outcome of the Cold War for the USSR (synonymous with ‘Historic Russia’). The latter was 2

3

4

This narrative has undergone a significant evolution during the last decade. After 2014, the thesis that the USSR fought Nazism alone, while Europe supported Hitler, permeated official Russian discourse. http://kremlin.ru/events/presid ent/news/73995 The term ‘Nazis’ became widespread, especially with reference to Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion after the full-scale war began in 2022. Previously, in accordance with the Soviet linguistic tradition, the term ‘fascism’ was predominantly used. It referred both to the German Nazi regime and the governments of Ukraine after the 2014 revolution of dignity.

Among them propagandistic TV shows of Vladimir Solov’ev or the regularly published Telegram posts by Dmitry Medvedev, the vice-president of the Security Council, take pride of place.

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 211 supposedly lost due to enemy conspiracies and betrayal by a ‘fifth column.’ Pupils have been taught to despise Ukrainian sovereignty and admire Moscow’s imperial ambitions (Mediazona 2022). The aim of this narrative is to maintain a sense of grievance, frustration and resentment among Russians, which is compensated for by belonging to the ‘chosen nation’ (as suggested by the popular slogan ‘We are Russians, God is with us’; see Meduza 2023). Victory and national rebirth under Russia’s leader, Putin, are expected to follow.5 In the three years that have followed February 2022, the regime has only tightened its control over the teaching of history. Immediately after being re-sworn in as president in May 2024, Putin signed a decree adopting updated principles of state policy in the field of historical education, which is another example of the centralisation and domination of historical indoctrination (Ukaz 2024).

That indoctrination is now baked into every student’s experience of the education system. The number of history lessons in schools is increasing at the expense of civic education. The latter is uncomfortable for Putinism as it deals with the constitutional rights and freedoms of Russians, which are now presented by state propaganda as alien to ‘traditional spiritual and moral values’ (Interfax 2024b). In inverse relation with the appearance of doctrinaire patriotic education, references to civil society and its importance have been deleted from the curriculum.

A new 11th grade history textbook for 2024 by Medinsky and Anatoly Torkunov provided an example of how ‘canonical’ historical discourse appears in the context of today’s Russia. An entire chapter is devoted to the glorification of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine as the only way to prevent a catastrophic war between Russia and NATO. Ukraine is described as an ultranationalist country with an artificially created national identity that has adopted neo-Nazi ideas. Joseph Stalin is portrayed as a revered leader and a symbol of Soviet victories. The occupation of the three

5

Vladimir Putin expressed himself in the following terms about the war he unleashed: ‘It was God’s will that you and I should bear such a difficult but honourable mission—to protect Russia’ (Putin 2025).

212 MARIA DOMAŃSKA Baltic states in 1940–1991 is praised as a time when those countries were lifted out of their backwardness, while Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost’ (openness) policy is denigrated as allegedly having caused a flooding of the country with destructive, hostile information. The textbook’s authors criticise the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Warsaw Pact states and praise Putin for uniting a divided Russian society. Young people will also learn from the textbook that the ‘Russophobic’ West seeks to divide Russia in order to control its vast natural resources (Medinsky and Torkunov 2023).

Militarism In the historiography presented in educational institutions, positive moments in the history of Russia are almost exclusively associated with military victories and conquests. The official canon is dominated by triumphalist, military aspects of the past and focuses on the state authority embodied by the army. When the civilian population (the nation or society) appears in this narrative, it is usually in the form of cardboard heroes as bearers of the official patriotic ideology.

Throughout Putin’s rule, Russians have become accustomed to wars. Indeed, Russia has not been at war for only five (from 20092013) of Putin’s twenty-five years as ruler of the nation. However, for years, propagandists and high-ranking state officials, including Putin, have praised the destructive power of Russian weapons, including the state’s nuclear arsenal, as the main criterion for the country’s great power status. After 2012, a clear course was set for the militarisation of Russian education from kindergarten to university. The paramilitary mass movement Iunarmiia (Youth Army), founded in 2016 under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence, runs sports-military camps for children and teenagers and—above all— highly ideologised celebrations of May 9 (Victory Day). Moreover, it has through its multitude of extracurricular offerings created an environment of ‘militainment’ in which state violence and war-related themes are translated into a normalised or even romanticised object of pleasurable consumption (Gaufman 2023). Under Putinism, May 9 has ceased to be a day of commemoration of the most

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 213 serious and socially damaging armed conflict of all time. Instead, it has become an opportunity to demonstrate pride in the power of the state, often in a heavy-handed way that has led to a public trivialisation of the war and unreflective displays of symbolic aggression against enemies of the nation (Domańska and Rogoża 2021).

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian elites’ contempt for human life has developed into an open cult of death on the battlefield propagated by the state apparatus. Death in battle for the Rodina—Motherland—is presented by state actors and propagandists (including Putin) as a desirable alternative to a poor and meaningless life. This idea is also reflected in social advertisements encouraging people to enlist in the armed forces. Even kindergarten performances promote military service (The Moscow Times 2025b).

In the paradigm of necro-politics, the state becomes the owner of the human body and can dictate when and how people should die.

The obvious goal of the education system under Putin seems to be the future seamless integration of young recruits into a Russian war machine that has sustained approximately one million casualties in three and a half years of warfare—or at least, publicly raising the profile of the school-to-war pipeline.

In 2023, the Russian school curriculum was further militarised. For the first time since the Soviet era, it included lessons in basic military training, including ‘information and psychological warfare’ (Holod 2024a). To conduct these classes, Russian schools must purchase special equipment and teaching materials, which is often difficult due to scarce resources. Nevertheless, those schools that do not meet these requirements are closely scrutinised by the public prosecutor’s office. In 2024, prosecutors filed almost 200 lawsuits against educational institutions over the lack of adequate equipment, alleging that this shortfall ‘violates’ children’s right to prepare for military life. To avoid new lawsuits, schools are cutting back on textbooks and collecting additional funds from parents (The Moscow Times 2025c).

Young people are increasingly encouraged to sign military contracts as soon as they turn eighteen. War is seen as an initiation into manhood. While the legal framework for recruiting young people into the professional army was established in early 2023, pre-

214 MARIA DOMAŃSKA military training aims to shorten the time needed to teach the basics before newly recruited troops are sent to the frontline as cannon fodder.6 Sports-military camps and clubs have spread across Russia, teaching schoolchildren how to handle weapons, fly drones, and destroy Western military equipment (Iakhno 2025). Putin describes these activities as a ‘useful orientation for launching a career’ (TASS 2023).

Meanwhile, Putin actively promotes so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ veterans as a ‘new elite’ who represent ‘true patriotic values,’ in contrast to the corrupt, cosmopolitan pseudo-elites of the 1990s (Interfax 2024a). The so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ veterans are included in the teaching of the new patriotic subjects in schools and training of youth in extracurricular paramilitary activities (Holod 2024a).7 The veterans share wartime experiences characterised by chauvinistic and xenophobic anger. One of the invitees took children from the occupied Ukrainian town of Makeyevka to a tank shooting range where he taught them to shoot ‘at the enemies of Russia’ (Holod 2025b). Two flagship paramilitary organisations for children and young people, Iunarmiia (the Youth Army) and Dvizhenie pervykh (Movement of the First) count socalled ‘Special Military Operation’ veterans among their leaders (Vazhnye istorii 2024).8 So-called ‘Special Military Operation’ veterans (some of whom are criminals recruited for the war and pardoned after surviving six months on the frontline 9) are often compared to Red 6

7

8 9

In April 2023, the Russian State Duma passed amendments to the law that allow people to enter contract service immediately after school—when men reach the age of 18 (Russkaia Sluzhba BBC News 2023). As Duma deputy Andrei Kartapolov put it, ‘Due to the lack of basic military training in schools, recruits have to be explained basic things to them—which increases the training time before starting service’ (Krenig 2023).

They are not offered any proper psychological examination or treatment, while many are traumatised by the war experience. It is not infrequent that schools and kindergartens organise meetings with war veterans who are ex-convicts.

The organisation, modelled on the Soviet pioneer movement, was founded in 2022 with the aim of bringing together children and young people aged six to twenty-five.

Some pardoned criminals’ relapse after their service. During the first three years of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation,’ veterans killed and maimed more than 750 people in Russia (Redaktsiia Verstka 2025b).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 215 Army heroes. Rituals commemorating the fallen ‘heroes’ of the socalled ‘Special Military Operation’ include re-naming schools in their honour (The Moscow Times 2025d)10 and setting up ‘heroes’ desks’ in schools across Russia (there were more than 3,500 such ‘desks’ by early 2025). School exams include questions about the biographies of the new ‘fighters against Nazism’ alongside questions about prominent historical figures. They thus imply that socalled ‘Special Military Operation’ war veterans have already become part of Russia’s ‘great’ history.

The Cult of the State and Strongman Rule The primary goal of the Russian authorities is the realisation of the totalitarian concept of the state once proclaimed by Benito Mussolini: ‘Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’ According to Russian official propaganda, the only driving force in national history is the state (personified by its rulers), while the nation, society, and people are mere objects of the rulers’ actions. The Russian school curriculum promotes the idea of the primacy of the state over the individual. Any notion of dialogue and consensus in the relationship between government and people is rejected in favour of a culture of obedience and state violence as the main regulators of socio-political relations. Indeed, political repression—a particular manifestation of the state’s monopoly on institutionalised violence—is presented not as a violation of the social contract but as an act of restoring order and ‘stability.’ Significantly, repression in the education system began on a visible scale after 2017. In that year, mass youth protests against corruption, organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s networks, attracted tens of thousands of young people in the largest street demonstrations since 2011 (Human Rights Watch 2017).11 The Russian authorities’ harsh reaction was aimed at preventing politicisation of the young 10 11

By early 2025, more than 190 schools across the country already bear the names of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ veterans.

The repression includes arrests, administrative punishments, intimidation of schoolchildren and their parents, and subsequent bans for university students on organising or participating in peaceful actions. Alexey Navalny’s supporters, meanwhile, have been denigrated as extremists and traitors.

216 MARIA DOMAŃSKA generation and punishing those who dared to ridicule the corrupt government, since laughter is perceived as a powerful weapon against authoritarianism.12 The strengthening of the leader’s personal power and the expansion of the country’s territory are presented in Russian school textbooks as a priori positive developments. Even ruthless leaders who pursued genocidal policies, such as Ivan the Terrible or Stalin, are portrayed in an increasingly positive light due to their unlimited political agency and their military-imperial achievements.

Such an approach creates an atmosphere of impunity for war crimes committed in Ukraine.13 Underlying this is the assumption that the authoritarian leadership’s omnipotence will guarantee the survival of the state and nation. The Ministry of Education’s new guidelines suggest that teachers are expected to inculcate a ‘tradition of national unity,’ which is understood as the consolidation of society around strong political leaders in different eras (Fomin 2022). Periods of political liberalisation, on the other hand, are interpreted as times of chaos and national weakness brought about by internal and external enemies. Those in power during these periods can thus be accused of betraying the national interest; this is, for example, how Gorbachev is portrayed in state propaganda targeted at Russian youth.

The ‘healing’ of the Russian nation, as state propaganda presents it, requires students to be isolated and alienated from the values of liberal democracy. Instead, they are inculcated with a fear of destabilisation and bloodshed (smuta) arising from popular protests. The younger generation is to be made immune to any demand for political change, whether now or in the future. Against this 12

13

The symbol of those protests was a yellow rubber duck which referred to Navalny’s investigation into Dmitry Medvedev, the former president’s, corrupt incomes and ostentatious consumption (Memepedia 2018).

‘Show me at least one textbook in which Stalin is called a criminal’ (Ameliushkin 2014). Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian MilitaryHistorical Society, has stated: ‘The role of Joseph Stalin in the new unified textbook on Russian history will be presented more objectively: if the textbooks of the 1990s presented Stalin as a ‘tyrant and a beast,’ now the emphasis will be placed on his role as commander-in-chief of the country that defeated Nazism’ (Rodionov 2023).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 217 backdrop, elements of a cult of Putin portrayed as another great leader during a time of upheaval and war, are becoming increasingly evident.14 Students, pupils, and even kindergarteners are forced in class to watch hours of Putin speeches and interviews that contain lies about the past and the present (The Moscow Times 2024d; Trevelyan and Papachristou 2024). The cult of the leader reaches so far as to celebrate Putin’s birthday in kindergartens (Redaktsiia Verstki 2024b).

From an early age, many young Russians are brought up to obey the state; doing so, the education system suggests, is a path to a career and to social integration. In addition to the targeted preparation of children and young people for military service, there are special school classes in Russia that prepare students for service in the repressive apparatus that includes Rosgvardiia (National Guard), Interior Ministry, and prison service. Brutal methods of suppressing street protests are part of children’s training (7x7 2024).

The normalisation of anti-constitutional and repressive methods of social control is intended to make young people indifferent toward, and accepting of, violence against anyone their superiors—those inside and aligned with the regime—point their finger at.

Anti-Intellectualism To instil national mythology in Russian subjects and make them obediently support the Kremlin’s imperial nationalism, the state’s messages must be wrapped in strong emotions—such as fear, anger, and resentment—rather than rational arguments. One of the aims of fascist politics is to create a tribal division between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Therefore, Russian national identity as promoted by the state is primarily based on negative reference points such as a sense of threat, hatred of enemies (including domestic ‘traitors’ and ‘foreign agents’), and fear of the loss of cultural supremacy.

14

This is the case, among others, of the all-Russia multimedia exhibition ‘Russia— My History,’ created between 2013 and 2017, which has been visited en masse by school excursions. Putin is portrayed there as a providential statesman who brought the country out of the decadence, decline, degeneration of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin eras.

218 MARIA DOMAŃSKA When rationalism and science come into conflict with the concept of dictatorial rule, the ideas of enlightenment, critical thinking, and reflection are rejected. Anti-intellectualism is linked to the cult of action in the service of the state, with its highest manifestation being death in war (that is, a sacrifice that emulates those of the ‘Great Patriotic War’). While action at the request of the state is encouraged, it must be action without agency. After all, unauthorised activities are suspect.

One of the goals of fascism is to eliminate the possibility of public debate by distorting and annihilating language as a source of information and a means of describing reality (Stanley 2018). The black-and-white language of civilisational conflict used by Russian state propagandists and officials employs hysterical tones, hyperbole, manipulation of meanings, and blatant lies to evoke strong, polarising emotions. For example, liberal democracy, which is considered morally corrupt and deviant, is labelled ‘satanism’ (Russian Orthodox Church 2024). This is undertaken ‘not to convince the intellect, but to sway the will’ (Stanley 2018). Russian state propaganda appears to use a kind of neurolinguistic programming to trigger a desired, unreflective, ‘patriotic’ response from the audience by using certain key words and phrases: ‘Ukrainian Nazis,’ ‘Gayropa,’ and ‘our boys,’ ‘God is with us,’ and ‘strength is in truth.’

Conspiracy theories play a key role in this anti-intellectual discourse. Spurious stories abound; for example, disinformation about Western research into genetic weapons and of biolabs to be used to wipe out the Russian nation (Sadovnikov 2023).

Since the launch of the full-scale invasion, the dismantling of the old Russian education model has accelerated. Academic contacts between Russian scholars and their Western counterparts have been all but banned. Scholars are sentenced to long prison terms for alleged ‘treason’ (Goriashko 2024). According to the regime’s ideologues, Russian educational institutions reflect the antiRussian values of the old liberal order of the 1980s and 1990s. These values were allegedly imposed by the same ‘collective West’ with which Russia is indirectly at war in Ukraine. Schools and universities must thus become ‘sovereign’ by turning to and promoting traditional values, especially in the humanities (EchoFM 2024).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 219 The ‘sovereignisation’ of Russian education has led to the elimination of freedom of expression in schools and universities and the persecution of those who do not comply. The Russian state is increasing its direct ideological control over universities, while university rectors seem increasingly to be obedient bureaucrats who carry out the Kremlin’s orders. In the last decade, 86 students have been expelled for political reasons and 92 teachers have been dismissed, most of them since February 2022 (Lobankova 2024).

Any criticism of political, social, and economic processes in Russia must be avoided by students and educators. Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin academic circles are calling for the abolition of ‘Russophobic’ courses that involve critical thinking and fact-checking (The Moscow Times 2024a). They also appeal for a ban on the implementation of academic programmes that are incompatible with ‘traditional values’ and, for instance, promote pacifism.

The fight against critical thinking is also being waged in a more insidious way by adopting and inverting the meaning of terms that aim to empower students with independent thinking faculties. For example, so-called ‘information security’ courses aim to explain how to recognise Western ‘fakes’ about Russia (including information about Russian crimes in Ukraine) while spreading material that is obviously untrue. This is clearly intended to arouse a reflex in students to believe only material from state-controlled sources.

The Canon of ‘Traditional Values’ Historical mythology, militarism, and anti-intellectualism are organically linked to the treatment of ‘Russian civilisation’ as superior, exceptional, and self-sufficient—but simultaneously and perpetually, under threat. The fear of losing one’s identity through hostile machinations is intended to make Russians detach themselves from everything that the regime considers undesirable.

The Putinist state and the Russian Orthodox Church promote the nativist, primordial notion of the Russian nation as innately attached to certain ideas that remain unchanged, irrespective of individual experience and historical influence. They suggest that

220 MARIA DOMAŃSKA Russians are almost genetically different from Western societies and that an imperial identity and autocratic model of government are the only ones appropriate for Russia. A specific expression of nativist thinking can be found in the name of a project being carried out by loyal academic circles under the Kremlin’s supervision which is entitled ‘The DNA of Russia.’ The aim of the project is to find the ‘values that underlie the Russian world view’ that will then be incorporated into a university course entitled ‘Fundamentals of Russian Statehood’ which has been taught since 2023.15 The belief in a natural hierarchy (political, economic, social, racial, and gendered) is at the heart of Russia’s ‘traditional values’ system. That system is embodied by an authoritarian leader who resembles the father figure in a patriarchal family, since both autocrat and father figures are granted the right to use arbitrary violence to maintain order and hierarchy. The deeply rooted culture of violence, which is actively promoted by the state and Church, is based on the cult of toxic (‘hegemonic’) masculinity (Domańska 2023a, Wood 2024). Putin exudes a boorish, criminal vocabulary, presenting himself as an ‘alpha male’ in contrast to weak Western leaders, with Western democratic culture sometimes explicitly referred to as ‘gay,’ and ‘vulnerable’ women.

Under Putinism, aggressiveness, rivalry, and dominance are valued and usually combined with xenophobia, chauvinism, misogyny, and homophobia. Any progress by a minority group is portrayed as a threat to the unity of the Russian nation and to national security. Ukrainians are a threat to the unity of the pan-Russian nation and therefore ‘traitors’ to Russian identity. This is therefore instrumentalised to fuel a sense of victimhood among the dominant population (Stanley 2018). Although traditional notions of masculinity are increasingly challenged—especially by young people in big cities (Davydova 2019)—the state propaganda machine and law enforcement agencies discredit this challenge as inherently hostile to Russian civilisation.

15

Slogans such as unity, order, and mission are listed as ‘organically Russian’ values (Vinokurov 2023).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 221 Under this model of domination, women are both objectified and expected to conform to patriotic femininity, their main function being to produce cannon fodder for future wars. The promotion of gender rights is presented by the Kremlin as hostile to Russian civilisation and a tool of anti-Russian cognitive warfare promoted by the West. In 2023, the government stepped up its efforts to seriously restrict women’s reproductive rights, resulting in a ban on ‘childfree ideology’ and restricted access to abortions. Simultaneously, female students are encouraged to give birth as soon as possible. In the fight against the moral decay of the West and ‘Satanism,’ LGBT+ communities have been outlawed as extremist, reflecting the sexual anxiety typical of fascist politics. These bans are reflected in the content of educational materials, anti-LGBT+ censorship in school libraries and the general atmosphere of chauvinism that prevails in schools (The Insider 2024a).

Since 2024, family studies and ‘traditional values’ have been taught as subjects in Russian schools and youth camps, with the ideas of marriage and multiple births presented as being not just the best but the only course of action for young women (Kriukov 2025). In 2025, and in line with the Kremlin’s demands, Zabaykalsky Krai became the first Russian region to announce the introduction of these topics in kindergartens as well (The Moscow Times 2025a), suggesting that the approach of transforming education is becoming more complete across different age groups.

The promotion of Russian imperialism is furthermore embedded in the conception and praxis of ‘traditional values.’ Formally a federation, Russia is in practice a highly centralised state in which discrimination against non-Russian national minority groups is systemic. Russian citizenship (rossiiskost’) is often equated with belonging to the Russian ethnos and culture (russkost’),16 even when non-Russians make up between twenty and thirty percent of the population. The languages of national minorities are downgraded in Russia’s education system (RBK 2018), while their cultural

16

The word russkii is given positive connotations, such as courage and sacrifice for the motherland, among others (Lenta.ru 2024). On mechanisms of Russification, see Sidorov 2024.

222 MARIA DOMAŃSKA heritage and historical memories are either ignored, turned into superficial folklore (as in the USSR) or suppressed. In the context of the war, the erasure of the identity of national minorities in education and political practice has much in common with the officially declared fascist goal of ‘de-nazification’ (i.e., de-Ukrainisation) of Ukraine.

Totalitarian Methods in Russian Education Young Russians are increasingly exposed to fascist or fascist-adjacent ideas within schools. However, the issue extends far beyond the walls of the classroom. Russia is creating a ‘seamless educational environment’ where ‘traditional spiritual and moral values’ are meant to, and can, be taught everywhere (Holod 2025a). These are disseminated using totalitarian methods to influence young people’s attitudes. Against this backdrop, Russians with ‘unpatriotic’ anti-war views have neither avenues nor language to express their discontent. The language they could use to describe their feelings and thoughts has been suppressed or is self-censored, while there is anyway no space in which it could be used safely.

Totality Between 2022 and 2024, the Russian government exponentially increased spending on patriotic education in schools and kindergartens (CTR Center 2024), with further growth expected in the coming years. The proportion of propaganda in the Russian curriculum has increased significantly in the 2024-2025 school year with new history textbooks and a forty percent increase in history classes at the expense of social studies, where the focus is now on discussing the Russian system of government, destructive Western ideologies, and the benefits of having many children. Eighth and tenth graders will be sent to military training camps for training (Agentstvo 2024). Kindergartens will set up ‘patriotic corners’ and schools at every level have conducted mandatory ‘Conversations about Important Things’ patriotism lessons since 2022. In 2023, ideological topics began to appear in the final exams of secondary schools (Holod 2024a).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 223 In 2023, a visible structure of political control and repression emerged in Russian universities, consisting of educational and security advisors, pro-rectors for youth policy and educational work, and centres of coordination for the ‘prevention of (Western) extremism.’ Among other things, this has laid the groundwork for institutions and the state to collaboratively monitor the social media accounts of students and teachers for content that ‘discredits the armed forces of the Russian Federation’ and spreads ‘fake news’ about the war. Indeed, many universities are now effectively under the direct control of the FSB’s Department for Defence of Constitutional Order and Counterterrorism (Dubrovskii 2023).

In line with the Russian government’s goals, the national system of patriotic education was by 2024 planned to cover about 72 percent of children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 (The Moscow Times 2024b). That has also meant an increase of non-institutional involvement in delivering such education. Putin commented in 2023 that teachers, parents, religious figures, and sports and military-patriotic organisations should all be involved in the education of Russia’s young generation (The Moscow Times 2023). Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov has explicitly called for consistency of the ideological message that children receive at school and at home (Maiep 2024).

It is becoming increasingly difficult for young Russians and their parents to insulate themselves from aggressive indoctrination by the state, partly because ideological teaching is becoming more widespread and is not limited to certain school subjects. ‘Two years ago, it was possible to try to manoeuvre during the ‘Conversations about Important Things.’ Now it is simply impossible,’ commented one Russian (Nevkrytaia 2024). The only remaining options are emigration or transfer to home schooling, which is still permitted by law.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state has increasingly sought to organise the activities of children and young people in their free time outside of educational institutions and classroom settings. Schools actively involve children and young people in the state-controlled Youth Army and the Movement of the First. Those and similar, new organisations are also increasingly

224 MARIA DOMAŃSKA being expanded into kindergartens. The aim of the authorities is to make these movements all-encompassing; by 2030 at least half of schoolchildren and students should join the ranks of the Movement of the First (The Moscow Times 2025e). In 2024, every school was tasked with opening a branch of the Movement of the First and participating in its work. The Ministry of Education is maintaining a watchful eye on this development. Indeed, in 2024, students and pupils from several regions of Russia began to be forcibly registered in the movement (The Insider 2024b). At the same time, the boundaries between the individual initiatives are blurring and their activities are overlapping which enmeshes Russia’s younger generation in a tight-knit system of indoctrination.

Moreover, in the digital age, there are no more nooks and crannies in which to hide. Just as ubiquitous cameras with facial recognition capabilities pick out evildoers from passers-by, the smartphone has become a tool for mass surveillance of citizens by the authorities and at the same time a powerful transmitter of genocidal imperial nationalism, often packaged in an attractive form (Garner 2023). Indeed, the state is actively pursuing digital policies that collapse boundaries between school and non-school and public and private spaces to pursue its educational goals.

Immersion in the Cult of War Presenting the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ as a continuation of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ has two practical dimensions.

Firstly, despite the formally limited scope of the ongoing war— which is still in official parlance described as an ‘operation’ (it is illegal to call it a war)—the Russian state propagates the idea that every young person should be prepared to die for their country.

Secondly, historical re-enactments are regularly organised to immerse children and young people in the reality of war to normalise soldiering and the military as an everyday experience.

Following Putin’s April 2023 decree to open so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ museums in schools, Russian schools have started to organise virtual reality exhibitions to immerse children in the topic of the war in Ukraine. A military museum was opened

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 225 in a St. Petersburg school with the support of the Espanola military unit, which includes people with openly neo-Nazi views (Trefilova 2025). These immersive experiences take advantage of new technologies to bring war into children’s lives as a lived, rather than just a discursive, encounter.

Meanwhile, students are engaged in applied activities that create the impression of continuity between the ‘Great Patriotic War’ and the so-called ‘Special Military Operation.’ They were asked to congratulate Russian soldiers in Ukraine on May 9 (Victory Day), send postcards with expressions of support for them, collect relief supplies for the Ukrainian war front, weave camouflage nets, and make trench candles for the Russian army. In turn, in December 2024, soldiers on leave from fighting in Ukraine visited children for New Year celebrations. The Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, Ded Moroz, brought them basic foodstuffs, such as bread and sugar, as presents. These gifts were accompanied by speeches explaining how these goods had tasted particularly pleasant to children enduring hardship during the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Events about the siege of Leningrad were also held in Russian kindergartens. The children queued up to get black bread, dressed in warm scarves, drew ration cards, and acted in videos about the famine (Redaktsiia Verstki 2025a). Patriotic instruction moves beyond the realm of the mind into the realm of the physical, offering multiple ways for children to live through an ersatz wartime experience using analogue, digital, and discursive tools.

Violence It is not uncommon in Russian schools for teachers to use psychological and sometimes physical violence against pupils. Meanwhile, teachers, in turn, are exposed to political and psychological pressure from the authorities. There have been reports of the Russian authorities intimidating children, parents, and teachers who do not share officially held views. Threats have included those of

226 MARIA DOMAŃSKA dismissal or withdrawal of parental rights. 17 One report noted that ‘despite the Kremlin’s talk of family values, it is the bond between children and their parents that is being shamelessly exploited to suppress dissent’ (Amnesty International 2024).

Denunciation also plays a role in repression and its gagging effect appears to be significant. Denunciation often has a voluntary and grassroots character, but special structures and groups have also been created to systematically write denunciations, including the ‘League for a Safe Internet’ and the ‘Brotherhood of Academics,’ which has established branches in at least twenty Russian universities. Symbolic violence, however, plays the most important role as the authorities impose selected ideas and values to maintain their political supremacy.

Conclusion: Loyalty Over Integrity Enveloped in a state of actual and discursive war of its own making, Russia is systematically creating a ‘sovereign’ model of education that privileges ideological loyalty over academic integrity. The generations of young Russians that will grow up in such a system and have no opportunity to defend themselves intellectually against manipulation may well be even more susceptible to indoctrination and propagandistic machination in the future. If Putin’s militaristic political project is not discredited by defeat on the battlefield in Ukraine or by the collapse of Russia’s economy due to the costs of war and sanctions, the authorities will most likely continue to expand the fascist content of what Putinism defines as ‘patriotic education’ that has already expanded from simple classroom instruction into a myriad means of diffusion. Each element of diffusion is accompanied by new restrictions, both physical and intellectual, that perpetuate the divide between ‘us’—patriotically educated Russians—and ‘them’—degenerate and satanic ‘collective West.’

Increasing the volume of war rhetoric is, meanwhile, likely to lead to an increase in violence in schools (Redaktsiia Verstki 2023) 17

Yana Lisitsina from the Sverdlovsk region, who refused to send her schoolboy son to military training camps, was fined for ‘discrediting’ the army. The police and FSB were involved in bringing the case (Meduza 2024).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 227 and to widespread stress and psychological trauma in the younger generation (Chernyshov 2025). Younger children are the most vulnerable to this, as they tend to take their teachers’ words as absolute truth (Tenisheva 2025). Teachers and parents report children unknowingly absorbing and repeating aggressive and even genocidal content (Holod 2024b). In turn, teenagers are sceptical of crude propaganda and show learned conformity rather than engagement with the school authorities. However, cynicism and learned indifference can go hand in hand with complete tolerance of war and its normalisation, as well as the automatic reproduction of fascist content, albeit without enthusiasm. A negative attitude towards Ukraine or Ukrainians becomes a common reflex in this process of socialisation and normalisation. Moreover, young Russians come to understand, as they did in the Soviet era, that ideological loyalty is a prerequisite for survival, social belonging, and a career within the Putinist system. It is no longer enough to be competent; it is also necessary to show absolute political loyalty and sometimes even to demonstrate it publicly (Kolesnikov 2024).

There is no sign of a shift away from war as a proven means of legitimising the regime in the foreseeable future. Regardless of the progress of peace negotiations with Ukraine, the US, and other actors, confrontation with the ‘collective West’ as an ideological enemy will therefore remain the basic framework for the creation of a collective Russian identity for the foreseeable future. The authorities are not willing to change their course; on the contrary, there are many indications that they seek to reinforce and deepen it.

In December 2024, Putin prepared a list of four instructions for the Russian government, including the order to strengthen military-patriotic education, further develop a network of ‘military sports camps,’ and promote the recruitment of young people into the army (Institute for the Study of War 2024). These instructions will lead to a further increase in budget spending on patriotic education (Redaktsiia Verstki 2024a). Although some teachers are still attempting to boycott the government’s guidelines, doing so is becoming increasingly difficult due to the patriotic zeal of the state bureaucracy. Under Putinism’s total and systematic state

228 MARIA DOMAŃSKA propaganda, teachers who do not support the so-called ‘Special Military Operation,’ whether in its ongoing form or in its memory, have—and will continue to have—little choice but to leave the system.18 Moreover, the cult of war against Nazism, Ukrainophobic chauvinism, imperial nationalism, and anti-Western xenophobia form the basis of forcible ‘patriotic education’ in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine (a topic covered in depth in Chapter 7 by Jaroslava Barbieri). The same sociopsychological pressures present in the Russian system, therefore, are aimed at Ukrainian children, including those illegally kidnapped and deported to Russia. 19 However, in this case the violent indoctrination is exacerbated by stripping young Ukrainians of their national identity and instilling hatred against their Ukrainian homeland. Russianness is presented as superior, and Ukrainianness as inferior, leading to the intended mankurtisation (i.e., forced assimilation and the loss of national memory and language) of entire generations. The oppressive toolbox resembles the one employed vis-à-vis young Russians, including branches of the Youth Army and Movement of the First, historical re-enactments, celebrations of Russian public holidays, the content of school curricula, and military training. The overarching goal of this policy is to create a vast chasm between children in Russian-occupied Ukraine and their compatriots in sovereign Ukraine, thus making it potentially difficult to reintegrate the occupied lands in the future (Hird 2024, Yapparova 2024, Oliinyk 2023).

However, it is highly doubtful that the Kremlin will realise its totalitarian aspirations in their entirety. The paradox of twenty-first century Russian fascism is the dissonance between the declared

18

19

According to Vazhnye Istorii, by the start of the 2023-2024 school year, 193,500 teachers—14 percent of the profession—had left Russian schools. This is the highest number since 2017. Sometimes teachers are forced to quit by the school administration over ideological differences or an anti-war stance (Bonch-Osmolovskaia 2024; Idel.Realii 2022).

Since 2014, more than one million Ukrainian children have fallen under Russian occupation. Over 19,000 children have been kidnapped and taken to Russia (Hurska 2024).

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 229 mass support for the authorities and simultaneous passivity and atomisation. Only a small proportion of Russian society shows genuine—hardline—enthusiasm for the war or any kind of mass physical mobilisation. For decades, great power rhetoric and geopolitical revanchism served primarily to compensate for the political disempowerment of citizens, economic hardships, and the lack of a vision for the future. The Russian public today appears passive and fatalistic as a majority attempt to distance themselves from the state.

Nonetheless, they fulfil its demands either to avoid repression or because they have been effectively trained to do so. However, the authorities do not need genuine enthusiasm; imitation suffices so long as rituals are observed. The Kremlin thus desires mobilisation around the flag while deeply distrusting society and fearing manifestations of uncontrolled activity.

As recent years have shown, Russians, especially the younger generation, are uninterested in the crude aesthetics of wartime Putinism. Works of ‘patriotic orientation,’ including books written

by Z-patriots and recommended as extracurricular reading, are not in high demand (Stogova and Anisimova 2024). Russians consider ‘Conversations About Important Things’ classes and military training to be the most worthless subjects delivered in school classrooms.20 The key to the success of the Kremlins will therefore likely be the duration and intensity of ideological brainwashing. As research (Voigtländer and Voth 2015) on the effects of Nazi school indoctrination on the German population shows, those who were most strongly influenced by content absorbed in their childhood during the heyday of propaganda in the 1930s were also the most strongly attached to it (Nevkrytaia 2024). If indoctrination continues long enough and regularly enough, the ‘banality of evil’ could pose a serious problem for both Russia and its neighbours in the long term.

Russians will not be able to come to terms with this legacy unless they regain their political agency which continues to disappear

20

Their importance was stated by less than 5% of respondents (VTsIOM 2024).

230 MARIA DOMAŃSKA through the growth of ‘patriotic education,’ one of the most fascistic spheres of Putinist regime culture.

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Voina razrushaet dazhe ikh. Holod. https://holod.media/2024/11/ 04/ya-uchila-pervoklassnikov-v-chastnoj-shkole/ Holod. (2025a, January 29). Detei v lageriakh nachnut uchit’ sozdavat’ krepkie sem’I. Holod. https://holod.media/2025/01/29/nauchat-so zdavat-semi/ Holod. (2025b, January 30). Eks-sovedushchii ‘Vechernogo Urganta’ vozil detei iz okkupirovannoi Makeevki streliay’ ‘po vragam Rossii’. Holod. https://holod.media/2025/01/30/sovedushhij-vechernego-urganta/ Human Rights Watch. (2017, June 23). Rossiia: shkol’nikov i studentov presleduiut posle protestov. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw. org/ru/news/2017/06/23/russia-children-students-targeted-afterprotests Human Rights Watch. (2022, December 1). Russia: New Restrictions for ‘Foreign Agents’. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/new s/2022/12/01/russia-new-restrictions-foreign-agents Hurska, A. (2024). Russia Converts Ukrainian Children into Enemies. Eurasia Daily Monitor, 21(36). https://jamestown.org/program/russiaconverts-ukrainian-children-into-enemies/ Idel.Realii. (2022, April 1). V Astrakhani uvolili uchitelia, na kotoruiu ranee pozhalovalis’ iz-za ‘politicheskikh razgovorov’. Realii. https://www. idelreal.org/a/v-astrahani-uvolili-uchitelya-na-kotoruyu-ranee-poz halovalisj-iz-za-politicheskih-razgovorov/31781560.html Institute for the Study of War. (2024, December 21). Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. Institute for the Study of War. https://www. understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaignassessment-december-21-2024 Interfax. (2024a, February 29). Uchastnikov SVO Putin nazval podlinnoi elitoi. Interfax. https://www.interfax.ru/russia/948380 Interfax. (2024b, April 12). Obshchestvoznanie iskliuchat iz programmy 68 klassov s sentiabria 2025 goda. Interfax. https://www.interfax. ru/russia/955562 Kharitonov, V. (2024, December 23). Ostorozhno, tsenzuroi nakryvaetsia.

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234 MARIA DOMAŃSKA Kolesnikov, A. (2024, October 15.) Putin’s Children. Why Younger Russians Are Not Rebelling—and What It Means for the Future. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/putins-children Kotkin, S. (1995). Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization. Oakland: University of California Press.

Krenig, A. (2023, 7). ‘Dvizhenie v stroiu’. V rossiiskie shkoly s 1 sentiabria vernetsia nachal’naia voennaia podgotovka—rasskazyvaem, kak ee sobiraiutsia prepodavat. Nastoiashchee Vremia. https://www.curren ttime.tv/a/v-rossiyskie-shkoly-s-1-sentyabrya-vernetsya-nachalnay a-voennaya-podgotovka/32492391.html Kriukov, V. (2025, January 29). Rebenka v lagere nauchat liubit’ maluiu Rodinu i sozdavat’ ustoichivye semi. Vedomosti. https://www.vedo mosti.ru/society/articles/2025/01/29/1088879-rebenka-v-lagere-n auchat-lyubit-maluyu-rodinu Laboratoriia Publichnoi Sotsiologii (2024, April 19). ‘Oni ne khotiat priznat’ sebya ‘plokhimi parniami’—zhurnalist o rossiianakh, otritsaiushchikh pravdu o voine. LSM. https://rus.lsm.lv/statja/novosti /analitika/oni-ne-hotjat-priznat-sebja-plohimi-parnjami—zhurnali st-o-rossijanah-otricayuschih-pravdu-o-voyne.a453031/ Langenbacher, E. (2010). Collective Memory as a Factor in Political Culture and International Relations. In E. Langenbacher & Y. Shain (Eds.), Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations (pp.

13-50). Washington: Georgetown University Press.

Lenta.ru (2024, November 8). Putin zaiavil o vozmozhnosti nazyvat’sia russkim nezavisimo ot natsional’nosti. Lenta.ru. https://lenta.ru/ne ws/2024/11/08/putin-zayavil-o-vozmozhnosti-nazyvatsya-russki m-nezavisimo-ot-natsionalnosti/ Lobankova, A. (2024, December 23). Menia sdali moi zhe odnogruppniki.

Kak rossiiskie vuzy borutsia s politicheskimi i antivoyennymi aktivistami. The Insider. https://theins.ru/obshestvo/277158 Maier, A. (2024, 8). Sergei Kravtsov: S tochki zreniia federal’nogo urovnia my priniali vse resheniia dlia zashchity nashikh detei. Vedomosti. https://www.vedomosti.ru/society/characters/2024/07/0 8/1048523-mi-prinyali-vse-resheniya-zaschiti-nashih-detei Mediazona (2022, February 28). ‘Nashi deistviia—eto samozashchita’. Kak shkol’nye uchitelia dolzhny opravdyvat’ vtorzhenie v Ukrainu— metodichka. Mediazona. https://zona.media/article/2022/02/28/ propaganda-lessons Meduza (2023, April 6). Kak lozung ‘My russkie, s nami Bog!’ prevratilsia iz religioznogo v natsionalisticheskii? Meduza. https://meduza.io/e pisodes/2023/04/06/kak-lozung-my-russkie-s-nami-bog-prevratilsya-iz-religioznogo-v-natsionalisticheskiy

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 235 Meduza (2024, October 15). Iana Lisitsina otkazalas’ otpravit’ synashkol’nika na voennye sbory — i poluchila shtraf po stat’e o diskreditatsii armii. Eto istoriia iz Sverdlovskoi oblasti. V nei pouchastvovali FSB i politsiia. Meduza. https://meduza.io/feature/2024/10/15/ya na-lisitsyna-otkazalas-otpravit-syna-shkolnika-na-voennye-sbory-ipoluchila-shtraf-po-statie-o-diskreditatsii-armii Mefford, B. (2024, April 9). Russian Orthodox Church Declares ‘Holy War’ Against Ukraine and West. Atlantic Council of the US. https://www. atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russian-orthodox-church-de clares-holy-war-against-ukraine-and-west/ Memepedia (2018, November 28). Utochka Medvedeva. Memepedia. https://memepedia.ru/utochka-medvedeva/ Menkiszak, M. (Ed.). (2024). Russia After Two Years of Full-scale War. Fragile Stability and Growing Aggressiveness. Centre for Eastern Studies. https://www.osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/OSW_Report-Ru ssia%20after%20two%20years%20of%20full-scale%20war-www.pdf Nevkrytaia, D. (2024, 29). ‘Esli otvetite nepravil’no—ia vas rasstreliu’. Chitateli Nastoiashchego Vremeni—o propagande v rossiiskikh shkolakh i kak oni ei protivostoiat. Nastoiashchee Vremia. https://www. currenttime.tv/a/propaganda-v-shkole-i-kak-jej-protivostoyat-chit ateli-nv/33053994.html Oliinyk, H. (2023). The Military-Patriotic Infrastructure of the Russian Proxy Republics in Eastern Ukraine (2014—2022). Oslo: Norwegian Defence University College. https://fhs.brage.unit.no/fhs-xmlui/bitstream/ handle/11250/3101161/Report%20on%20military-patriotic%20infra stucture%20in%20the%20occupied%20Donbas.pdf?sequence=1&is Allowed=y Prokofeva, V. (2024, November 30). ‘Sztorm Z’ zamiast Marvela. W Rosji coraz popularniejsze propagandowe komiksy o inwazji na Ukrainę.

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236 MARIA DOMAŃSKA RBK. (2018, August 4). Putin podpisal zakon ob izuchenii rodnykh iazykov. RBK. https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5b65173f9a7947ce4b36 855a Re: Russia. (2024, 3). Tri patriotizma: molodye pokoleniia rossiian bolee kritichno nastroeny v otnoshenii voiny i izolitsionistskogo kursa i potomu stanovitsia ob’ektom razlichnykh strategii perevospitaniia. ReRussia. https://re-russia.net/analytics/0169/?fbclid=Iw Y2xjawI1HcVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHSzgv-nJfuP7cz5JKUpel-7Mhv c2XRIzXsRPXmOcFBSHZDPIylDbplgjCQ_aem_1ufySs3pmdKWwL BgC1Z_MQ Redaktsiia Verstki. (2023, April 14). Kogda deti slyshat vzryvy, eto ikh uspokaivaet. Verstka. https://verstka.media/v-rossiyskie-shkoly-m assovo-idut-muzhchiny-vernuvshiesia-s-voyni-dlia-propagandy-sre di-shkolnikov Redaktsiia Verstki. (2024a, October 1). Raskhody rossiiskogo biudzheta na patrioticheskoe vospitanie v 2025 godu v poltora raza vyshe planovykh i, po sravneniiu s dovоennym periodom, vyrostut v 20 raz.

Verstka. https://verstka.media/budzhet-2025-administracia-prezid enta Redaktsiia Verstki. (2024b, October 7). V shkolakh i detskikh sadakh pozdravili Putina s dnem rozhdeniia: deti pozhelali emu mirnogo neba nad golovoi i deneg. Verstka. https://verstka.media/putin-denrozhdenia-shkoly-detsady Redaktsiia Verstki. (2025a, January 27). V rossiiskikh detsadakh proveli aktsii, posviashchennye blokade Leningrada. Detei vystraivali v ochered’ za chernym khlebom i odevali v teplye platki. Verstka. https://verstka.media/blokada-leningrada-27-iyanvaria-den-pami ati-news Redaktsiia Verstki. (2025b, February 24). Bolee 750 zhertv: kak vernuvshiesia v Rossiiu uchastniki voiny v Ukraine snova ubivaiut i kalechat. Verstka. https://verstka.media/kak-vernuvshiesya-v-ross iyu-uchastniki-voiny-v-ukraine-snova-ubivayut-i-kalechat Redaktsiia Verstki. (2025c, March 4). Pobochnyi effekt tsenzury: sboi Runeta proiskhodiat vse chashche. Pochemu oni opasnee blokirovok? Verstka. https://verstka.media/pobochnyi-effekt-czenzury-sboi-runeta-prois hodyat-vse-chashhe-pochemu-oni-opasnee-blokirovok Rodionov, M. (2023, August 21). Ne zver’, ne tiran, ne bezdar’. Obraz Stalina izmenili dlia novogo uchebnika istorii. Gazeta.ru. https://www. gazeta.ru/social/2023/08/21/17458580.shtml

THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 237 Russian Orthodox Church. (2024, March 27). Nakaz XXV Vsemirnogo russkogo narodnogo sobora Nastoiashchee i budushchee Russkogo mira.

Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov. https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/ 105523 Russkaia sluzhba BBC. (2023, April 12). Na front so shkol’noi skam’i? V rossiiskuiu armiiu razreshili brat’ kontraktnikov srazu posle shkoly.

BBC. https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-65242865 Sadovnikov, A. (2023, June 9). Geneticheskoe oruzhie v ochumelykh ruchkakh Ameriki. Zvezda. https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/202352 41154-MpG3N.html Sergeitsev, T. (2022, April 3). Chto Rossiia dolzhna sdelat’ s Ukrainoi. RIA Novosti. https://archive.ph/FoMBp Sidorov, V. (2024, February 27). Kak rossiiane stanovilis’ russkimi. TRT na russkom. https://www.trtrussian.com/mnenie/kak-rossiyane-stano vilis-russkimi-17147044 Snyder, T. (2018). The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. New York: Crown.

Stanley, J. (2018). How Fascism Works. The Politics of Us and Them. New York: Random House.

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238 MARIA DOMAŃSKA The Moscow Times. (2024c, 8). Novuiu pioneriiu Putina reshili stroit’ po obrazam SSSR vremen Stalina. The Moscow Times. https://www. moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/08/novuyu-pioneriyu-putina-reshili-str oit-poobrazam-sssr-vremen-stalina-a136141 The Moscow Times. (2024d, December 19). Shkol’nikov i studentov zastavili v uchebnoe vremia smotret’ priamuiu liniiu Putina. The Moscow Times. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/12/19/shkolni kov-i-studentov-zastavili-v-uchebnoe-vremya-smotret-pryamuyu-li niyu-putina-a150921 The Moscow Times. (2025a, February 6). V pervom rossiiskom regione nachnut uchit’ semeinym tsennostiam s detsada. The Moscow Times. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/02/06/v-pervom-rossiiskomregione-nachnut-uchit-semeinim-tsennostyam-s-detsada-a154415 The Moscow Times. (2025b, February 7). Detsadovtsam stali pokazyvat’ skazku o Kolobke, kotoryi ukhodi v armiiu. The Moscow Times. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/02/07/detsadovtsam-stali-po kazivat-skazku-o-kolobke-kotorii-uhodit-v-armiyu-a154584 The Moscow Times. (2025c, February 28). Shkolam po vsei Rossii velei oborudovat’ strelkovye tiri, zakupit’ uchebnye granaty i makety otorvannykh konechnostei. The Moscow Times. https://www.mosco wtimes.ru/2025/02/28/shkolam-po-vsei-rossii-veleli-oborudovatstrelkovie-tiri-zakupit-uchebnie-granati-i-maketi-otorvannih-konec hnostei-a156682 The Moscow Times. (2025d, February 28). Putin velel nazyvat’ imenami geroev SVO ulitsy i shkoly. The Moscow Times. https://www.moscow times.ru/2025/02/28/putin-velel-nazivat-imenami-geroev-SVO-uli tsi-ishkoli-a156693 The Moscow Times. (2025e, March 26). V ‘pioneriiu’ Putina zaplanirovali zapisat’ 18 millionov shkol’nikov i studentov. The Moscow Times. https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/26/bogatie-rossiyane-ma ssovo-zavozili-nalichnuyu-valyutu-pered-vtorzheniem-rossiiskoi-a rmii-v-ukrainu-a159253 Vazhnie istorii.. (2024, December 24). Uchastnik boev za Mariupol’ vozglavil Iunarmiiu. Vazhnye istorii. https://istories.media/news/ 2024/12/24/uchastnik-boev-za-mariupol-vozglavil-yunarmiyu/ Vinokurov, A. (2023, February 10). Studentam priv’iut DNK Rossii. Kommersant. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5813287 VTsIOM (2024, August 23). Shkol’nye predmety: vazhnye i ne ochen.

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THE MAKING OF A HOMO PUTINICUS 239 Yapparova, L. (2024, March 11) ‘They Could Start to Resist’. How the Russian Authorities are Working to Indoctrinate and Digitally Survey Deported Ukrainian Children. Meduza. https://meduza.io/en/feat ure/2024/03/11/they-could-start-to-resist

From School Benches to Frontline Trenches The Fascist Paradigm of Russia’s Youth Indoctrination and Militarisation in Occupied Ukraine, 2022-2025 Jaroslava Barbieri In 1932, an essay attributed to Benito Mussolini, the architect of Italian fascism who ruled the country from 1922 to 1943, was published in the Italian Encyclopaedia.1 Mussolini’s essay outlined the ideological tenets of fascism that laid out an agenda to establish the supremacy of the state over individuals and deprive individuals of their agency by controlling their memory of the past, shaping their value system through public education, and instilling in them the willingness to die for the protection and territorial expansion of the state as the highest form of human life. The relevant passages of Mussolini’s (1933) text site the individual’s worth within its relationship to a warring state: [Fascism] repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism—born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it…This anti-Pacifist spirit is carried by Fascism even into the life of the individual…Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the state…The State is the guarantor of security, both internal and external, but it is also…the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission, and welds them into unity…It leads men from primitive tribal life to that highest expression of human power which is empire; it links up through the centuries the names of those of its members who have died for its existence…Empire demands discipline…and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice.

The material in this text proved central to the educational system in Mussolini’s Italy (McLean 2018). There has been a marked increase 1

Giovanni Gentile (1874–1944), Italian politician and self-styled philosopher of fascism, likely served as Mussolini’s ghostwriter for this essay.

241

242 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI in the number of studies attempting to determine if the ideological and governance structures of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia meet the criteria for ‘fascism,’ as defined by writers such as Robert Paxton (2005) (see the Introduction by Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio).

However, the current literature has not explored the potential of this analytical approach in the context of Russia’s policies in the temporarily occupied territories (TOTs) of Ukraine. This chapter seeks to address this gap by focusing on Russia’s policies of indoctrination and militarisation targeting children and youth in the four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia on September 30, 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya oblasts.2 There is now a well-established body of scholarship on how the Russian state has exploited patriotic education to strengthen regime legitimacy and justify its aggressive foreign policy by establishing a pervasive cult of militarism and promoting self-aggrandising historical myths around collective victimhood and sacrifice (Alava 2021, 2025; Bækken 2019, 2023; Edwards 2021; Edwards and Mathers 2025; Feklyunina et al. 2025; Garner 2023; Iashchenko 2023; Laruelle 2015; McGlynn 2023; Sanina 2018, 2021; Sieca-Kozlowski 2010). Chapter 6 by Maria Domańska adds to this literature by illustrating how the launch of the full-scale invasion has accelerated the alignment of Russia’s patriotic education programmes with fascist ideology and practices. In this chapter, I complement Domańska’s analysis by examining this evolving paradigm in the context of the TOTs. In occupied Ukraine, the Kremlin is pursuing an agenda aimed at not simply reviving a chauvinistic idea of Russianness and advancing neo-imperial territorial claims, but at eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity. It is, in short, installing a fascist system of education that strongly recalls the tenets outlined in Mussolini’s 1933 text: according to the

2

This paper does not include data from Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Given that Russia’s regime of occupation in Crimea has lasted for over a decade, the imitation and integration of local patriotic education with Russian law and practice have followed a more systematic and methodical approach.

This chapter cannot do justice to this different context, which deserves a separate study. Any exceptions to this are data that have been provided for contextual purposes only.

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 243 occupier’s plan, Ukrainian children will be recreated as subjects of the Russian Empire ready to sacrifice themselves in war on behalf of a state who both directs them in everyday life and judges their worth as individuals.

In this chapter, I examine three dimensions of Russia’s patriotic education in the TOTs after the launch of the full-scale invasion: 1.

2.

3.

The legislative framework introduced by Russian occupation administrations to transform local educational systems in the TOTs, that were forced to switch to Russian standards and integrate into Russia’s federal educational structure.

Russia’s efforts to shape agents of indoctrination to cement its ideological control over the educational apparatus in the TOTs. This section dissects the incentives and deterrents used to create a new body of teachers delivering the Russiaimposed curriculum in the TOTs. Specific measures of indoctrination and militarisation implemented by Russia in the TOTs. Here, the empirical analysis zooms in on the new history school curriculum and militarised activities targeting children and teenagers outside the school classroom setting.

Together, the laws, narratives, and activities underpinning Russia’s youth indoctrination and militarisation policies illustrate the evolving ideological pillars of Russia’s rule in the TOTs. As a result, these policies can assist in assessing the applicability of ‘fascism’ as a conceptual framework for the study of Russia’s occupation regime in Ukraine more broadly. Building on this analysis, I conclude by discussing the implications of Russia’s patriotic education programmes for the prospect of peace talks and future reintegration of the TOTs into Ukraine.

Data for this study were gathered from official documents issued by the Russian Federation and the occupation administrations, journalistic investigations, news articles, and social media channels associated with the occupation and Russian federal

244 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI administrations between February 2022 and February 2025. 3 Although these data provide a good insight into the system of indoctrination emerging in the TOTs, they would further benefit from indepth on-the-ground observations that could be gathered from ethnographic observations and interviews with officials, teachers, and students. Given the legal and ethical barriers to completing such work, my findings therefore represent only the beginning of a scholarly discussion about a rapidly evolving system.

Russia’s Patriotic Education Legislation in the TOTs since 2022 In June 2022, Russia’s education minister, Sergey Kravtsov, announced that all schools in the TOTs would have to follow Russian standards from the beginning of the new academic year (Kurilova and Mishina 2022). Nonetheless, the process of ‘exporting’ Russian legislation on patriotic education into the legal systems of the TOTs, including the imposition of Russian educational standards, had begun in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) as early as 2015 (Barbieri 2023; Oliinyk 2023; TASS 2014; 2015). In 2020, Denis Pushylin, the ‘head’ of the DNR, had described the switch to Russian educational standards as ‘the most important part of the integration process with the Russian Federation’ (Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei 2020). However, it was only in January 2023 that the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that formalised the integration of the educational systems of the TOTs— including the territories annexed after the launch of the full-scale invasion—into the Russian federal system (Shulga 2023). President Putin signed the bill into law shortly afterward (Russian Ministry of Education 2023).

To some extent, top-down identity projects disseminated in part via patriotic education programmes in the TOTs before 2022

3

Depending on their location, the reader may require a VPN service to access some primary sources online. Quotation marks are used for any de facto institutions or citations from documents issued by the occupation administrations (e.g., ‘ministry,’ ‘governor,’ ‘law’) to reflect the fact that they are not recognised under international law.

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 245 lacked consistency, reflecting the geopolitical ambiguity and shifting priorities of the Kremlin in the period from 2014 until the 2022 full-scale invasion (Roozenbeek 2024; Bækken 2024). Before 2022 the primary goal of these policies in the DNR and the LNR was to destabilise Ukrainian society and institutions. After the full-scale invasion, Julia Friedrich (2024, 5) observed, ‘the Russian occupation followed a clear strategy of erasing Ukrainian identity, permanently altering demographics, and integrating Ukrainian territory into Russia’s administrative and economic structures in increasingly irreversible ways.’ The earlier policies had thus evolved to serve a more systematic, radical, and revanchist agenda.

One day before Russia’s annexation in 2022, a ‘DNR Ministry of Youth Policy’ was created to ‘laun[ch] a new stage in the development of state youth policy’ as part of ongoing efforts to harmonise the local legal framework with Russian federal legislation (DNR Government 2023). A ‘Law on Youth Policy’ adopted in September 2022 in the DNR repeats the text of the Russian law almost verbatim (DNR People’s Council 2022; Pravo.ru 2020). One year later, the ‘DNR People’s Council’ announced the plan to design a ‘comprehensive system of patriotic education’ targeting young people in the region (Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei 2023a). Approved in December 2023, this comprehensive programme defines youth as ‘an object of national and state interests’ (DNR Government 2023). In February 2024, the DNR announced work on a new programme for the development of a youth patriotic movement in the region (TASS 2024a). Following this trend, a resolution adopted in February 2025 emphasises the critical role of military-patriotic education (DNR People’s Council 2025).

Similarly, the ‘Law on the Patriotic Education of Citizens’ adopted in the LNR in December 2024 stated that it will follow the ‘the meanings established by the legislation of the Russian Federation,’ listing among its main goals ‘develop[ing citizens’] ability to demonstrate themselves in strengthening and protecting the state [and] ensuring its vital interests’ (LNR People’s Council 2024, 1).

Significantly, the ‘law’ prescribes the ‘formation of an educational system that ensures…a sense of loyalty to the duty to protect the Motherland [and] an education in the spirit of respect for service in

246 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, preserving the memory of events and people in the history of Russia and the Luhansk People’s Republic’ (2). The main activities associated with patriotic education include ‘providing assistance in the preparation and holding of ceremonial events dedicated to the celebration of the days of Russia’s military glory,’ ‘developing a network of patriotic, military-patriotic, military-historical…clubs and associations,’ ‘implementing measures to form a positive attitude of society towards military service’ and ‘developing a system of interaction between educational organisations [and] war veterans [and] establishing patronage relations with military units and subdivisions of law enforcement agencies.’4 In the summer of 2024, using the Russian law as a blueprint with the support of the regional branch of the United Russia Party, the self-proclaimed ‘Kherson Regional Duma’ began developing a bill on patriotic education (Tavria TV 2024). Volodymyr Saldo, the so-called Governor of the Kherson Region, stated that local residents ‘must overcome decades of exposure to false Kyiv [sic] propaganda [and] acquire an objective understanding of history and current events’ (Governor of the Kherson Region 2024; Khersonskoe Agenstvo Novostei 2024). Meanwhile, the occupation administration in the Zaporizhzhya region reveals a less systematic, slower development of local legislation on patriotic education. The timeline set out in a resolution for the completion of this legislation remains relatively undefined, specifying only that completion will be required anytime ‘during the course of the year;’ that is, at some unspecified point in 2025 (Legislative Assembly of the Zaporizhzhya Region 2024).

Overall, the post-2022 developments aimed at facilitating legal harmonisation and tightening Russia’s legislative grip over local policies on patriotic education reflect the Kremlin’s broader agenda to cement its occupation (see Hird 2024; Vorobiova 2024, 28–32).

Laws and programmatic documents on patriotic education in the TOTs provide a useful framework to analyse the initiatives 4

The text of the ‘law’ on patriotic education issued by the occupation administration in Crimea is almost identical (see ‘Crimean State Council’ 2022).

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 247 explored in the last section of this chapter. Moreover, taken together, these initiatives support three complementary objectives that sit comfortably with fascist ideals. The first objective is indoctrinating local children and youth to a worldview which integrates narratives around Soviet and Russian military glory into the ‘national memory’ of people residing in the TOTs. In short, the initiatives promoted under the ‘historical’ component of patriotic education aim to (re)shape the memory of the past, calling on young people to imitate the podvigi (feats) of Russian and Soviet soldiers while denigrating Ukrainian identity as an artificial construct.

The second objective consists of dictating an uncompromising vision of the future by glorifying the DNR and LNR and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions as state-like entities requiring ‘protection’ from Ukraine—depicted as a hostile and irreparably ‘Russophobe’ state—and destined to be ‘reunited’ with Russia as the latter expands territorially (a historical trajectory characterised as irreversible and just). Efforts to instil a sense of pride and reverence for the ‘state symbols’ of the TOTs and the Russian Federation fall under the category of ‘civic’ patriotic education (see Barbieri 2023; Lychko and Vorobiova 2024).

To support this ‘defensive’ mission, the third objective focuses on the present: building training and recruitment mechanisms to fill the ranks of Russian military and security structures through youth clubs, movements and cadet schools. Established under ‘military’ patriotic education programmes, these initiatives cultivate the idea of self-sacrifice in the service of the state as the noblest form of patriotism. Serving the state and its imperial expansion is championed as the pinnacle of human achievement, covering the whole life span of individuals. In this sense, Russia’s patriotic education in the TOTs imposes an ideological model that mirrors fascist discourse and ambitions in important ways.

Intimidation, Assimilation, Co-optation: Turning Teachers into Agents of Indoctrination The Russian government and TOT occupation administrations have micromanaged the process of transforming the delivery of

248 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI teaching in line with patriotic education legislation to facilitate the integration of the TOTs into Russia’s federal system. Available evidence points to three key methods employed since 2022.

The first method focuses on intimidation. Russian occupying authorities and forces have consistently resorted to coercive measures to intimidate and persecute Ukrainian teachers who openly defied Russia’s rule and the imposition of Russian educational standards. Local teachers have reported being pressurised into collaborating with the occupation administration and following the Russian school curriculum under the threat of dismissal or eviction from their homes (Tondo 2022; Human Rights Watch 2024). Beyond psychological and emotional blackmail, local teachers have experienced ‘filtration’ and searches—which resulted in the destruction of Ukrainian books, state symbols, and maps—of their homes (Amnesty International 2024). Russian occupation forces have also subjected local teachers to arbitrary detention and physical torture to coerce them into collaborating under the Russian system and handing over student files or to punish them for refusing to do so (Human Rights Watch 2024; Zuban 2024).

Intimidation extends to parents and children. Journalistic investigations relying on testimonies from people who have lived through occupation have recorded the presence of patrols tasked with preventing children from attending Ukrainian-language online classes (which are run by the authorities in Kyiv). Parents reported being threatened with fines and even the loss of their parental rights if they let their children attend Ukrainian online school or refused to enrol them in schools with Russian curriculums (Shevchenko 2023; Human Rights Watch 2024). There have even been reports of torture chambers for parents whose children are suspected of attending online Ukrainian school (Pedorenko and Levi 2024).

Digital instruments for the surveillance of teachers and pupils have been deployed. A new educational platform called Sferum, which requires registration on VKontakte, Russia’s largest social

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 249 media network, was also introduced in the TOTs. 5 The occupation administrations demand that all online communication between teachers, parents, and children take place on Sferum. The tool allegedly includes spyware that could transmit data about the phone owner’s search history, contacts, and movements (Litoy 2023; National Resistance Centre 2023). This replicates a trend for digital surveillance—one that has led to prosecutions of both adults and minors—that has been already observed in Russian schools since 2022 (Isakova and Litvinenko 2022). The occupying administrations are exploiting a range of physical, psychological, and digital means to ensure that state-mandated Russian education is the only choice available to young Ukrainians in the TOTs. The second method of transforming teaching is assimilation.

This relies on new programmes aimed at ‘retraining’ local Ukrainian teachers who either choose or are forced to cooperate (see Vorobiova 2023a, 25–27). In April 2022, ‘Chairman of the Crimean Parliament’ Vladimir Konstantinov announced that ad hoc programmes were being established to assist teachers from the Kherson, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhya regions in adopting Russian educational standards (KrymInform 2022; TASS 2022a). Russia was purportedly planning to retrain 20,000 local Ukrainian teachers (Orru and Saidel 2022). Similar programmes were established for teachers from the newly occupied areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Larina 2022a; Vovk 2024). In addition, the Russian Ministry of Education has turned the Don State Technical University in Rostov-on-Don (near the border of Ukraine) into a centre for ‘advanced training’ (povyshenie kvalifikatsii) for teachers from the TOTs. Russia has reportedly ‘retrained’ 9,000 teachers since the launch of the full-scale war, paying special attention to history and geography teachers (Mikhalevska 2024; Rossiia strana

5

With the support of the Russian Ministry of Education, Sferum was originally developed in 2021 by Rostelecom and VKontakte as a centralised online platform for educational purposes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic (Rostelecom 2021). In 2021, majority ownership of VKontakte was transferred to Sogaz (one of Russia’s largest insurance companies), state-owned gas giant Gazprom, and state-owned military-industrial corporation Rostec, meaning that VKontakte is effectively controlled by the Russian state (Dietrich 2023).

250 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI vozmozhnostei 2024). The United Russia Party aspires to complete this ‘advanced training’ for all teachers in the TOTs by the end of 2025 (Luganskyi Informatsionnyi Tsentr 2023; United Russia n.d.).

The third method involves the co-optation of teachers from Russia. In particular, the Russian government has designed a compensation structure to encourage Russian teachers to relocate to and work in the TOTs. In 2024, it expanded the existing Zemskii uchitel’ federal scheme, which attracts qualified teachers from urban centres to rural schools through monetary incentives, to the TOTs.6 Since January 2025, one-off payments under the Zemskii uchitel’ programme in the TOTs have been increased from one to two million rubles (TASS 2024b; Donetskoe Agentstvo Novostei 2025; Governor of the Kherson Region 2025). Vacancies in the TOTs can be easily found on the official website of the initiative (Zemskii uchitel’ n.d.).

Historically, fascist regimes have resorted to violence and intimidation to capture and maintain power. Russia’s regime of terror in the TOTs follows the same pattern, certainly in the combination of psychological and physical force that punishes teachers, parents, and children who seek out Ukrainian-language education. At the same time, the practices of assimilation and co-optation, which seek to totalitarianise the relationship of the individual and the state at every educational level, both in and beyond schools, are an equally important aspect of fascistic behaviour in line with Mussolini’s 1933 treatise. Moreover, they are a clear demonstration of the Russian leadership’s goal to alter Ukraine’s demographic makeup, which will complicate any future attempts to reverse Russia’s integration with the TOTs.

Building Belief, Building Soldiers: Youth Indoctrination and Militarisation Russia’s indoctrination efforts are closely connected to its militarisation policies, which target children and youth in the TOTs. As

6

Significantly, the same scheme was also expanded for medical professionals (i.e., ‘Zemskii Doktor’).

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 251 already mentioned, Russia’s occupation administrations inculcate a militaristic ethos of self-sacrifice for the state and feed a distorted view of Russia’s history, with Soviet victory over Nazism in 1945 as the cornerstone of this ideological edifice. Fundamentally, Ukrainian children in the TOTs are exposed to a curriculum that aims to erase their Ukrainian identity and instil loyalty to Russia (see Lewis 2025, 175–218). These values and beliefs can then be leveraged to increase young people’s readiness and willingness to participate in future military action.

As early as March 2022, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Boris Chernyshov proposed creating new history textbooks for the TOTs ‘to replace those that distort the image of Russia and incite Russophobia’ (Shcherbakova 2022). Vladimir Medinsky, aide to President Putin and former Russian Minister of Culture (2012– 2020), and Anatoly Torkunov, an academic, co-authored a new history textbook for secondary school pupils. A new section was added to the volume covering the post-1945 period to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (RBK 2023). In an interview, Natalya Nikonorova, member of the International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian parliament), announced that all schools in the TOTs had been provided with new textbooks—including Medinsky and Torkunov’s new history textbook for grades 10–11 (TASS 2024c).

The preface of Medinsky and Torkunov’s textbook reveals the political function of history teaching in Russia and the TOTs: ‘The main result of studying the course should be the formation of Russian civic identity and patriotism in students’ (Medinsky and Torkunov 2022, 2). This preface echoes Mussolini’s idea that the state ‘educates its citizens in civic virtue.’ The narratives covering the post-1991 period and Russia’s so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ promote a mix of victimhood and self-righteousness. Ukraine is described as an ‘ultranationalist state’ backed by Western countries who harbour aggressive intentions against Russia: ‘The West’s obsession had become the destabilisation of the situation within Russia…open Russophobia was sponsored in the former republics of the USSR’ (Medinsky and Torkunov 2022, 393). The history textbook is a deliberate exercise in self-absolution. Any military

252 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI involvement is framed as if Russia—surrounded by enemies—had been left with no choice but to launch a so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against its neighbour: ‘Russia was drawn into a series of conflicts and ‘colour revolutions’…The West is trying in every way to collapse the Russian economy [through sanctions.] The West needed Russia’s defeat at any cost. Under these conditions, Russia had no other alternatives’ (Medinsky and Torkunov 2022, 403, 407).

Centred around the idea of collective victimhood at the hands of both internal and external enemies, this trope is consistently found in the literature on fascism (Laqueur 1996; Paxton 2004; Stanley 2018). Victimhood is a convenient rhetorical and emotional device.

In Paxton’s (2004, 219) words, victimhood is quintessential to the fascist state as it is ‘a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies.’ This idea tallies with Mussolini’s emphasis on individuals’ duty and destiny to both serve and sacrifice themselves for the protection of the state at any cost.

The book concludes by glorifying Russian soldiers as ‘the real heroes of our time… They are an example of honour, courage and faith in the rightness of our cause. Their names, their daily feats are united…with the deeds of millions of their heroic predecessors. It has always been like this in the history of our Motherland. And it shall continue to be so’ (Medinsky and Torkunov 2022, 415). Again, the appeal to Russian soldiers’ heroism across time as a behavioural model to emulate for the younger generation is a discursive frame consistent with fascist ideology and rhetoric that echoes all but verbatim language drawn from Mussolini’s 1933 treatise.

Russia’s occupation administrations have added militaristic elements to the regular school curriculum. Modelled on the Russian programme, ‘lessons in courage’ have penetrated the TOTs’ publicschool systems. While mythologising Russian and Soviet military history, these lessons have sought to strengthen public perceptions of Ukraine and the West as existential threats and incentivise young people to pursue law enforcement and military careers. Often, Russian servicemen and representatives of Russian veteran or nationalist paramilitary movements are invited to these lessons (Administration of Kherson Region 2023; Tavria TV 2023b; 2025). In this

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 253 sense, they provide children and youth with their first exposure to an ideology that glorifies the notion of self-sacrifice for the ‘Motherland,’ blurring the boundaries between the TOTs and Russia— while distancing subjects from Ukraine, which implicitly cannot be the ‘mother’ country.

Indoctrination efforts are reinforced by encouraging children in the TOTs to participate in Russian federal youth organisations that have exploded in size and number over the past decade thanks to lavish state funding and media prominence. The two largest youth movements operating in the TOTs are the Dvizhenie pervykh (Movement of the First) and Iunarmiia (Youth Army) (Vorobiova 2023b). The Youth Army, which was created at the initiative of Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoigu in 2016, provides military, emergency response, and first aid training to children and teenagers aged six to eighteen. Indeed, the Youth Army’s website openly states that the movement ‘prepares youth to serve in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation’ (Youth Army n.d.).

While the Youth Army was active in the DNR and the LNR before the launch of the full-scale invasion, it was only in May 2022 that the Russian and local branches signed a cooperation agreement (Luganskii Informatsionnyi Tsentr 2022). A similar agreement was signed between the Youth Army and the Zaporizhzhya region’s Ministry of Youth Policy in October 2023 (Iunarmiia 2023b).

Branches of the Youth Army have also opened in the occupied areas of the Kherson region (Tavria TV 2022; 2023a) and, in Mariupol, even as fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian armies continued (see Chapter 8 by Kuzio and Garner). All Youth Army cadets swear an oath of allegiance to the Russian state (Iunarmiia 2023a; Za!TV 2023). Members of the Youth Army regularly attend schools in the TOTs to recruit new cadets (Iunarmiia 2022). The Youth Army, which is growing rapidly across Russia and has attracted large numbers of ‘recruits’ in long-occupied Crimea (Garner 2023), may well draw in through enticement or force a significant body of young people in the other TOTs. The Movement of the First, founded in summer 2022 (State Duma 2022; President of Russia 2022a) and which now claims to count eleven million members (Izvestiia 2025), purportedly aims to

254 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI recreate the ideological and organisational structure of the Soviet Pioneers.7 In reality, it is another means of enacting modern Russian fascist control over children.8 Its main goals include ‘shaping the worldview [of children and youth] on the basis of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values…as well as developing in them…love and respect for the Motherland…and personal responsibility for their fate and the fate of the Fatherland to the present and future generations’ (President of Russia 2022b). The same wording appears on the movement’s website, which also lists the key values guiding the organisation: its members ‘are united with the Motherland by common destiny,’ ‘oppose any attempts to distort and denigrate [the history of Russia and] preserve the memory of the defenders of the Motherland,’ and ‘share traditional family values’ (The Movement of the First n.d.). Historically, the absorption of individuals into the state and the inculcation of ultra-conservative values have provided the bedrock for fascist education.

Young people from the TOTs have been deeply involved in the Movement of the First. Some delegates from the TOTs officially joined the Movement of the First’s December 2022 first congress in Moscow (Dvizhenie pervykh 2022a). Regional branches were later opened across the TOTs (Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei 2023b; Dvizhenie pervykh 2022b; State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company of the LNR 2023; Tsargrad 2023). The Movement of the First has also been active in providing school textbooks to the TOTs (e.g., Dvizhenie pervykh 2023a; 2023d; 2023e; 2023f). Teams from the TOTs are regularly invited to join cohorts of young people from Russia in festivals and commemorative activities to accelerate socio-cultural assimilation (Bilokobylskyi 2024; Dvizhenie pervykh 2023b; 2023c; 2023g; 2023h; 2023i; 2024e; 2024f). Cloaked in humanitarian language, the Movement of the First initiative is thus part of the broader process of replacing Ukrainian culture and identity in local schools and, more broadly, across young people’s lives.

7 8

The Russian government has allocated 60 billion rubles to the Movement of the First for 2024-2026 (Kirieva 2023).

The Movement of the First is under EU and US sanctions countries for its involvement in the forced re-education, militarisation, and deportation of Ukrainian children (EUR-Lex 2025; US Department of the Treasury 2024).

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 255 Both the Youth Army and Movement of the First share a common ideological foundation: instilling the duty to serve the Russian state and its interests above all. For example, on the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion, the Telegram channel of the Movement of the First published a post that echoed the narrative that closes Medinsky and Torkunov’s history textbook: ‘SMO (‘Special Military Operation’) servicemen are an example and model for the [members of the] First. And veterans of the SMO will become mentors, experts, and lecturers in our projects’ (Dvizhenie pervykh 2024a). Young people are linked to a sense of discipline, duty, and sacrifice—and to the empire’s soldiers of the past and present— through an organisation that integrates social, cultural, and military work.

Indeed, movements like the Youth Army and the Movement of the First also act as platforms for military training and recruitment. For example, the movement advertised Zarnitsa 2.0,9 a military-patriotic game for schoolchildren aged eight to seventeen (Dvizhenie pervykh 2024b). Children from the TOTs also participated (Dvizhenie pervykh 2024c). The movement also organised forums which offered tactical medicine and drone operation training (Dvizhenie pervykh 2024d). In October 2024, the first military-patriotic centre was opened in the DNR at the Movement of the First’s base (Armeev 2024).

The consolidation of Russia’s occupation regime also coincided with the establishment of the ‘Warrior’ (Voin) centre for military-sports training and patriotic education that targets Russian citizens aged between fourteen and thirty-five. Its mission is ‘to prepare patriots of a new generation who love their homeland and know how to defend it’ (Void n.d.). Regional branches had been created in all four TOTs by April 2024 (Zaytsev 2025). The centre’s Telegram channel regularly publishes posts advertising for new instructors with military experience (e.g., Tsentr VOIN, 2024a; 2024d). The DNR alone plans to train two thousand cadets at the ‘Warrior’ centre by the end of 2025 (Komsomolskaia Pravda 2025).

9

This was also the name of the military games organised by the Soviet-era youth organisation ‘Young Pioneers.’

256 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI Thus, its work has real military application. However, it also incorporates historical aspects that alludes to the ‘ancestors’ of the empire. For example, on the 82nd anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad in 2024, teenagers from the TOTs took part in the programme ‘Time of Young Heroes’ which involved fire, tactical, first-aid, and drone flight training (Tsentr VOIN 2024b; 2024c).

There are further reports of children from the TOTs being taken to ‘patriotic’ summer camps where they receive military, survival, and first-aid training. Two hundred teenagers from different regions of Russia, including the annexed DNR and LNR, were brought to Chechnya for the purpose of military-patriotic education (Kadyrov 2022)—a plan that was purportedly hatched during a meeting between Maria Lvova-Belova, the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, and Ramzan Kadyrov (Larina 2022b).

There is also a wealth of evidence that Russia has organised on a systematic scale the illegal transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to dozens of ‘re-education’ camps in occupied Crimea, Russia and Belarus (Ioffe 2023; Klymenko 2022; Yale HRL 2023; ZMINA 2024). These camps have been designed to eradicate Ukrainian children’s identity, weaken their allegiance to the Ukrainian state, and instill pro-Russian patriotic sentiment as part of a wider project that has led to International Criminal Court indictments against both Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova.

Conclusion According to data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, as of early 2025 there are about 600,000 school-age children living in the TOTs. Of these, approximately seven percent study in Ukrainian schools online (Radio Svoboda 2025), suggesting that most children on Russian-occupied territory are being exposed to Russia’s reformed educational system. Russia’s educational policies in the TOTs will not just be a source of trauma for millions of Ukrainians.

They will also pose a security threat to Ukraine and result in a loss of valuable human capital that Ukraine desperately needs for its recovery. Ukrainian leaders thus face formidable challenges in rebuilding Ukraine and reintegrating the TOTs after the war.

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 257 Indeed, the international debate on Ukraine’s recovery and de-occupation strategy tends to focus on the challenges that the country will face in restoring governance and the rule of law, demining efforts, and rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. While these aspects are of vital importance, they address only superficial aspects of Russia’s occupation. Important discussions on the challenges and opportunities in the process of ‘cognitive de-occupation’ are already underway, though they tend to be confined to Crimea without being extended to the TOTs more broadly and without considering the role that Western assistance could play in this process (Detektor Media Research Centre 2024; Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea 2023; Ukrainian School of Political Studies 2024). Ukraine’s recovery and resilience does not hinge on rebuilding the physical world alone as psychological and emotional fabrics must also be delicately reconstructed.

Exploring the applicability of fascism as a concept to Russia’s temporary occupation of Crimea and partly four regions of Ukraine is thus not merely an academic exercise. Russia’s indoctrination and militarisation policies will have profound and lasting consequences beyond Ukraine. By instilling ultranationalist ideologies and military values from a young age, Russia is attempting to cultivate a generation that is not simply alienated from Ukraine and the West but radicalised and more inclined to participate in future military action. Taking this reality into account—perhaps by considering the efficacy of re-education programmes adopted after fascism’s fall in Italy, and after conducting further work to expand on the conclusions in this chapter—will be essential for ensuring the effectiveness and durability of both Europe’s future defence planning and the physical and psychological reconstruction of Ukraine itself.

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FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 259 Detektor Media Research Centre (2024, February 27). Ten Years of Occupation, Ten More Years of Cognitive Deoccupation. Crimean Information Space: Challenges and Opportunities. https://en.detector. media/post/ten-years-of-occupation-ten-more-years-of-cognitivedeoccupation-crimean-information-space-challenges-and-opportu nities?fbclid=IwAR2MYIEXhQb2m_QUhd93K3r-XgyFIYHeHqpvy 0JgVLutBHF6gzfiUun74Rc Dietrich, P. (2023, November 17). Russia Purports to Build a Fully Controlled, State-Run IT Ecosystem. German Council on Foreign Relations. https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/russia-purports-build -fully-controlled-state-run-it-ecosystem DNR Government. (2023, December 25). Postanovlenie pravitel’stva DNR ob utverzhdenii programmy ‘Kompleksnoie razvitie molodezhnoi politiki v Donetskoi Narodnoi Respublike’. Donetsk Peoples Republic. http://npa.dnronline.su/2024-01-12/postanovlenie-pravitelstva-dn r-113-14-ot-25-12-2023-g-ob-utverzhdenii-programmy-kompleksnoe -razvitie-molodezhnoj-politiki-v-donetskoj-narodnoj-respublike.ht ml DNR People’s Council. (2022, September 27). Zakon o molodezhnoi politike. Donetsk Peoples Republic. http://npa.dnronline.su/2022-09-27/ 415-iins-o-molodezhnoj-politike.html DNR People’s Council. (2025, February 24). Zakon o molodezhnoi politike v Donetskoi Narodnoi Respublike. Donetsk Peoples Republic. http://n pa.dnronline.su/2025-02-24/166-rz-o-molodezhnoj-politike-v-done tskoj-narodnoj-respublike.html Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei. (2020, October 5). Vnedrenie v DNR rossiiskikh standartov obucheniia iavliaetsia vazhneishei chast’iu integratsii s RF—Pushilin. Donetsk News Agency. https://dan-news.ru/ politics/vnedrenie-v-dnr-rossijskix-standartov-obucheniia-yavlyaet sya-vazhnejshej-chastyu-integracii-s-rf-pushilin/ Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei. (2023a, October 28). NS DNR zanialsia formirovaniem edinoi sistemy patrioticheskogo vospitaniia molodezhi. Donetsk News Agency. https://dan-news.ru/exclusive/nsdnr-zanjalsja-formirovaniem-edinoj-sistemy-patrioticheskogo-vosp itanija-molodezhi/ Donetskoe Agenstvo Novostei. (2023b, October 31). ‘Dvizhenie pervykh’ otkrylo v novykh regionakh svyshe 1100 pervichnykh otdelenii. Donetsk News Agency. https://dan-news.ru/exclusive/dvizhenie-pervy h-otkrylo-v-novyh-regionah-svyshe-1100-pervichnyh-otdelenij/

260 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI Donetskoie Agentstvo Novostei. (2025, January 1). Zemskim uchiteliam v Donbasse i Novorossii budut platit’ po 2 mln rublei. Donetsk News Agency. https://dan-news.ru/obschestvo/zemskim-uchiteljam-v-d onbasse-i-novorossii-budut-platit-po-2-mln-rublej/ Dvizhenie pervykh. (2022a, September 30). Donbass, Lugansk, Kherson i Zaporozh’ye [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/219 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2022b, December 21). V Genicheske Khersonskoi oblasti sozdany pervichnyie otdeleniia rossiiskogo dvizheniia detei i molodozhi ‘Dvizhenie pervykh’! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/1173 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023a, January 9). Prezident Rossii Vladimir Putin vstretilsia s ministrom prosveshcheniia Sergeem Kravtsovym [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/1357 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023b, May 22). Chto novogo u Dvizheniia pervykh v regionakh? [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/3869 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023c, May 31). Rebyata iz novykh regionov speshat na festival Dvizheniia pervykh! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/ 4058 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023d, June 7). Vserossiiskaia aktsiia ‘Kniga drugu’ Dvizheniia pervykh v Rostove-na-Donu! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me /mypervie/4370 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023e, June 14). Rebyata iz Dvizheniia pervykh podarili knigi, sobrannyie v ramkakh aktsii ‘Kniga drugu’, detiiam iz novykh regionov Rossii [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/4599 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023f, 9). Knigi v shkoly Zaporozh’ya [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/5292 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023g, September 30). Segodnya my otmechayem den’ Vossoedineniia Donetskoi i Luganskoi Narodnykh Respublik, Zaporozhskoi i Khersonskoi oblastey s Rossiei! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/myper vie/7791 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023h, September 9). Chto delaiut pervye? Prazdnuiut Den’ Vossoyedineniia novykh regionov s Rossiei [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/7825 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2023i, October 2). Chto delaiut pervye? Sozdaiut allei v chest’ novykh regionov! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/79 07 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2024a, February 23). Druz’ia, pozdravliaiu s Dnem zashchitnika Otechestva! [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/10931 Dvizhenie pervykh (2024b, February 23). Tvoya vosmozhnost’ stat’ uchastnikom Zarnitsy 2.0 [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/10933 Dvizhenie pervykh. (2024c, May 27). Patriotichno, iarko, sportivno [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/mypervie/13168

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FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 267 TASS. (2022a, May 25). V Krymu nachalos’ obuchenie uchitelei dlia Khersonskoi oblasti. TASS. https://tass.ru/obschestvo/14724049 TASS. (2022b, December 19). Russian Movement of Children and Youth Chooses New Name. TASS. https://tass.com/society/1552689 TASS. (2024a, February 20). V DNR razrabatyvaiut novuiu programmu razvitiia molodezhnogo patrioticheskogo dvizheniia. TASS. https:// tass.ru/obschestvo/20033319 TASS. (2024b, December 16). Vyplatu pereekhavshim v Donbass i Novorossiyu uchiteliam uvelichili do 2 mln rublei. TASS. https://tass. ru/obschestvo/22687553 TASS. (2024c, May 31). Senator Natal’ia Nikonorova: U detei iz DNR zachastuiu vzroslyi vzglyad. TASS. https://tass.ru/interviews/209 48115 Tavria TV. (2022, November 4). V Khersonskoi oblasti otkrylos’ otdelenie Iunarmii [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/tavria_kherson/2525 Tavria TV. (2023a, February 2). V godovshchinu Stalingradskoi bitvy v Novotroitskom otkrylsia pervyi Iunarmeiskii otriad na Khersonshchine [Post].

Telegram. https://t.me/tavria_kherson/3657 Tavria TV. (2023b, April 6). Uroki muzhestva stali traditsionnymi v shkolakh Khersonskoi oblasti [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/tavria_kherson/ 5184 Tavria TV. (2024, 10). Khersonskaia Oblastnaia Duma pristupila k razrabotke zakonoproyekta ‘O patrioticheskom vospitanii’ [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/tavria_kherson/28535 Tavria TV. (2025, February 21) Pravookhraniteli Proveli Urok Muzhestva dlia Starsheklassnikov Ivanovskogo Okruga [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me /tavria_kherson/44508 Tondo, L. (2022, 1). Moscow Forcing Teachers in Occupied Ukraine to Follow Russian Curriculum. The Guardian. https://www.theguardi an.com/world/2022/jul/01/moscow-forcing-teachers-in-ukraineto-sign-up-to-russian-curriculum Tsargrad. (2023, January 11). V Zaporozhskoi oblasti otkrylos’ otdelenie ‘Dvizheniia pervykh’. https://zp.tsargrad.tv/news/v-zaporozhsko j-oblasti-nachalo-rabotu-pervichnoe-otdelenie-dvizhenija-pervyh_70 1601 Tsentr VOIN. (2024a, March 22). Zavershaetsia obuchenie pervogo potoka novykh instruktorov tsentra ‘VOIN.’ [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/crv sp2023/1519 Tsentr VOIN. (2024b, 17). Bolee 600 podrostkov iz shesti regionov Rossii stali kursantami tret’yey smeny ‘Vremia Iunykh Geroyev’ v Volgograde [Post].

Telegram. https://t.me/crvsp2023/2501

268 JAROSLAVA BARBIERI Tsentr VOIN. (2024c, August 13). Chetvertaia smena ‘Vremia iunykh geroev’ nachalas’ v Volgogradskoi oblasti [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/crvs p2023/2948 Tsentr VOIN. (2024d, October 11). 50 budushchikh instruktorov proidut obuchenie na baze filiala tsentra ‘VOIN’ v Tiumenskoi oblasti [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/crvsp2023/3520 Ukrainian School of Political Studies. (2024, August 29). Cognitive Deoccupation: Visions, Challenges and Prospects. Ukrainian School of Political Studies. https://usps.org.ua/en/kognityvna-deokupatsiia-viz iyi-vyklyky-ta-perspektyvy/ United Russia. (n.d.). Narodnaia programma ‘Edinoi Rossii’. Razvitie novykh regionov. United Russia. https://er.ru/party/program?page= 19 U.S. Department of the Treasury. (2024, June 12). Russia-related Designations; Publication of Russia-related Determination; Issuance of Russia-related General Licenses and Frequently Asked Questions. Office of Foreign Assets Control. https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/2 0240612 Voin. (n.d.). Tsentr Voenno-Sportivnoi Podgotovki i Patrioticheskogo Vospitaniia Molodezhi. Voin. https://crvsp.ru/ Vorobiova, A. (2023a). The ‘Crimea Scenario’: How the Russian Federation Is Destroying the Ukrainian Identity of Children in the Occupied Territories.

Kyiv: Almenda. https://almenda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/ 02/Analytical-report-The-%E2%80%98Crimea-scenario-how-the-Ru ssian-Federation-is-destroying-the-Ukrainian-identity-of-children-in -the-occupied-territories.pdf Vorobiova, A. (2023b). Youth Movements as the Instrument of Indoctrination and Militarization in the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.

Kyiv: Almenda. https://almenda.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/ 01/Youth-movements-as-the-instrument-of-indoctrination-and-mili tarization_Almenda.pdf Vorobiova, A. (2024). Molodizhna Polityka RF Yak Instrument Znyshchennya Identychnosti na TOT Ukrayiny. Kyiv: Almenda. https://almenda.org /analitichnij-zvit-molodizhna-politika-rf-yak-instrument-znishhenn ya-identichnosti-na-tot-ukraini/ Vovk, K. (2024, February 18). Ten Classes under Occupation. Education in the Temporarily Occupied Territories since 2014. Svidomi. https://s vidomi.in.ua/en/page/ten-classes-under-occupation-education-inthe-temporarily-occupied-territories-since-2014

FROM SCHOOL BENCHES TO FRONTLINE TRENCHES 269 Yale HRL. (2023). Russia’s Systematic Program for the Re-education and Adoption of Ukraine’s Children. https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/port al/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8 /data Youth Army. (n.d.). ‘O Dvizhenie’. Iunarmiia. https://юнармия-москва. рф/o-dvizhenii-yunarmiya/ Za!TV (2023, February 24). Vserossiiskoie Detsko-Yunosheskoie ‘Dvizhenie Iunarmiia’ Nachalo Rabotu v Zaporozhskoi oblasti [Post]. Telegram. https://t.me/za_tv_ru/7154 Zaytsev, S. (2025, March 31). ‘Vospitat’ patriotov. 10 filialam Tsentra voennoi podgotovki ispolnilsia god. Argumenty i Fakty. https://aif.ru/soc iety/army/vospitat-patriotov-10-filialam-centra-voennoi-podgotov ki-ispolnilsia-god Zemskii uchitel’ (n.d.). Usloviia uchastiia. Zemskii uchitel’ https://zemteac her.apkpro.ru/conditions ZMINA (2024). Stolen Childhood: How the Belarusian Regime is Erasing Ukrainian Children’s Identity through Displacement, Re‐education, and Militarization. https://zmina.ua/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024 /10/fh_zmina_reporteng.pdf Zuban, L. (2024). It’s 7-8 Kilometres Here: School Principal in Kherson Region Forced by Occupiers to Swim across Dnipro Because He Did Not Want to Cooperate. ZMINA. https://zmina.info/en/articles-en/its7-8-kilometres-here-school-principal-in-kherson-region-forced-by-o ccupiers-to-swim-across-dnipro-because-he-did-not-want-to-cooper ate/

Mass Destruction and Ukrainian Erasure The Fascist Rebirth of ‘Great Russia’ in Mariupol Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner Addressing Ukrainians on the anniversary of the end of World War II in 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (2024), whose three grandfathers’ brothers were murdered during the Holocaust, declared that ‘evil has been reborn. Its name is Russian fascism.’

Zelenskyy suggested that those who remember the horrors of World War II ‘feel a sense of déjà vu’ when reading about Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, which are already the subject of six indictments against Russians, including President Vladimir Putin, at the International Criminal Court.1 ‘The Battle of Kyiv, the bombings of Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro, mass graves, child deportations, filtration camps, and colonies for captives,’ were pointed to by Zelenskyy as war crimes (2024).

Among the vast swathe of destruction that has taken place in Ukraine since 2022, the case of Mariupol—where tens of thousands of civilians were killed and much of the city’s infrastructure and housing razed in 2022—stands out as particularly egregious. Russian political leaders and the state-controlled Russian media have openly called for such forcible acts. One commentator on Russian television, for example, explained that ‘will of the people [in

1

Note that throughout this chapter, due to the extensive list of sources drawn from traditional and social media sources and referenced a single time, we include single references in footnotes. Major works are included in the References list that follows the chapter’s text. Here: ‘ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrants against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.’

International Criminal Court, March 17, 2023. https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/ situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimiro vich-putin-and; and ‘ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrants against Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov,’ International Criminal Court, March 5, 2024. https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-ju dges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-sergei-ivanovich-kobylash-and

271

272 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER Kharkiv] must be broken over the knee.’2 In this chapter, we explore the cultural purposes that the vast destruction wrought in Ukraine, and especially against Mariupol, serves.

Two years before Zelenskyy’s (2024) comments on Russian fascism, Vladimir Putin declared that Russia must undergo a ‘selfcleansing of society’ to purge itself of ‘bastards and traitors’ (Stallard 2022): ‘The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a fly in their mouth.’ The comment is indicative of the revolutionary transformation of Russia through what we define— in line with Roger Griffin’s (1993) concept of palingenetic ultranationalism, which posits fascism as a revolutionary form of nationalism that seeks the rebirth (‘palingenesis’) of a nation through the destruction of a perceived corrupt or decadent present, aiming to restore a mythic, idealised past both for the nation and its subjects— as a fascistic cycle of destruction and rejuvenation catalysed by a cult of war and sacrifice: as the ‘Nazi’ Ukraine (and its mirrors in the West) is destroyed, so ‘Great Russia,’ a metaphysical discursive construction that incorporates Ukraine and Belarus, is reborn. Here, Mariupol stands in for the visions of Russia’s ‘imperial nationalists,’ whose albeit apparently oxymoronic project is expressed chiefly through anti-Western visions of imperial growth (see Pain 2016). In this chapter, we outline the discursive and theoretical foundations of this cycle of de/reconstruction before showing them in operation by using the fate of the Mariupol as a case study of a rejuvenated Russian consciousness.

In the first section of the chapter, we examine the roots and goals of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s selfproclaimed so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ goals of ‘de-militarisation’ and ‘de-nazification.’ In Russian-occupied Ukraine, the Russian army and security forces have committed extrajudicial executions, rapes, destruction of civilian buildings and utilities, kidnapping of children, destruction of Ukrainian monuments, books, and museums, looting of art and cultural objects, and widescale 2

Prymoj Efir, April 8, 2024. https://x.com/sumlenny/status/1777390939943608 398

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 273 abuse of the human rights of prisoners of war. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)’s Committee on Culture recognised Russia’s deliberate erasure of Ukrainian culture as a broader genocidal occupation strategy premised on eradicating Ukraine’s national identity and independence. 3 In the second section of the chapter, we focus on Mariupol as a case study of Russia’s fascistic cycle of destruction and rejuvenation. Mariupol was all but destroyed by the invading Russian army in spring 2022—’as if [the army was] working to a plan,’ as Russian state TV correspondent Aleksandr Sladkov described it. Russia’s approach to its war in Ukraine is an ultra-violent and purposefully destructive approach to warfare that creates ‘neighbourhoods of apocalypses’ (Trofimov 2024, 124). Mariupol is one such ‘neighbourhood of apocalypse.’

We analyse the Russification and Sovietisation of Russian-occupied Mariupol through the transformation of the city’s built environment and memoryscape. By analysing how identities are refashioned around the rebuilding of memoryscape in Mariupol, we show how Russia is responding to Putin’s call for ‘self-purification’: Mariupol exists as the discursive site of a newer, revolutionary Russianness in a ‘liberated’ Novorossiia (New Russia), the Tsarist term for southeast Ukraine revived in 2014. As a result, Mariupol is instrumentalised to create the image—a Baudrillardian simulacrum discussed and experienced chiefly online, albeit increasingly through a physical (re-)colonisation—of a new and utopian Great Russian future. The cycle of destruction and rejuvenation suggests Putin’s Russia must elect to pursue perpetual war over peace—a key facet, we suggest, of fascism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

3

Yevheniya Kravchuk, ‘The Committee of Culture of the PACE recognised the erasing of Ukrainian cultural identity.’ Facebook, May 29, 2024. https://www. facebook.com/story.php?id=603402597&story_fbid=10163538054417598&paip v=0&eav=AfYMUMpu_EjITg01wPt7rtZHue_8nvZw3otc-0E_oBtCg6xClfDL4R MZmVtN_dBMcck&_rdr.

274 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER

The Roots and Goals of Russia’s War Against Ukraine According to both state and media discourse—and to Putin’s own speech announcing the beginning of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’—the chief aims of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine were ‘de-militarisation’ and ‘de-nazification.’ Both goals allude to fascistic elements of the rejuvenation of Great Russia.

The invasion goal of ‘de-militarisation’ would transform Ukraine into a Russian satellite resembling Alexander Lukashenka’s Belarus. ‘Little Russia’ would be shorn of its southeast and Crimea, with a very small army and no route to NATO or EU membership (Orenstein 2023). Western Ukraine, an area which Russian imperial nationalists have rarely laid claim to, would be offered to Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The invasion goal of ‘demilitarisation’ reflects the Kremlin’s understanding of ‘neutrality’ as encompassing its own control over a neighbouring country’s domestic affairs (and therefore in very different terms to how this is commonly understood in international relations).

The goal of ‘de-nazification,’ meanwhile, should be understood as the forcible destruction of Ukrainian identity, language, and culture. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that ‘Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, at its core, is a campaign to irrevocably erase Ukraine and permanently absorb it into Russia’ (The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook 2024). During peace talks in 2022 and 2025, the Kremlin’s insistence on resolving the ‘root causes’ of the war were de facto a demand for the de-Ukrainianisation (‘denazification’) of Ukraine (see Kuzio 2025). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for example, condemned the ‘racist Kyiv regime’ for the ‘extermination of everything Russian’ in language, media, and culture. Russian senator Dmitri Rogozin claimed Ukraine had been ‘instilling a misanthropic Russophobic spirit’ in Ukrainians and thus turning them against Russians. Russia’s draft peace treaty from spring 2022 included annexes which criticised Ukrainian legislation on the status of war veterans, TV and radio, culture, state service, judiciary, education, Ukrainian language, Indigenous peoples in Ukraine, and de-communisation (Trofimov 2024, 92).

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 275 Essentially, the treaty proposed unravelling the landmarks of Ukrainian sociocultural legislation since independence. The Kremlin revived the 2022 draft peace treaties—alongside the demand for the elimination of the ‘root causes’ of the war—during peace talks in spring 2025.

Russian imperial nationalist and fascist discourse widely purports that Ukrainians are really ‘confused’ Little Russians duped by Western intelligence services into viewing themselves as distinct from Russians. They thus need to be forcibly returned to their Russian roots. Thus, when the Russian army and security forces invaded Ukraine, they arrived with kill lists of Ukrainian leaders to be executed, jailed, or deported to Russia, and plans for the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Indeed, to those who resisted, Russian Colonel General Alexander Fomin issued a warning early in the war: ‘We will keep killing and slaughtering you’ (Trofimov 2024, 92). By the third year of war, Ukrainian prosecutors had collected evidence of over 160,000 war crimes committed by Russia since its 2022 invasion.4 A special web site was established by Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office to collect evidence of war crimes. 5 Legal scholars believe these crimes, and Russian official rhetoric and media discourse constitute evidence of Russia’s intent to commit genocide against Ukrainians (Ibrahim 2022; Hook 2023, 2024). As Karolina Hird (2024) writes, ‘Putin’s invasion was never about seizing limited bits of land. It was always about destroying a people.’

The Institute for the Study of War describes a series of policies, introduced in Crimea and occupied Donbas after 2014 (see Oliinyk 2023; McGlynn 2023, 2024; Yapparova 2024; Lewis 2024), that are being applied in occupied Ukrainian areas today (The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook 2024). These include ‘legal theatre’—fake referendums, imposition of Russian passports, the deliberate destruction of objects of Ukrainian culture, forced deportations, deliberate torture and rape as a tool for social control which have led to the 4

5

‘Ukrayina rozsliduye 120 tysyach voyennyxkh zlochyniv, po deyakyx vzhe ye rishennya sudiv—henprokuror.’ Radio Svoboda, January 31, 2024. https://ww w.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-kostin-rozsliduvannya-voyenni-zlochyny/3280 0090.html https://warcrimes.gov.ua/

276 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER issuing of six indictments by the International Criminal Court against Russian political and military leaders (Ukraine: Russian Forces Executed Surrendering Ukraine Soldiers 2024),6 indoctrination of children into a cult of sacrifice and war through semi-compulsory membership of groups such as the Iunarmiia (Youth Army), the paramilitary youth movement founded by Russia’s Ministry of Defence in 2016 with the intention of preparing young Russians for military service and—most importantly for our argument—the deliberate ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians and their replacement by Russian settlers (The Kremlin’s Occupation Playbook 2024; Yapparova 2024; McGlynn 2023; Barnier 2023). Over time, the intention is clearly to Russify occupied Ukraine.

Yet, despite appearances, the goals of the war are not limited to destroying Ukraine and transforming Ukrainians into ‘Little Russians.’ The recasting of Russia itself is just as significant. Mariupol is at the heart of this project. We argue that the city of Mariupol has come to function as the site of a psychic projection of death and rebirth—an example of ‘palingenetic ultranationalism’ for the twenty first century—and the central image of a fascist narrative that fervently believes the destruction of Ukraine’s ‘artificial’ Western-backed identity will lead to the mythical national regeneration of Great Russia.

By exploring the ways in which Mariupol has become central to Russian narratives of the war—which have focused on claims to be rebuilding and improving the existing city, modifying the city’s memoryscape to replace Ukrainianness with Russianness, and inculcating a new subjectivity in Mariupol’s remaining residents—we show that Putin regime’s goals are not limited to geographical conquest. Rather, they emanate from and are projective of the Soviet and Nazi totalitarian pasts. Russia’s cult of war and sacrifice, which has led to the country suffering approximately one million casualties in just over three years of war against Ukraine, shows no sign of ending. Rather, society’s inert response to the colossal number of

6

‘UN Chief Guterres Calls for Immediate Ceasefire in Ukraine,’ UN News. September 5, 2023. www.news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1141417

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 277 dead reflects a cult of war in Putin’s Russia that has been steadily mobilising for some years (Zygar 2016, 85).

Mariupol as a Case Study of the Fascist Cycle of Destruction and Rejuvenation Destruction The most egregious example of Russia’s fascist destruction of Ukraine was the brutal occupation of Mariupol, which suffered a two-month bombardment and campaign of terror that razed much of the city’s housing and infrastructure to the ground (Our City Was Gone 2024). Ninety percent of the city’s infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, including 61,000 apartments and homes, 7 hospitals, 57 schools, and 70 kindergartens. 7 As Mariupol remains occupied, estimates of the total number of civilian casualties are varied. Nonetheless, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to between fifty and one hundred thousand—nearly a quarter of the city’s prewar inhabitants—the death toll has by any measure been enormous (Ubydul et al. 2022). Many of those who survived the bombardment were deported to Russia through filtration camps, where they suffered torture, humiliation, and potentially disappearance. Parents were forcibly separated from their children. Tens of thousands of these children were sent on from Mariupol or filtration camps to orphanages in Russia, where they were put up for adoption by Russian citizens.

Kremlin propagandists and politicians discussed Mariupol at length as Russian armed forces first approached, then besieged, destroyed, and occupied the city. On the one hand, the city was ‘liberated’ by Russian forces; that is, what was presented as a ‘Russian’ city was saved from a Ukrainian ‘criminal Nazi regime’ supposedly committing ‘genocide’ against Russian speakers (Thirteen Myths 2024). On the other hand, Kremlin propagandists embraced the 7

‘Za chas vorozhoї oblohy u Mariupoli zahynuly majzhe 5 tysiach zhyteliv, sered nykh—blyzko 210 ditei,’ Ukrinform, March 28, 2022. https://www.ukrinf orm.ua/rubric-ato/3442162-za-cas-vorozoi-oblogi-u-mariupoli-zaginuli-majze -5-tisac-ziteliv-sered-nih-blizko-210-ditej.html

278 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER obliteration of both the city and its inhabitants, who had been infected by ‘Nazism.’ Russian state television egged on Mariupol’s destruction, describing Ukraine as ‘a cancerous growth that needs to be eliminated all the way to the border with Poland. We can’t allow even a small part of it to remain.’ 8 Mariupol, then, was being both destroyed and saved. The two phenomena were discursively inextricable. We view this ambivalent pull through the prism of a fascist cycle of destruction and rejuvenation.

In our understanding, Russian political discourse mandates the destruction of Mariupol as a means not just to Russify the city but to centre the city’s regeneration in a broader narrative of revolutionary renewal and rejuvenation for ‘Great Russia.’ In this world, the destruction of Ukraine would signal the end to Russia’s post-Soviet geopolitical humiliation. A ‘Great Russia’ would lie at the centre of a superior civilisation. Yet to achieve this imperial vision, Mariupol, as a ‘Russian’ entity, is obliged to suffer. On Russia’s Day of National Unity on November 4, 2022, Putin laid flowers at the foot of a Moscow monument to Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, two Russians mythologised for their heroism in repelling a Polish invasion in the early 17th century. In his ensuing comments, Putin (2024) explained that ‘Mariupol is famously an ancient and—one must say—Russian city. Peter I founded his first fleet and won his first victories there. Later Russian general Suvorov conducted his steppe campaigns there, then Catherine II built up the lands...Of course, the people there—along with their homes—have suffered greatly’ (Putin 2024).

Mariupol’s recent suffering, Putin suggests, is a sign of the city’s innate Russianness. It suffers because to suffer is synonymous with being Russian. But when Mariupol suffers, Putin’s rhetoric implies, imperial rejuvenation will take place. Putin went on to suggest that this suffering was not just regrettable; it was necessary for Mariupol to be recreated—and thus once more able to play out its role as a catalyst in rejuvenating Great Russia: ‘I say again that Mariupol [and Donbas] suffered greatly. It is necessary to rebuild 8

See Julia Davis, Twitter, April 2, 2022. https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/ status/1509942422490562568

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 279 housing, social infrastructure, kindergartens, libraries, theatres, museums, and so on’ (Putin 2024). Putin himself thus makes the link between destruction—suffering—and rejuvenation.

Rejuvenation: Rebuilding and (Re-)Colonisation Mariupol is at the centre of a Russian war narrative focused on rebuilding and (re-)colonising (rejuvenating) the environment, memory, and subjectivity, both in Mariupol and in Russia. Since Mariupol’s destruction, a vast effort has poured billions of roubles into the city’s reconstruction as a new Russian city in a rejuvenated Great Russia inhabited by new revolutionary Russians. Today, Mariupol is therefore the site of an intended (re-)colonisation.

The Russian government is explicitly planning to re-colonise Mariupol with 300,000 Russian citizens by 2035, following the mass influx of Russians into occupied Crimea after the region’s annexation in 2014 (see Kuzio 2024). Russians receive preferential mortgage rates on newly constructed apartment blocks–which are unavailable to Ukrainians (see Garner 2025; Robinson et al. 2025).

Meanwhile, Ukrainians’ homes and businesses, intended for use by incoming residents and entrepreneurs, are seized by the occupying authorities (MIPL 2025), furthering the process of erasure and destruction on which rejuvenation is founded: homeless Ukrainians either continue leaving Mariupol, find that without Russian documents they are locked out of the rebuilt Mariupol, or are too afraid to return now the fighting in the city has stopped. 9 These changes are not merely intended to expand Russian living space and boost Russian coffers: in Mariupol, colonisation—described as ‘reconstruction’—takes on a specifically fascist form connected to national rejuvenation. This process of rebuilding has been part of Russia’s war effort since the first months of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation.’ As early as July 2022—mere weeks after Mariupol’s ‘liberation’—Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for Construction and Regional Development Marat Khusnullin presented Putin with a ‘master plan’ for the ‘reconstruction and 9

The case of Iryna Navalnaya is illustrative. See https://mipl.org.ua/en/sendletter-eng/

280 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER development of Mariupol’ within three years.10 Yet mere reconstruction was not the goal. Work was envisioned to continue well into the 2030s to eclipse the city’s pre-war status by erecting new air, rail, and bus infrastructure, new amenities such as parks and bicycle infrastructure, and approximately one hundred new schools, kindergartens, and healthcare facilities. Mariupol, then, would not just reach the ‘all-Russian’ level, and it would not just be repositioned back into its historical place within Russia—it would become an enviable, liveable new city, functioning as a showcase for a newer, rejuvenated Russia. This would be a twenty-first century, rejuvenated Great Russia inhabited by new, revolutionaryminded Russians ready to reinvent themselves alongside the city’s reconstruction.11 Just as the country’s state media breathlessly covered Putin’s visit to Mariupol, so it has covered the reconstruction effort. A glut of journalistic tours of the city under construction has appeared in the media. Typically, these editorials revel in the counterpoint between destruction and rejuvenation of life. In a March 2024 report, a journalist is as eager to remind readers of the city’s total obliteration as they are to depict a site of energetic new life, where ‘property is being snapped up and films are being shot!’12 Touring new apartment blocks, schools, and hospitals the report announced that Mariupol has been ‘inscribed into the Russian consciousness.’ Brightly lit photos of a new city sign decked out in Russian colours and framed by an icon of Mary holding Jesus sit alongside grainy images of smoke and bombed out buildings.

10

11 12

Ministry of Construction, Housing, and Utilities of the Russian Federation, ‘Master plan Mariupolya predpolagaet vosstanovlenie goroda za tri goda.’

Press Release, 2022. https://minstroyrf.gov.ru/press/master-plan-mariupol ya-predpolagaet-vosstanovlenie-goroda-za-tri-goda/ Aleksandr Ivanov, ‘Mariupol vozrozhdaetsya: kak segodnya vyglyadit gorod, kotoryy obretaet novuyu zhizn.’ KP.RU Donetsk, October 17, 2022. https://ww w.donetsk.kp.ru/daily/27458/4663555/?ysclid=lruzl1zoy9110129273 Aleksandr Kaminskii, ‘Novaia naberezhnaia, aeroport i dramteatr. Kak Russkaia Vesna preobrazhaet Mariupol?’ RuNews24.ru, March 5, 2024. https://rune ws24.ru/articles/05/03/2024/novaya-naberezhnaya-aeroport-i-dramteatr-ka k-russkaya-vesna-preobrazhaet-mariupol

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 281 Alongside these media reports, state actors reiterate the same message: that Mariupol is the site of an extraordinary, historic reconstruction project. In May 2024, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (2024) declared that: Over the past two years, tremendous work has been done to restore Mariupol, where two-thirds of the buildings, including housing, were destroyed.

And it continues. Today the city resembles a large construction site. A new embankment with pedestrian paths has been opened. An industrial park and logistics centre are being created on the site of Azovstal. On the streets there are streams of cars, city service vehicles and public transport. In addition, tram and bus traffic were opened with the support of St. Petersburg.

And there is historical symbolism in this: in 1942, it was Mariupol that helped launch the tram in besieged Leningrad. The revival of the Azov pearl, which is rightfully considered Mariupol, inspires optimism, and inspires its residents. Every month more and more Mariupol residents who were forced to leave their native land return home.

For the Kremlin’s propagandists and employees, the creation of an enviably bounteous new and Russian life in Mariupol, situated in rejuvenated Great Russia, is impossible to imagine without the destruction of its Ukrainian past (and beyond the scope, as Zakharova implies, of a heroised Russian wartime past). In this dystopian world, Mariupol’s ‘rebirth’ and spiritual reconstruction is only made possible by the destruction of the former Ukrainian city. Mariupol has become the centre of an imperial nationalistic and fascist project to create new, revolutionary Russians in a rejuvenated Great Russia that has cut its ties with the West.

Memoryscape A sense of spiritual regeneration is embodied deeply in the choices Russia’s leaders have made surrounding construction projects in Mariupol. These projects have focused as much on creating a new memoryscape—a place that bridges ‘material and symbolic space,’ linking past and present, history and future (Kapralski 2017)—centred on Russian identity, as they have on building housing stock and amenities. Embedding history in the everyday lives of Russians through monuments, memorials, and other objects of memory has long been central to Putin’s Russia’s memory politics. Key strategies have included everything from the erection of Stalin busts and

282 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER enormous war memorials to the construction of the Cathedral of the Armed Forces in Moscow at a cost of $80 million and the creation of travelling history exhibitions. Each iteration of these memory strategies spreads an imperial nationalist vision of Russian and Soviet history centred on national greatness and transformation of the present in parallel with the ‘golden eras’ of the past (Ryzhkova and Anikina 2019; Makarychev and Yatsyk 2018).

In Mariupol, however, a new memoryscape has been created at great speed. Its creation has turned on the explicit destruction of Ukrainian objects of memory, with Russian replacements installed directly in their place. Frequently, the Russianisation of symbols of Ukrainianness has been as crude as it has been celebrated. For example, the ‘Mariupol’ sign at the city limits, once painted in yellow and blue Ukrainian national colours and featuring the Ukrainian spelling of the town’s name, was replaced with one decked out in the Russian tricolour and spelled in Russian lettering. Photos of the replacement went viral on Russian social media, and Russian soldiers have shared selfies and videos posing alongside the sign—a site of symbolic and actual destruction of the Ukrainian ‘Nazi’ past.

This sign is inextricably linked to war, with each photograph showing a tiled column, once immaculate, pocked with the marks of bullets and shrapnel. Yet the experience of both this image of destruction and the implied reconstruction into ‘Russianised’ Mariupol occurs chiefly in (re)mediated form through this virality: it exists in the main, therefore, as a discursive construct whose bounds extend beyond the physical site of Mariupol.

Sites of cultural value have been particularly targeted for Russianisation. The Mariupol drama theatre, where Russian forces killed up to six hundred civilians in a bombing raid (Hinnant, Chernov, and Stepanenko 2022) once hosted Ukrainian plays. As part of its rebuilding, it was surrounded by hoardings—widely pictured online—that depicted large images of Russian literary heroes Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Blok. Where old monuments are permitted to stand, they are Russified. For example, a bust of the Mariupol-born nineteenth century painter Arkhip Kuindzhi has been repaired but surrounded by copies of his Russian landscapes. Sometimes, though, destruction is

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 283 essential. A monument to the Holodomor—the deliberately engineered famine that killed four million Ukrainians in 1932-1933 and whose existence as a Stalinist crime or genocide directed against Ukrainians is denied by Putin’s Russia —was torn down, its stone to be ‘recycled into construction material.’13 The new, Russian memoryscape is literally to be built upon the destroyed Ukrainian one.

Meanwhile, shades of the most violent episodes in Russian imperial nationalistic history are projected onto the city’s emptied spaces: a new museum to the city’s recent history will be named after Andrey Zhdanov, the 1930s Stalinist ideologist and Mariupol’s Soviet-era namesake.14 Military destruction of Ukraine leads to and is essential to rejuvenation of Great Russia: ‘Thank God,’ wrote one journalist on a visit to Mariupol, for this ‘cultural defence.’15 Underlying the Kremlin’s assault on Ukrainian identity are continual references to the memory of the ‘Great Patriotic War’ which for the Russian state has come to function as an official quasireligion, replete with rituals, memorials, and the celebration, above all, of sacrifice to the rejuvenation of Stalin’s USSR and Putin’s Russia (see Garner 2022, 2). Mariupol has been named a ‘City of Military Glory,’ an award formerly given only to cities in Russia linked to fighting in the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ Its captors have received medals for the ‘storming’ of the city, imitating the language of those bestowed to Soviet soldiers in the 1940s.16 Mariupol and its ‘saviours’—as the Russian media and politicians label them—are symbolically reliving the war against German Nazism.

13

14 15

16

‘Monument to Victims of Stalin’s Famine Removed in Mariupol.’ The Moscow Times, October 20, 2022. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/20/mo nument-to-victims-of-stalins-famine-removed-in-mariupol-a79141 ‘Perechen’ poruchenii po itogam vstrechi s chlenami Obshchestvennoi palaty,’ November 3, 2023. http://kremlin.ru/acts/assignments/orders/73113 Grigorii Kubatian, ‘Proshche bylo vosstanovit’ Kafaren, chem Mariupol’: kak gorod vozrozhdaetsya iz pepela posle razrushitel’nykh boev.’ KP.RU, September 28, 2023. www.kp.ru/daily/27561/4830023/?ysclid=lruzq0samm7966975 94 ‘Zasedanie orgkomiteta ‘Pobeda’,’ November 15, 2022. http://kremlin.ru/ev ents/president/news/69836; ‘Vruchenie medalei ‘Zolotaya Zvezda’ Geroiam Rossii.’ December 19, 2023. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73057

284 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER To rebuild in the present is linked to the utopian dream of the post-war era thanks to the twinning of Mariupol with St. Petersburg, then the besieged and battered Leningrad (see Zakharova 2024). But in today’s war, rather than rebuilding a landscape destroyed by the invader to resurrect the nation, it is the Russian occupier who enacts the destruction that precedes new life: to do so, according to one politician, is Russia’s ‘moral duty’ (note that the Russian dolg suggests both ‘debt’ and ‘duty’).17

Fashioning Revolutionary Russians While the creation of this memoryscape is partially linked with the broader Russian attempt at enacting a cultural genocide through the destruction of Ukrainian identity, it culminates in imposing a new Russianness on Ukrainians themselves. The destruction and reconstruction of a Russified Mariupol is mirrored by the desired transformation of Mariupol’s remaining residents into new revolutionary Russians who will follow Putin’s edicts to ‘purify’ themselves. These Russians will be ready to engage in a constant cycle of internal and external de/reconstruction, as embodied in Mariupol: ‘Everyone should work as if on the front line,’ declared Putin (2024b) in a speech about the city’s reconstruction in May 2024, ‘everyone should feel mobilised.’ Feeling is privileged over fact; mobilisation of this internal sensation is as important as physical labour.

Even as the fighting at Azovstal, the steel plant that was the Ukrainian army’s last holdout in Mariupol, had not yet ended, Russia was establishing new identities for the city’s inhabitants. A particular focus was young people. A new, local unit of the Youth Army was founded in Mariupol on Victory Day (Russia’s annual celebration of the ‘Great Patriotic War’) on May 9, 2022. A speaker lecturing the first inductees, who posed for TV cameras at a local war memorial, declared that the young recruits would be ‘liberating our brother nation [Ukraine] from fascism’ by preparing

17

‘Vstrecha s chlenami Obshchestvennoi palaty,’ November 3, 2023. http://kreml in.ru/events/president/transcripts/72672

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 285 themselves for military service.18 Those who show little desire to join find themselves berated by schoolteachers—imported from Russia—who toe the Kremlin’s imperial nationalistic and fascist programme (McGlynn 2024; see also Jaroslava Barbieri’s chapter in this volume). Mariupol’s children find they have little choice but to join up and reinvent themselves as ‘Russians’ by parading with Russian leaders, learning Russian history, and shouting Russian slogans.

Living in the new Russified built environment and landscape, such children are provided with the means to Russify themselves— to acquire a feeling of being mobilised. In new educational institutions, hailed in Ministry of Defence promotional videos as ‘schools without shortcomings,’ children purportedly learn in clean, capacious classrooms equipped with ‘cyber sport’ facilities, drones to be played with, and new physical education facilities.19 Yet those same imported schoolteachers lead classes as part of a Russian imperial nationalistic curriculum that excludes all mention of Ukrainianness—except to declare its evil—and continually reassert Russia as the saviour of both Mariupol and the entire civilised world thanks to its sacrifices in both the ‘Great Patriotic War’ and so-called ‘Special Military Operation.’ Indeed, students entering the main corpus of one school are greeted with an outsized Putin quote that declares, ‘The successful future of a man depends on the quality and diversity of education.’20 Schools are purportedly ‘overflowing’ with new pupils, as if the ‘Russian spring’ has blossomed into abundant new life and potential. Note again that the chief effects of this campaign take place subjectively and in the (re)mediated context: their intent seems to be an affective, rather than a physical, mobilisation of spirit.

18

19 20

‘Propaganda novogo urovnya: V Mariupole podrostki vstupili v ‘yunarmiyu DNR’.’ Gazeta.ua, June 23, 2022. www.gazeta.ua/ru/articles/donbas/_propag anda-novogo-urovnya-v-mariupole-podrostki-vstupili-v-yunarmiyu-dnr/109 6431 ‘Mariupol’ Shkola bez nedostatkov.’ VSK MO RF, August 2023. https://dzen. ru/video/watch/64efbb3d1704705f3b404d20 ‘Chem zhivet novaia shkola v Mariupole?’ VSK MO RF, January 2024. https://dzen.ru/video/watch/658a5c8339c6e24c8b71e3b1

286 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER Indeed, the impact of Mariupol’s (affective) Russification does not just relate to Ukrainians living on occupied territory. The city’s fate after its destruction is an opportunity for Russians themselves to recover a lost, utopian internal spirit—to engage in their own personal journey of rejuvenation. The reconstruction around Mariupol has been consistently portrayed in hyperbolic terms that recall Soviet-era tales of construction feats. The city’s rebuilding, purportedly, is an all-national affair that, since it involves women, young teenagers, and ethnic minorities from Russia, transcends social barriers. Rebuilding and rejuvenating is a way for Russians, according to the Kremlin, to engage in an act of symbolic resistance against the West, which is attempting to destroy Russia through its talk of ‘de-colonising’ and fragmenting the country. 21 Mariupol, then, provides Russia itself with—to use Putin’s words from a meeting with the NGO, Russia: Country of Opportunities—’new projects [and] new ideas.’22 Politicians and civic actors claim to be racing to affect these new ideas and ‘help those in need’ because ‘We are not stopping our activities for even a single minute.’23 The destruction of Mariupol has purportedly provided Russia with the opportunity to spontaneously achieve a mass, national mobilisation.24 The act of reconstruction, only made possible through Russia’s own destruction of Mariupol, thus paradoxically unites Russia—and at least in discourse catalyses a vision of a more united, energetic, and organic ‘Great Russia’ that Putin has been outlining since his return to the presidency in 2012.

21

22 23 24

‘Vstrecha s rukovoditelem Federal’nogo agentstva po delam natsional’nostei Igorem Barinovym,’ August 29, 2022. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/ne ws/69223; ‘Zasedanie Soveta po razvitiiu grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravam cheloveka,’ December 4, 2023. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/new s/72905; Vstrecha s glavoi Bashkirii Radiem Khabirovym,’ January 13, 2023. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70347; ‘Vstrecha s gubernatorom Novosibirskoi oblasti Andreevym Travnikovym,’ 16 January 2023. http://kre mlin.ru/events/president/news/70358 ‘Zasedanie nabliudatel’nogo soveta ANO ‘Rossiya—strana vozmozhnostej’,’ April 20, 2022. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68250 ‘Zasedanie nabliudatel’nogo soveta ANO ‘Rossiia—strana vozmozhnostei’,’ April 20, 2022.http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68250 ‘Zasedanie nabliudatel’nogo soveta ANO ‘Rossiia—strana vozmozhnostei’,’ April 20, 2022. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68250

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 287 The process of Russianisation is presented as being entirely organic; the state merely taps into the energy of the masses generated by the fascist cycle of destruction and rejuvenation. Mariupol is depicted by state journalists, ‘military bloggers,’ and hipster influencers as a place of extraordinary energy—a place where the locals spontaneously burst into renditions of the Russian national anthem.25 Everywhere in this embodiment of rejuvenated Great Russia, construction records are being beaten, beauty is being created, and ordinary people are rushing to participate in a grand, collective project of Russia’s rejuvenation. In slick real estate adverts, some of which have gone viral, eager Russian settlers are depicted flocking to the city to buy up new housing stock. In the simulacrum of mobilised Russianness, Mariupol is the site of an almost limitless national and subjective potential.

Mariupol thus becomes the site where dreams can come true: indeed, as one teenage pupil from Mariupol explained to Putin via video link, ‘My dreams, the dreams of every child in Mariupol and Donetsk, are becoming reality because we have become part of the great motherland, Russia, once more.’ 26 Those dreams are bound up with the creation of new revolutionary Russians, a Russian space, and an internalised Russian identity within Mariupol and Great Russia that will serve to mobilise the masses for sacrifice and the long war ahead.

These dreams, for mainland Russians, afford a possibility of a spiritual resurrection linked to war—a key feature of fascistic language of the past. In 2023, Russian imperial nationalist and proKremlin ‘war blogger’ Dmitry Steshin (2023) released a first-hand account of his time at the Mariupol front, couched in religious terminology and feasting on the destruction of Ukrainian ‘Nazis’ defending Mariupol. This is a relish Steshin has shown elsewhere with his assertion that Russia could not accept peace because ‘we would 25 26

Grigorii Kubatian, ‘Proshche bylo vosstanovit’ Kafaren, chem Mariupol’: kak gorod vozrozhdaetsya iz pepela posle razrushitel’nykh boev.’ KP.RU, September 28, 2023. www.kp.ru/daily/27561/4830023/ ‘Tseremoniia otkrytiia novykh obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii v regionakh Rossii,’ September 1, 2023. http://special.kremlin.ru/catalog/keyw ords/73/events/72169

288 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER be leaving this abscess [Ukraine] for the next generation to pop (Carpenter 2024).’ Steshin (2023) announces the ‘liberation’ of Mariupol from Ukrainian forces in a chapter of his war diary entitled ‘Mariupol: A Stalingrad Returning to Life’: ‘Until today Mariupol’s human potential had been hidden in basements. Just one single day of quiet and the Mariupolites have come into the light. Street traders on Shevchenko Boulevard have begun to hustle about with their little boxes, just like in the nineties’ (Steshin 2023).

Steshin (2023) paints a picture of a city symbolically dead and now returned to life. Stores have reopened, children dream of returning to school, and cheery locals go about their business. Steshin (2023) draws on the image of Stalingrad, which in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian imperial nationalist myth was sacrificed and resurrected to save humanity and the Russian nation and catalyse a utopian future (Garner 2022). Mariupol’s destruction is not an endpoint. It is a necessary precursor to a more fulsome, utopian future: a Great Russian future, shorn of Westernism and other external degenerating features.

Any Russian, by entering or speaking about Mariupol, can transform themselves, casting off traces of Western ‘satanic degeneracy.’ This has been best exemplified by the case of Nastya Ivleeva, a 33-year-old Russian influencer and TV presenter who hosted a controversial ‘Naked Party’ in Moscow in 2023. Criticised heavily by state propagandists, Russian Orthodox Church officials, and even Putin for what was perceived as an event that promoted ‘nontraditional values’—typically associated with the West and Ukraine—the organisers and attendees have received various punishments. Ivleeva herself received a large fine and is awaiting the outcome of a billion-rouble suit for causing ‘moral suffering.’ She made numerous public apologies, willingly paid her fines, and declared her support for Putin in the March 2024 presidential election.

Nonetheless, to demonstrate repentance, Ivleeva had to visit Mariupol where she would atone through a ritual of self-debasement and rejuvenation. In a video interview released in May 2024, Ivleeva confessed that—as if on a religious pilgrimage—she had secretly travelled to the city. To do so, she explained, was to observe a unique rebirth: ‘Seeing how a new life is being born among the

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 289 ruins [was] a unique sight. It left a deep impression on me.’ 27 Ivleeva now claimed to believe Mariupol is where ‘new life is born from the ruins.’28 The very same propagandists who had criticised Ivleeva months earlier responded positively, touting her as having symbolically become a new, revolutionary and ‘purified’ Russian thanks to engaging with the narrative of the destruction of Ukrainian ‘Nazi’ Mariupol and its rejuvenation as a ‘liberated’ city in Great Russia.

Conclusion: The Mobilisation of Affective Imperial Nationalism History did not end in 1991 in Russia; it returned in short order as imperial nationalism, which became dominant in the late 1990s and mainstream during Putin’s quarter of a century rule over Russia.

Russian imperial nationalists imagine ‘Russia’ to be iterations of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), Eurasia, and a Russian Union or the Russian World uniting the great, little, and white Russian branches of a pan-Russian people. The three eastern Slavic nations were the core of the USSR; thus, a pan-Russian people would be the core of a rejuvenated Great Russia at the heart of a European civilisation depicted as superior to the West.

A key component of Russian imperial nationalism, with its origins in the Tsarist Empire and White Russian émigré culture, is the denial of Ukraine and a Ukrainian people, who are painted as part of Great Russia and a Little Russian branch of the pan-Russian people. In this chapter, we have argued that imperial nationalism, together with a cult of war and sacrifice, explains Russia’s destructive behaviour during the war against Ukraine. Russia’s fascist regime has worked to cleanse Russia of internal enemies while launching 27

28

‘Anastasiia Ivleeva rasskazala, chto posle ‘goloi’ vecherinki ezdila v okkupirovannyi Mariupol’ i na ‘liniiu soprikosnoveniia’.’ Zona, May 3, 2024. https://zon a.media/news/2024/05/03/poezdka ‘K Putinu vsegda otnosilas’ s simpatiei. Naval’nogo nikogda ne podderzhivala.

Byla v Mariupole — tam ‘iz ruin rozhdaetsia novaia zhizn’.’ Meduza, May 3, 2024. https://meduza.io/paragraph/2024/05/03/k-putinu-vsegda-otnosilass-simpatiey-navalnogo-nikogda-ne-podderzhivala-byla-v-mariupole-tam-iz-r uin-rozhdaetsya-novaya-zhizn

290 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER a full-scale war against external enemies: Ukraine and the West. Yet the attempted destruction of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian identity can be best understood as part of a fascist cycle to rejuvenate Great Russia—geographically, historically, and subjectively— into a superior Eurasian civilisation. ‘Confused’ Ukrainians can be forcibly fashioned into Little Russians, both physically and psychologically, through symbolic sites such as Mariupol.

Mariupol also offers Russians a discursive means to reinvent themselves as revolutionary Russians and to mobilise themselves, through online and celebrity culture, in the fight for ‘purification’ of Russian ‘fifth columnists’ and returning of Russian identity to confused Ukrainians. In this constellation of processes, the rejuvenation of Great Russia is being undertaken through palingenetic nationalism, a core component of fascism. If we consider recent work on fascism in the digital age, especially that of Mikkel Rasmussen (2022), then a fascist discourse of palingenetic nationalism revolving around revolution and rejuvenation is perceptible in Russian political, media, and cultural texts discussing Mariupol.

After the death, deportation, and killing of a large proportion of the pre-2022 inhabitants of Mariupol, part of what Russian imperial nationalists term the destruction of ‘Nazi’ Ukrainian identity, the new city is intended as a site of colonisation by 300,000 Russians by 2035 (see Garner 2025; Robinson et al. 2025). Similarly, a mass influx of Russians migrated to occupied Crimea after the region’s annexation in 2014 (see Kuzio 2024). Ukrainians’ homes and businesses are being expropriated by the occupying authorities for these Russian colonists (MIPL 2025). This chapter has argued that the destruction of Ukrainian ‘Nazi’ Mariupol and creation and intended colonisation of an imperial Russian Mariupol takes on a specifically fascist form connected to the national rejuvenation of Great Russia. It is in the liquid digital simulacrum of reality where images and discourses of a rejuvenated Russian imperial Mariupol are circulated that the Russian people are offered a path to becoming new, revolutionary Russians within a Great Russia that will overcome the trauma of 1991.

MASS DESTRUCTION AND UKRAINIAN ERASURE 291

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294 TARAS KUZIO AND IAN GARNER Yapparova, L. (2024, March 11) ‘They Could Start to Resist’. How the Russian Authorities are Working to Indoctrinate and Digitally Survey Deported Ukrainian Children. Meduza. https://meduza.io/en/feat ure/2024/03/11/they-could-start-to-resist

Conclusion Fascism with Adjectives?

Paul D’Anieri Long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, knowledgeable observers were debating a vexed question: ‘Is Russia fascist?’ While Marlene Laruelle (2021) answered the question in the negative, the evidence in favour of the proposition has continued to grow. While Russia and Modern Fascism will not definitively answer the debate on the term ‘fascist,’ it shows unmistakably that the Russia of 2025 is a very different kind of authoritarianism than the Russia of 2015 or 2005 (or, indeed, the China or Iran of 2025). The implications are far-reaching for scholars, but especially for policymakers. If we are not to call Russia ‘fascist,’ what are we to call it to distinguish its system from other forms of authoritarianism? What adjective should we append to ‘authoritarianism’ to distinguish Russia? Indeed, how does recognising the nature of this regime shape how we think about dealing with it?

Concern over fascism in post-Soviet Russia has been with us since the collapse of Soviet power in 1991. Even before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, extreme Russian imperial nationalism was exerting a strong influence on the country’s politics. A month before the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that catalysed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a group of Russian national Bolsheviks, Stalinists, and imperial nationalists published a long article in Sovetskaia Rossiia lamenting what was happening to the Soviet Union and urging a renewal in terms that, apart from the references to Soviet power and Marxist rhetoric, would appear familiar in 2025: ‘How did it happen that…we allowed into power those who do not love this country, who grovel before overseas patrons over there, beyond the sea, seeking their advice and blessing?...Let us say ‘No!’ to the destroyers and invaders. Let us put an end to our retreat at the last line of resistance’ (Bondarev et. al.

1991). There is continuity from the late Soviet to post-Soviet era not 295

296 PAUL D’ANIERI only in this letter’s themes—a mixture of Russian imperial nationalism, ‘traditional’ values, masculinity, betrayal, and the need for a conservative renewal—but also in the authors, several of whom went on to prominent positions in post-Soviet Russia. The extreme right-extreme left coalitions behind the 1991 and 1993 coups became mainstream under Vladimir Putin.

By June 1991, (nationalist) Liberal Democratic Party of the Russian Federation leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky had finished third in Russia’s first presidential election. A debate about whether Zhirinovsky was a fascist (a label he rejected) or an ultranationalist was already taking place. Similarly, observers worried that Russia’s situation resembled that of Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler.

In February 1992, The Times of London published an analysis entitled ‘Weimar Russia’ (see D’Anieri 2023, 47). The following year, Andranik Migranyan, an advisor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, stated that ‘Weimar Russia is no longer a metaphor’ (see D’Anieri 2023, 47).

Jeffrey Kopstein and Stephen Hanson (1997) published a structured, focused comparison of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia, and while they found extensive similarities, they observed a key difference in the absence in Russia of strong political parties, which had played an important role in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler. Despite that conclusion, many aspects of their analysis seem prescient today, as does Stephen Shenfield’s (1997, 357) cogent and less optimistic response to their article: ‘For a fascist organisation in contemporary Russia to avoid the stigma of association with the German invaders, it therefore suffices to avoid use of the word ‘fascist’ and to emphasise the native Russian roots of its ideas and symbols.’ This sounds very similar to what we witness from the Putin regime today. Shenfield (2001) deserves recognition for having examined Russian fascism in detail when so many others regarded Putin as a competent (nonideological) pragmatist devoted to restoring order to the Russian state and government. Because this long record of scholarly investigation of Russian fascism predates the rise in tensions between Russia and the West, it undermines the argument that accusations of Russian fascism are simply part of that conflict.

CONCLUSION 297 The chapters in this book look at Russia in 2025, after a quarter of a century of Putin’s rule, and ask the question again. The exercise is important for at least three reasons. First, understanding the nature of the Russian regime is an end in and of itself. Second, for academics, who have long debated exactly what fascism is and is not, the case of Russia may help to further refine a concept that has been frustratingly difficult to pin down and therefore to use productively. Third, as governments around the world grapple with how to deal with Russia (especially regarding the war in Ukraine), it is crucial to understand the nature of the regime they are dealing with. Fourth, understanding the nature of the regime will help shape expectations about the possible trajectories of change in Russian politics. The chapters in this book help with all these tasks.

Summary of Chapters In their introduction, Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio address the central question of what makes fascism unique from other forms of authoritarianism. They focus on Roger Griffin’s (2001) concept of ‘palingenetic ultranationalism’ and the need to pursue war as a means of national rebirth. It is this imperative for national rebirth, and the central role that war plays in rebirth, that separates fascism from other forms of authoritarianism and distinguishes Russia from other contemporary authoritarian regimes. Most important, this is what makes the war in Ukraine so central to the Russian government’s sense of itself and its mission. Importantly, Griffin’s (2001) definition identifies only two historical cases of true fascism (Germany and Italy)—other cases sometimes identified as fascist, such as Spain under Francisco Franco, Portugal under António de Oliveir Salazar, Argentina under Juan Perón, and Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, lack this palingenetic emphasis.

Alexander Motyl’s chapter seeks first to define fascism as a subtype of authoritarianism and then to determine the extent to which Russia fits the definition. All fascist regimes are authoritarian, but not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. The distinguishing factors of fascism, Motyl argues, are the centrality of the leader (personalism) and the support of the masses. Some authoritarian

298 PAUL D’ANIERI regimes are based on a party or on the military, but fascist regimes are personalistic—they are based on a leader such as Hitler, Franco, or Salazar. And while many authoritarian regimes rely in the acquiescence of the masses, fascist regimes rely on their active support.

This highlights a key point about Putin’s Russia: to the extent of our ability to tell, Putin and his regime is broadly popular. It is worth noting what is not central in Motyl’s definition, namely war, on which Kuzio and Garner focus. We will return to this point below.

Motyl’s discussion makes a crucial point: fascism is not merely a very extreme form of authoritarianism, but rather a distinct type of it.

Andreas Umland delves further into the conceptual issues, pointing out that ‘the decision to use a certain word to label a phenomenon in the real world always has an element of arbitrariness,’ and that terms are useful only to the extent they help us understand, discuss, and study phenomena. Umland argues that the scholarly community has increasingly coalesced around Griffin’s definition of fascism, with its focus on palingenetic nationalism.

Umland then goes on to discuss three distinct ways in which fascism is used to characterise today’s Russia: first, as historical analogy (akin to ‘Weimar Russia,’ as discussed above); second, as an expression of Ukrainians’ experience of Russian assault; and third, as a scholarly concept.

Umland finds the historical analogy useful. He agrees that Ukrainian experience of Russia’s campaign to annihilate Ukraine is in many ways like how Ukrainians experienced Nazi Germany’s attack and occupation in the ‘Great Patriotic War’; nevertheless, Umland believes Putin’s desire to destroy the idea of Ukrainianness is distinct from Hitler’s goal of physically exterminating Jews. Umland concludes by pointing out that the debate on Russian fascism has been narrowing, such that Laruelle (2025) now refers to a ‘fragmentary fascism’ adopted by the Russian siloviki. Thus, this view is beginning to penetrate the scholarly world.

Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska take up the theme of fascism and war, arguing that Russia’s ‘fascisation,’ as they put it, is closely connected to its war against Ukraine. Arguing against the standard view that fascism arose in the 1920s, Getka and

CONCLUSION 299 Darcsewska trace the roots of Russian fascism to the incorporation of Novgorod into Muscovy in the 15th-16th centuries. Some scholars of Russia have long connected Russian expansionism and Russian authoritarianism. Writing within that historiographic tradition, Getka and Darczewska see authoritarianism as deeply entrenched in Russian culture: ‘Russian consciousness, even under the Tsars, has been deeply ingrained with the belief in the power of ‘Holy Rus’…and its liberating mission.’ The implication appears to be that one cannot expect change to come any time soon. Ironically, the argument that Russia is inhospitable soil for liberal democracy is shared both by Russian authoritarians and by critics of Russia.

An important contribution of Getka and Darczewska’s chapter is the understanding it presents of fascisation as a process. Their description of fascism coming incrementally to Russia, as one element of democracy after another is removed, provides a blaring warning to those of us living in states where some—but so far only some—elements of democracy have been stripped away. If the ideas of fascism were widespread in Russia in the 1990s, the institutional features of it came only later. The key step, in their view, was the alteration of the constitution in 2020 to make Putin a ‘de facto life president.’

Michał Wawrzonek focuses on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian fascism. Wawrzonek shows how and why the Russian Orthodox Church ‘became one of the main promoters and exponents of the nomos of empire in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.’

In the 1990s, Russian Orthodox Church leaders were already attaching themselves to the imperial goals of Russian imperial nationalists as a way of extending the Russian Orthodox Church’s territorial influence against religious competitors. This joining of religious and statist imperatives results in what Wawrzonek calls ‘imperism,’ the belief that empire is the normal state of the country.

This conception of Russia makes Russia ‘ontologically fated to clash with ‘the West.’

As Wawrzonek shows, the roots of this unity of church and authoritarian regime go back to the Stalinist era, when the Russian Orthodox Church was allowed to revive as a de facto branch of the Soviet state. In this respect it is worth noting that in Ukraine, both

300 PAUL D’ANIERI the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Greek Catholic Church resisted Soviet rule and were fiercely repressed.

Kyiv, due to its place in the origin story of both the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church, naturally plays an important role in this conception. Indeed, Wawrzonek argues that the 2004 Orange Revolution brought the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state closer together in supporting imperial nationalism.

This long-term imperial alliance, Wawrzonek points out, explains why—in contrast to places like Poland—the Russian Orthodox Church bolstered communist power rather than undermining and eventually helping to overthrow it. Given more space, Wawrzonek might have pursued this imperial link between Church and empire through the entire history of the Russian empire. The assumption that Muscovy or Moscow should rule over all the territory where Russian Orthodoxy was practiced served to justify Russian expansion from the very earliest days of the Russian Empire.

Andreas Heinemann-Grüder examines the military propaganda that Russia has used to justify its war on Ukraine and to mobilise popular support. He shows how Putinism has evolved from basing its claim to legitimacy on basic performance factors in its early years, to focus on Putin’s personal traits, and still later to a cult of war and imperial nationalist ideology. Focusing on these different legitimation strategies is significant because it fosters comparison with other authoritarian regimes and backsliding democracies in the world today. Would-be authoritarians seem to reach for an overlapping set of tools and tactics, adapting them to their local circumstances. In this respect, Heinemann-Grüder’s work connects to Getka and Darczewska’s focus on the steps that lead to fascism.

Heinemann-Grüder points to some of the ways in which contemporary Russia differs from the archetypical twentieth century totalitarian regimes: Russian authoritarianism is not based on a single party or on a monopoly over mass communication, though as Heinemann-Grüder also points out (as do the two Chapters by Domańska and Kuzio and Garner), new media technologies and techniques make it possible to powerfully shape what people see, hear, and ultimately believe without the now-obsolete tools of twentieth century’s mass media. Amidst this innovation, Heinemann-Grüder

CONCLUSION 301 shows that Putin has recycled some quintessentially Soviet institutions, such as the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces, whose dual function is to promote the military in society, the regime’s ideology in the armed forces, a cult of war, and legitimisation of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine.

Heinemann-Grüder asserts that a ‘religious-fundamentalist ideology’ provides the basis for pro-war propaganda. The regime is now focused on a ‘retro-future,’ which seems linked to Kuzio and Garner’s focus on rebirth (and to US President Donald Trump’s slogan ‘Make America Great Again’): ‘[T]oday’s ‘social contract’ is apparently no longer based on social handouts in exchange for political acquiescence, but on salvation through killing.’ The rhetoric is explicitly religious (Heinemann-Grüder uses the term ‘holy war’ to characterise Russian propaganda), with Russia appearing to play the role of Christ nearing resurrection. By focusing on the regime’s legitimation strategies, Heinemann-Grüder raises a key question that merits more scholarly attention in the future: namely, whether forms and processes of legitimation distinguish fascism from other forms of authoritarianism.

Maria Domańska analyses ‘patriotic education’ in Russia, suggesting that education policies are an indicator that distinguishes fascist regimes from other authoritarian systems: ‘[P]atriotic education’ in Russian kindergartens, schools, and universities is of fascist character and…will likely have an adverse, long-term impact on the political and military views and identities of the younger generation.’ Domańska believes this will ‘particularly seriously affect young people’s attitudes towards their neighbours and Russia’s place in the world.’

Domańska’s chapter provides a great deal of empirical material showing how distinct Russian education has become, especially since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine: ‘In the paradigm of necropolitics, the state becomes the owner of the human body and can dictate when and how people should die.’ This approach captures two important themes in the broader discussion of fascism. First is the focus on a cult of war, as stressed by Kuzio and Garner. Second is the focus on the state as superior to the individual, which has

302 PAUL D’ANIERI long been seen as a marker of fascism. Domańska shows both how Russian education policy is evidence of fascism and how it prolongs fascism. Her finding that fascist education works—that Russia is raising a generation of people who believe fascist tropes and see the world through fascist categories—has sobering implications for Russia’s future politics. More sobering is Domańska’s conclusion that ‘there is no sign of a shift away from war as a proven means of legitimising the regime in the foreseeable future…regardless of the progress of peace negotiations with Ukraine.’

Jaroslava Barbieri takes up the theme of education policy, focusing on Russian efforts to indoctrinate students and teachers in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied. She too finds reincarnated Soviet institutions, in this case the Dvizhenie pervykh (Movement of the First), modelled on the Soviet Young Pioneers organisation. Barbieri’s analysis demonstrates the lengths that the Putin regime is going to suppress the very idea of Ukrainian identity and, more generally, to control what people think, drawing on a statist understanding of fascism akin to that promoted by Benito Mussolini.

Whether we equate this process of control more with Soviet or Nazi practice, Barbieri provides a powerful counterpoint to those who would argue that Putin’s Russia is essentially like other authoritarian regimes.

Kuzio and Garner’s chapter on Mariupol similarly reminds us just how violent and brutal Russia’s war in Ukraine has been. To the extent that violence for the sake of violence is a marker of fascism, Mariupol is a powerful indicator. The reconstruction of Mariupol is to show that the invasion of Ukraine will eventually benefit its ‘Russian’ victims. It will also provide immense opportunities to distribute the benefits of corruption and to secure the loyalty that goes with them.

Kuzio and Garner go further, positing that ‘Mariupol has come to function as the site of a psychic projection of death and rebirth—an example of ‘palingenetic ultranationalism’ for the twenty first century—and the central image of a fascist narrative that fervently believes the destruction of Ukraine’s ‘artificial’ Westernbacked identity will lead to the mythical national regeneration of Great Russia.’ The idea is that destroying Ukraine is not only about

CONCLUSION 303 destroying an independent state, but that Great Russia itself will be reborn through this death and destruction. The rebuilding of Mariupol will show the way for the rebuilding of Russia as a new great power, akin to the Soviet Union, and other (former Ukrainian) Russian cities. Thus, Mariupol becomes the concrete manifestation of palingenetic ultranationalism, in which the new is born from the old, but only through a process of extreme destruction and violence.

Discussion In surveying these chapters, several themes emerge. First, while we can continue to debate terms and definition, the empirical material presented in these essays makes it abundantly clear, if more evidence were needed, that the Putin regime is an especially violent one, in both Ukraine and Russia itself, which pursues a cult of war.

Second, we see a plurality of definitions and characterisations of fascism. This is not necessarily a weakness, but it does have implications for how we think about both fascism and Russia. Third, how the regime is legitimised—and how this relates to different kinds of authoritarianism—requires sustained attention. Closely related to this, and of immense practical importance, is the relationship between fascism (or however we label Putin’s regime) and war.

Fourth, this leads us to consider the important implications of accurately describing the Russian regime and of classifying it as fascist or not.

Putin’s Russia is Different A large volume of reportage and documentation, in many cases carried out with immense personal courage, has shown just how repressive and violent the Putin regime is. In this volume, Kuzio and Garner’s discussion of Mariupol, Domańska’s discussion of coercion and warmongering in Russian education, and Barbieri’s analysis of the repression of children and other civilians in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine add to the reams of evidence that this regime is not just like any other authoritarian regime. Nor is it the case that all this violence is simply the unfortunate concomitant of

304 PAUL D’ANIERI war. Many countries have fought wars without the repression and propaganda we see inside Russia, without the deliberate abuse of children in occupied territories, and without the genocidal rhetoric that has both accompanied Russia’s war against Ukraine and long been a feature of Russian politics prior to the full-scale war.

To state what should be obvious: today’s Russia is not just another great power doing great power things. Those in the West who argue that we should deal with Russia in terms of ‘realism’ and that this ‘realism’ means ignoring the internal characteristics of one’s adversary show their ignorance of both realist theory and of contemporary Russia. Neither realist theorists (such as Waltz 1996, 56; 2005, 35) nor realist practitioners (such as George F. Kennan and Henry Kissinger) have argued that the nature of a regime does not matter. Indeed, both Kennan and Kissinger put their understanding of the Soviet/Russian regimes at the heart of understanding how to deal with them. To suppose that today’s Russia is ‘just another state’ or even ‘just another authoritarian state’ is thus either unrealistic or idealistic. As these chapters and other research shows, today’s Russia is different from the Russia of twenty years ago and from many other authoritarian regimes. As Motyl argues in this volume, it is this notion of Russia as the ‘Other’ that makes it important to put the label ‘fascist’ on it. Those who oppose using that label seem to want to do the opposite—to keep alive the hope that we can deal with Russia as though it were a ‘normal’ state, and that doing so will help us avoid what comes with admitting how different and how dangerous Russia is. As Motyl asserts, the problem is not with the label, but with the fact that Russia fits it so well. Ignoring this fact will not change this reality.

Many Definitions of Fascism Fascism has been notoriously difficult to define and the authors in this collection do not resolve the issue. Motyl takes the issue headon and provides a clear justification for his argument that the key differentiators that set fascism apart from other forms of authoritarianism are the centrality of the leader and the mass support for the regime. This is convincing, but it says nothing about warfare and

CONCLUSION 305 rebirth, the two factors at the heart of Kuzio and Garner’s approach, or about the centrality of the state, on which Barbieri, citing Mussolini, focuses. How much of a problem is this? As Umland stresses, despite these disagreements, an increasing number of scholars believe the term ‘fascism’ applies to Russia.

The difficulty of defining fascism raises the question of whether we should use the term at all, but it is not clear what would be solved by discarding it. We would then lose the ability to characterise regimes like those of Hitler and Mussolini that are in important ways qualitatively different from other authoritarian regimes. Perhaps a more thorough taxonomy of the subtypes of authoritarianism or the subtypes of fascism would help. It does not seem sufficient to regard fascism merely as an extreme form of authoritarianism, as that would make Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China fascist, and few seem to think that that is what the word means.

A different way to think about the problem is in terms of operationalisation rather than definition. It is worth noting that political scientists have almost as much trouble defining democracy and its subtypes as they do in defining authoritarianism and fascism.

Often, rather than defining authoritarianism by what it is, we define it by what it lacks: democracy, liberalism, and the rule of law.

While there are many competing definitions of democracy, no one argues that we do not know what the term means, and scholars still manage to measure it. They often do so by creating indices of attributes that are linked to democracy, none of which is by itself sufficient to define democracy. Counting the attributes creates a measure of the strength or weakness of democracy in a polity, and this continuum is often turned into a binary using a cutoff point to code a regime as ‘democratic.’ Is it possible to be more, or less, fascist?

Perhaps not. Perhaps one either is or is not fascist, though Laruelle’s ‘fragmentary fascism’ and Motyl’s ‘fascistoid’ imply that fascism is not necessarily a binary, even if we turn it into one. Is Russia a weak version of fascism, the sort of ‘diminished subtype’ that David Collier and Steven Levitsky (1997) point to in examining conceptions of democracy?

306 PAUL D’ANIERI Crucially, one does not need to choose a single definition of fascism to call today’s Russia fascist. Russia fits a variety of definitions of fascism, as the chapters in this book demonstrate. Kuzio and Garner focus on war, Motyl focuses on the leader and mass support, Barbieri stresses the elevation of the state, and Heinemann-Grüder points to ideology. Russia fits all these definitions; or if we think of these traits as items in an index of fascism, Russia checks them all.

However, the frequently cited characteristics of fascism that are most questionable in the Russian case are the lack of a single political party and a coherent ideology. It is the very ideological incoherence of fascism that makes defining it so difficult, so it is odd to make that a key feature of the definition. As is often pointed out, fascism has no defining thinker and no foundational text. Rather, its focus, from its beginning in Italy, on political action, is a sign that ideology was always a manifestation of fascism as much as a source, as a means rather than an end. In any event, as several of the chapters in this volume show, Putin’s Russia has an increasingly structured set of ideological tenets, including the importance of the state, the need to reassert Russian greatness, the stress on masculinity and virility, the alliance of Church and state, and the view of liberal democracy as corrupt, decadent and weak.

In sum, the absence of a single agreed definition of fascism will always spur debate, but unless one rules out a priori that there can be a fascist regime in the twenty-first century, Russia increasingly fits whatever definition one chooses and probably fits the definition of fascist better than any country in many decades. If we do not want to call it ‘fascist,’ we still must call it something that captures how different it is from other present and historic authoritarian systems.

Sources of Legitimacy Several of the chapters raise the question of how the regime derives its legitimacy and how this relates to definitions of fascism. Understanding the basis for the regime’s legitimacy is also important for understanding the practices the regime is likely to be unwilling to

CONCLUSION 307 dispense with, as well as the factors that might eventually lead it to fall. Here, the differences among the chapters are consequential. For Kuzio and Garner, a cult of war is at the centre of the regime’s legitimation strategy. The narrative of rebirth through death requires violent conflict, and the war in Ukraine is therefore central to the regime’s cohesion. Others have made similar claims, relying on more conventional ‘rally around the flag’ arguments. Putin has admitted something similar in pointing out how the war’s unifying and cleansing effects have been welcome. To the extent war is cleansing, one can hope that after a long war, Putin will consider the job done and move on. However, if war itself is the source of consent and legitimacy, then there will always need to be another conflict.

Motyl and Getka and Darczewska’s emphasis on personalistic rule recall the charisma cited by Max Weber in his famous tripartite categorisation of political authority as traditional-charismatic-rational technical. Motyl also points to mass support for the Putin regime, which distinguishes Russia from authoritarian regimes based more on coercion and fear (like the Soviet regime). If Putin’s rule depends primarily on his charisma or his personal characteristics, it may be possible for him to continue ruling without war. However, one suspects that the difference is more theoretical than real: Putin’s charisma and personal claim to rule are now tied up tightly with his role as wartime leader. Whether Putinism can endure after Putin’s death is a key question. While many hope not, evidence from Cuba, Venezuela, and Turkmenistan—among others—shows that highly personalistic regimes can outlast their founders.

Motyl’s focus on mobilisation also shows how the Putin regime has changed since 2011-2012. At that time, with the primary danger being street protests, Putin aimed to demobilise citizens by pressuring them to passively acquiesce to authoritarian rule. Since 2022, the Russian government has been mobilising the populace, not only in the narrow sense of mobilising for war, but in the broader sense, as shown in these chapters, of mobilising Russians to occupy conquered territories, participate in marches, help identify dissenters, and so on. This, it seems, is one of the important distinctions between a non-fascist and a fascist authoritarian regime.

308 PAUL D’ANIERI The same is true of the focus on the state, which as Barbieri stresses, was the highest good under Italian and German fascism. Like integral nationalism, except that it puts the state in the place of the nation, this exaltation of the state as an organic whole is a claim of legitimacy that is distinct from other kinds of authoritarian claims.

The Stakes are High One might argue that the connected questions of how to define fascism and whether Russia fits that definition are of little consequence. The first question can be seen as the sort of definitional exercise that makes non-academics write off scholarship as self-indulgent—and, indeed, makes some academics discard terms like ‘fascism’ and return to concepts whose meaning is more agreed upon.

The second question can be seen as part of an ongoing propaganda war between Russia and its critics in the West. In this view, asserted

by Laruelle (2021) and suggested by Umland’s first model, that of ‘historical analogy,’ the term fascism has little analytical value. It is not intended to have that value. However, both views are misguided. After all, there is a great deal at stake.

It is certainly the case that calling Russia ‘fascist’ is not a politically neutral statement, any more than calling it ‘authoritarian’ or stating that it invaded its neighbour. The fact that it has political impact does not bear on whether it is valid or not, and it makes no analytical sense to choose not to identify Russia as fascist because of discomfort at the political implications of doing so. Identifying Russia as fascist can be valuable because it reveals that Russia’s foreign and security policy behaviour, and its internal behaviour are linked in a particular way. Fascist prioritisation of the state motivates citizens for war and helps legitimate the state’s use of coercion to encourage them to fight. The emphasis on the state justifies war and authoritarianism. In contemporary Russia, the connection between war and public opinion is not merely the normal ‘rally around the flag’ effect we see in many countries. In addition, war helps the fascist state do something that most other authoritarian states seek to avoid: to mobilise the people. They are mobilised not

CONCLUSION 309 only to fight the war, but to crush dissent and to glorify the leader who is guiding them to victory.

The implications for the war in Ukraine are threefold. First, Putin may not have a strong interest in seeing the war end. While a quick victory would have suited his purposes, and an unambiguous victory would still serve his purposes, the dragging on of the war is likely preferable to the war ending, as this would not allow him to claim a clear victory while at the same time also depriving him of the mobilising power of war. Second, he cannot afford an outcome that is seen by the Russian people to be a loss. The personalisation of power that Motyl points to means that, in contrast to earlier periods of his rule, when Putin could blame underlings or predecessors for failures, the total focus on Putin will make it much harder for him to escape blame. The elevation of war as a defining element of the state and nation means that, without a massively complex propaganda effort, failure in the war is a failure of the entire Russian people. Third, even if Russia negotiates peace in Ukraine, the same internal factors that drove Putin to wage war four times so far in his rule could easily make it happen again. That will be particularly true if the Russian economy continues to suffer where war would be used as a distraction.

Finally, it is worth raising three questions that emerge from these eight chapters that merit much deeper investigation. First, what is the relationship between masculinity and fascism? Putin’s regime has made a fetish of masculinity in its war propaganda, in its pleas for women to take on more traditional roles, and in its hostility to Western beliefs in the equality of women and gender minorities. In this hyper-masculinity, Russia seems to be echoing themes common in earlier examples of fascism. What is the relationship between fascism and masculinity? We see strident masculinity expressed in a wide variety of polities we would not describe as fascist, so the relationship is not likely to be simple, but it seems that hypermasculinity may be one of those traits that tends to go with fascism, even if it does not define fascism.

Second, what is the relationship between fascism and war.

War was a central element of German and Italian fascism, but not other cases (which is why Griffin finds only two cases of fascism).

310 PAUL D’ANIERI In the case of Russia, in which fascism seems closely associated with war, we still need to ask about the direction of the relationship— has Russia waged war because it has become fascist, or has Russia become fascist because it has waged war? It seems like much of Russia’s adoption of fascist narratives and tropes emerged after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it is possible that one reason why Putin pursued the invasion is that because he could use it to drive a fascist agenda. In this reading, both fascism and war are driven by something external: either Putin’s strategy for gaining and preserving power, or his determination to destroy the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian identity.

Third, how is Russia like and unlike other contemporary authoritarian regimes? This is especially important if we do not want to use the label ‘fascist.’ Much of the discussion concerning fascism in Russia revolves around the extent to which it is like or unlike two regimes that ended in 1945. Various chapters in this volume have pointed to differences between Russia and other authoritarian regimes today, but a much more systematic analysis would be valuable. This conclusion has asserted that Russia is quite unlike other authoritarian regimes, but that assertion should be further scrutinised.

It is abundantly clear that the Russia of 2025 is very different from the Russia of 2000 or even 2015. The difference is not merely one of degree, but one of type. Russia is not just more authoritarian.

It is personalistic, hyper-statist, and increasingly totalitarian—it seems unsatisfied with the limited goal of suppressing the most dangerous form of dissent and is driven instead to positively determine the content of people’s views. If we call the Russia of 2015 authoritarian, what word do we use for the Russia of 2025? Perhaps we need to develop ‘authoritarianism with adjectives,’ to borrow the title of an important essay on concepts and regime types (Collier and Levitsky 1997). Or, as Laruelle’s (2025) reference to ‘fragmentary fascism,’ implies, will we also have ‘fascism with adjectives’?

The case for calling Russia fascist is strong, but whether we use the ‘f-word’ or not, we will have to deal with the Russia we have, rather than the one we wish we had.

CONCLUSION 311

References Bondyrev et. al. (1991, 23.). Slovo k narodu. Sovetskaia Rossiia.

Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics, 49(3), 430-451.

D’Anieri, P. (2023). Ukraine and Russia: From Civilised Divorce to Uncivil War. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Frankland, M. (1993, February 21). Bruiser Yeltsin Starts to Rough up the Enemy Within. The Observer.

Griffin, R. (1991). The Nature of Fascism. London: Pinter.

Laruelle, M. (2021). Is Russia Fascist? Unravelling Propaganda East and West.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Laruelle, M. (2025). Ideology and Meaning-Making Under the Putin Regime.

Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hanson, S., & Kopstein, J. (1997). The Weimar/Russia Comparison. PostSoviet Affairs, 13(3), 252–283.

Shenfield, S. (1998). The Weimar/Russia Comparison: Reflections on Hanson and Kopstein. Post-Soviet Affairs, 14(4), 355–368.

Shenfield, S. (2001). Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies and Movements.

New York: Routledge.

Walt, S.M. (2005). The Relationship Between Theory and Policy in International Relations. Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 23-48.

Waltz, K.N. (1996). International Politics is not Foreign Policy.’ Security Studies, 6(1), 54−57.

Weimar Russia. (1992, February 8). The Times.

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SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET POLITICS AND SOCIETY

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Edited by Dr. Andreas Umland |ISSN 1614-3515 1

Андреас Умланд (ред.) | Воплощение Европейской конвенции по правам человека в России. Философские, юридические и эмпирические исследования | ISBN 3-89821-387-0

2

Christian Wipperfürth | Russland – ein vertrauenswürdiger Partner? Grundlagen, Hintergründe und Praxis gegenwärtiger russischer Außenpolitik | Mit einem Vorwort von Heinz Timmermann | ISBN 3-89821-401-X

3

Manja Hussner | Die Übernahme internationalen Rechts in die russische und deutsche Rechtsordnung. Eine vergleichende Analyse zur Völkerrechtsfreundlichkeit der Verfassungen der Russländischen Föderation und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland | Mit einem Vorwort von Rainer Arnold | ISBN 3-89821-438-9

4 5

Matthew Tejada | Bulgaria's Democratic Consolidation and the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP). The Unattainability of Closure | With a foreword by Richard J. Crampton | ISBN 3-89821-439-7 Марк Григорьевич Меерович | Квадратные метры, определяющие сознание. Государственная жилищная политика в СССР. 1921 – 1941 гг | ISBN 3-89821-474-5

6

Andrei P. Tsygankov, Pavel A.Tsygankov (Eds.) | New Directions in Russian International Studies | ISBN 3-89821-422-2

7

Марк Григорьевич Меерович | Как власть народ к труду приучала. Жилище в СССР – средство управления людьми. 1917 – 1941 гг. | С предисловием Елены Осокиной | ISBN 3-89821-495-8

8

David J. Galbreath | Nation-Building and Minority Politics in Post-Socialist States. Interests, Influence and Identities in Estonia and Latvia | With a foreword by David J. Smith | ISBN 3-89821-467-2

9

Алексей Юрьевич Безугольный | Народы Кавказа в Вооруженных силах СССР в годы Великой Отечественной войны 1941-1945 гг. | С предисловием Николая Бугая | ISBN 3-89821-475-3

10 Вячеслав Лихачев и Владимир Прибыловский (ред.) | Русское Национальное Единство, 1990-2000. В 2-х томах | ISBN 3-89821-523-7 11 Николай Бугай (ред.) | Народы стран Балтии в условиях сталинизма (1940-е – 1950-e годы). Документированная история | ISBN 3-89821-525-3 12 Ingmar Bredies (Hrsg.) | Zur Anatomie der Orange Revolution in der Ukraine. Wechsel des Elitenregimes oder Triumph des Parlamentarismus? | ISBN 3-89821-524-5

13 Anastasia V. Mitrofanova | The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy. Actors and Ideas | With a foreword by William C. Gay | ISBN 3-89821-481-8

14 Nathan D. Larson | Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Russo-Jewish Question | ISBN 3-89821-483-4 15 Guido Houben | Kulturpolitik und Ethnizität. Staatliche Kunstförderung im Russland der neunziger Jahre | Mit einem Vorwort von Gert Weisskirchen | ISBN 3-89821-542-3

16 Leonid Luks | Der russische „Sonderweg“? Aufsätze zur neuesten Geschichte Russlands im europäischen Kontext | ISBN 3-89821-496-6

17 Евгений Мороз | История «Мёртвой воды» – от страшной сказки к большой политике. Политическое неоязычество в постсоветской России | ISBN 3-89821-551-2

18 Александр Верховский и Галина Кожевникова (peд.) | Этническая и религиозная интолерантность в российских СМИ. Результаты мониторинга 2001-2004 гг. | ISBN 3-89821-569-5 19 Christian Ganzer | Sowjetisches Erbe und ukrainische Nation. Das Museum der Geschichte des Zaporoger Kosakentums auf der Insel Chortycja | Mit einem Vorwort von Frank Golczewski | ISBN 3-89821-504-0

20 Эльза-Баир Гучинова | Помнить нельзя забыть. Антропология депортационной травмы калмыков | С предисловием Кэролайн Хамфри | ISBN 3-89821-506-7

21 Юлия Лидерман | Мотивы «проверки» и «испытания» в постсоветской культуре. Советское прошлое в российском кинематографе 1990-х годов | С предисловием Евгения Марголита | ISBN 3-89821-511-3

22 Tanya Lokshina, Ray Thomas, Mary Mayer (Eds.) | The Imposition of a Fake Political Settlement in the Northern Caucasus. The 2003 Chechen Presidential Election | ISBN 3-89821-436-2 23 Timothy McCajor Hall, Rosie Read (Eds.) | Changes in the Heart of Europe. Recent Ethnographies of Czechs, Slovaks, Roma, and Sorbs | With an afterword by Zdeněk Salzmann | ISBN 3-89821-606-3

24 Christian Autengruber | Die politischen Parteien in Bulgarien und Rumänien. Eine vergleichende Analyse seit Beginn der 90er Jahre | Mit einem Vorwort von Dorothée de Nève | ISBN 3-89821-476-1

25 Annette Freyberg-Inan with Radu Cristescu | The Ghosts in Our Classrooms, or: John Dewey Meets Ceauşescu. The Promise and the Failures of Civic Education in Romania | ISBN 3-89821-416-8 26 John B. Dunlop | The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises. A Critique of Russian CounterTerrorism | With a foreword by Donald N. Jensen | ISBN 3-89821-608-X

27 Peter Koller | Das touristische Potenzial von Kam’’janec’–Podil’s’kyj. Eine fremdenverkehrsgeographische Untersuchung der Zukunftsperspektiven und Maßnahmenplanung zur Destinationsentwicklung des „ukrainischen Rothenburg“ | Mit einem Vorwort von Kristiane Klemm | ISBN 3-89821-640-3

28 Françoise Daucé, Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski (Eds.) | Dedovshchina in the Post-Soviet Military.

Hazing of Russian Army Conscripts in a Comparative Perspective | With a foreword by Dale Herspring | ISBN 3-89821-616-0

29 Florian Strasser | Zivilgesellschaftliche Einflüsse auf die Orange Revolution. Die gewaltlose Massenbewegung und die ukrainische Wahlkrise 2004 | Mit einem Vorwort von Egbert Jahn | ISBN 3-89821-648-9

30 Rebecca S. Katz | The Georgian Regime Crisis of 2003-2004. A Case Study in Post-Soviet Media Representation of Politics, Crime and Corruption | ISBN 3-89821-413-3

31 Vladimir Kantor | Willkür oder Freiheit. Beiträge zur russischen Geschichtsphilosophie | Ediert von Dagmar Herrmann sowie mit einem Vorwort versehen von Leonid Luks | ISBN 3-89821-589-X

32 Laura A. Victoir | The Russian Land Estate Today. A Case Study of Cultural Politics in Post-Soviet Russia | With a foreword by Priscilla Roosevelt | ISBN 3-89821-426-5

33 Ivan Katchanovski | Cleft Countries. Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova | With a foreword by Francis Fukuyama | ISBN 3-89821-558-X

34 Florian Mühlfried | Postsowjetische Feiern. Das Georgische Bankett im Wandel | Mit einem Vorwort von Kevin Tuite | ISBN 3-89821-601-2

35 Roger Griffin, Werner Loh, Andreas Umland (Eds.) | Fascism Past and Present, West and East.

An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right | With an afterword by Walter Laqueur | ISBN 3-89821-674-8

36 Sebastian Schlegel | Der „Weiße Archipel“. Sowjetische Atomstädte 1945-1991 | Mit einem Geleitwort von Thomas Bohn | ISBN 3-89821-679-9

37 Vyacheslav Likhachev | Political Anti-Semitism in Post-Soviet Russia. Actors and Ideas in 1991-2003 | Edited and translated from Russian by Eugene Veklerov | ISBN 3-89821-529-6

38 Josette Baer (Ed.) | Preparing Liberty in Central Europe. Political Texts from the Spring of Nations 1848 to the Spring of Prague 1968 | With a foreword by Zdeněk V. David | ISBN 3-89821-546-6

39 Михаил Лукьянов | Российский консерватизм и реформа, 1907-1914 | С предисловием Марка Д. Стейнберга | ISBN 3-89821-503-2

40 Nicola Melloni | Market Without Economy. The 1998 Russian Financial Crisis | With a foreword by Eiji Furukawa | ISBN 3-89821-407-9

41 Dmitrij Chmelnizki | Die Architektur Stalins | Bd. 1: Studien zu Ideologie und Stil | Bd. 2: Bilddokumentation | Mit einem Vorwort von Bruno Flierl | ISBN 3-89821-515-6

42 Katja Yafimava | Post-Soviet Russian-Belarussian Relationships. The Role of Gas Transit Pipelines | With a foreword by Jonathan P. Stern | ISBN 3-89821-655-1

43 Boris Chavkin | Verflechtungen der deutschen und russischen Zeitgeschichte. Aufsätze und Archivfunde zu den Beziehungen Deutschlands und der Sowjetunion von 1917 bis 1991 | Ediert von Markus Edlinger sowie mit einem Vorwort versehen von Leonid Luks | ISBN 3-89821-756-6

44 Anastasija Grynenko in Zusammenarbeit mit Claudia Dathe | Die Terminologie des Gerichtswesens der Ukraine und Deutschlands im Vergleich. Eine übersetzungswissenschaftliche Analyse juristischer Fachbegriffe im Deutschen, Ukrainischen und Russischen | Mit einem Vorwort von Ulrich Hartmann | ISBN 3-89821-691-8

45 Anton Burkov | The Impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on Russian Law. Legislation and Application in 1996-2006 | With a foreword by Françoise Hampson | ISBN 978-3-89821-639-5

46 Stina Torjesen, Indra Overland (Eds.) | International Election Observers in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Geopolitical Pawns or Agents of Change? | ISBN 978-3-89821-743-9 47 Taras Kuzio | Ukraine – Crimea – Russia. Triangle of Conflict | ISBN 978-3-89821-761-3 48 Claudia Šabić | „Ich erinnere mich nicht, aber L'viv!“ Zur Funktion kultureller Faktoren für die Institutionalisierung und Entwicklung einer ukrainischen Region | Mit einem Vorwort von Melanie Tatur | ISBN 978-3-89821-752-1

49 Marlies Bilz | Tatarstan in der Transformation. Nationaler Diskurs und Politische Praxis 1988-1994 | Mit einem Vorwort von Frank Golczewski | ISBN 978-3-89821-722-4

50 Марлен Ларюэль (ред.) | Современные интерпретации русского национализма | ISBN 978-3-89821-795-8

51 Sonja Schüler | Die ethnische Dimension der Armut. Roma im postsozialistischen Rumänien | Mit einem Vorwort von Anton Sterbling | ISBN 978-3-89821-776-7

52 Галина Кожевникова | Радикальный национализм в России и противодействие ему. Сборник докладов Центра «Сова» за 2004-2007 гг. | С предисловием Александра Верховского | ISBN 978-3-89821-721-7

53 Галина Кожевникова и Владимир Прибыловский | Российская власть в биографиях I. Высшие должностные лица РФ в 2004 г. | ISBN 978-3-89821-796-5

54 Галина Кожевникова и Владимир Прибыловский | Российская власть в биографиях II. Члены Правительства РФ в 2004 г. | ISBN 978-3-89821-797-2

55 Галина Кожевникова и Владимир Прибыловский | Российская власть в биографиях III. Руководители федеральных служб и агентств РФ в 2004 г.| ISBN 978-3-89821-798-9

56 Ileana Petroniu | Privatisierung in Transformationsökonomien. Determinanten der RestrukturierungsBereitschaft am Beispiel Polens, Rumäniens und der Ukraine | Mit einem Vorwort von Rainer W. Schäfer | ISBN 978-3-89821790-3

57 Christian Wipperfürth | Russland und seine GUS-Nachbarn. Hintergründe, aktuelle Entwicklungen und Konflikte in einer ressourcenreichen Region| ISBN 978-3-89821-801-6

58 Togzhan Kassenova | From Antagonism to Partnership. The Uneasy Path of the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction | With a foreword by Christoph Bluth | ISBN 978-3-89821-707-1

59 Alexander Höllwerth | Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Aleksandr Dugin. Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus | Mit einem Vorwort von Dirk Uffelmann | ISBN 978-3-89821-813-9

60 Олег Рябов | «Россия-Матушка». Национализм, гендер и война в России XX века | С предисловием Елены Гощило | ISBN 978-3-89821-487-2

61 Ivan Maistrenko | Borot'bism. A Chapter in the History of the Ukrainian Revolution | With a new Introduction by Chris Ford | Translated by George S. N. Luckyj with the assistance of Ivan L. Rudnytsky | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition ISBN 978-3-8382-1107-7

62 Maryna Romanets | Anamorphosic Texts and Reconfigured Visions. Improvised Traditions in Contemporary Ukrainian and Irish Literature | ISBN 978-3-89821-576-3

63 Paul D'Anieri and Taras Kuzio (Eds.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution I. Democratization and Elections in Post-Communist Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-89821-698-2

64 Bohdan Harasymiw in collaboration with Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj (Eds.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution II. Information and Manipulation Strategies in the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections | ISBN 978-3-89821-699-9 65 Ingmar Bredies, Andreas Umland and Valentin Yakushik (Eds.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution III. The Context and Dynamics of the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections | ISBN 978-3-89821-803-0 66 Ingmar Bredies, Andreas Umland and Valentin Yakushik (Eds.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution IV. Foreign Assistance and Civic Action in the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections | ISBN 978-3-89821-808-5 67 Ingmar Bredies, Andreas Umland and Valentin Yakushik (Eds.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution V. Institutional Observation Reports on the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections | ISBN 978-3-89821-809-2 68 Taras Kuzio (Ed.) | Aspects of the Orange Revolution VI. Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions in Comparative Perspective | ISBN 978-3-89821-820-7

69 Tim Bohse | Autoritarismus statt Selbstverwaltung. Die Transformation der kommunalen Politik in der Stadt Kaliningrad 1990-2005 | Mit einem Geleitwort von Stefan Troebst | ISBN 978-3-89821-782-8

70 David Rupp | Die Rußländische Föderation und die russischsprachige Minderheit in Lettland. Eine Fallstudie zur Anwaltspolitik Moskaus gegenüber den russophonen Minderheiten im „Nahen Ausland“ von 1991 bis 2002 | Mit einem Vorwort von Helmut Wagner | ISBN 978-3-89821-778-1

71 Taras Kuzio | Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism. New Directions in CrossCultural and Post-Communist Studies | With a foreword by Paul Robert Magocsi | ISBN 978-3-89821-815-3

72 Christine Teichmann | Die Hochschultransformation im heutigen Osteuropa. Kontinuität und Wandel bei der Entwicklung des postkommunistischen Universitätswesens | Mit einem Vorwort von Oskar Anweiler | ISBN 978-3-89821-842-9

73 Julia Kusznir | Der politische Einfluss von Wirtschaftseliten in russischen Regionen. Eine Analyse am Beispiel der Erdöl- und Erdgasindustrie, 1992-2005 | Mit einem Vorwort von Wolfgang Eichwede | ISBN 978-3-89821-821-4

74 Alena Vysotskaya | Russland, Belarus und die EU-Osterweiterung. Zur Minderheitenfrage und zum Problem der Freizügigkeit des Personenverkehrs | Mit einem Vorwort von Katlijn Malfliet | ISBN 978-3-89821-822-1

75 Heiko Pleines (Hrsg.) | Corporate Governance in post-sozialistischen Volkswirtschaften | ISBN 978-3-89821-766-8

76 Stefan Ihrig | Wer sind die Moldawier? Rumänismus versus Moldowanismus in Historiographie und Schulbüchern der Republik Moldova, 1991-2006 | Mit einem Vorwort von Holm Sundhaussen | ISBN 978-3-89821-466-7

77 Galina Kozhevnikova in collaboration with Alexander Verkhovsky and Eugene Veklerov | UltraNationalism and Hate Crimes in Contemporary Russia. The 2004-2006 Annual Reports of Moscow’s SOVA Center | With a foreword by Stephen D. Shenfield | ISBN 978-3-89821-868-9

78 Florian Küchler | The Role of the European Union in Moldova’s Transnistria Conflict | With a foreword by Christopher Hill | ISBN 978-3-89821-850-4

79 Bernd Rechel | The Long Way Back to Europe. Minority Protection in Bulgaria | With a foreword by Richard Crampton | ISBN 978-3-89821-863-4

80 Peter W. Rodgers | Nation, Region and History in Post-Communist Transitions. Identity Politics in Ukraine, 1991-2006 | With a foreword by Vera Tolz | ISBN 978-3-89821-903-7

81 Stephanie Solywoda | The Life and Work of Semen L. Frank. A Study of Russian Religious Philosophy | With a foreword by Philip Walters | ISBN 978-3-89821-457-5

82 Vera Sokolova | Cultural Politics of Ethnicity. Discourses on Roma in Communist Czechoslovakia | ISBN 978-3-89821-864-1

83 Natalya Shevchik Ketenci | Kazakhstani Enterprises in Transition. The Role of Historical Regional Development in Kazakhstan’s Post-Soviet Economic Transformation | ISBN 978-3-89821-831-3

84 Martin Malek, Anna Schor-Tschudnowskaja (Hgg.) | Europa im Tschetschenienkrieg. Zwischen politischer Ohnmacht und Gleichgültigkeit | Mit einem Vorwort von Lipchan Basajewa | ISBN 978-3-89821-676-0

85 Stefan Meister | Das postsowjetische Universitätswesen zwischen nationalem und internationalem Wandel. Die Entwicklung der regionalen Hochschule in Russland als Gradmesser der Systemtransformation | Mit einem Vorwort von Joan DeBardeleben | ISBN 978-3-89821-891-7

86 Konstantin Sheiko in collaboration with Stephen Brown | Nationalist Imaginings of the Russian Past. Anatolii Fomenko and the Rise of Alternative History in Post-Communist Russia | With a foreword by Donald Ostrowski | ISBN 978-3-89821-915-0

87 Sabine Jenni | Wie stark ist das „Einige Russland“? Zur Parteibindung der Eliten und zum Wahlerfolg der Machtpartei im Dezember 2007 | Mit einem Vorwort von Klaus Armingeon | ISBN 978-3-89821-961-7

88 Thomas Borén | Meeting-Places of Transformation. Urban Identity, Spatial Representations and Local Politics in Post-Soviet St Petersburg | ISBN 978-3-89821-739-2

89 Aygul Ashirova | Stalinismus und Stalin-Kult in Zentralasien. Turkmenistan 1924-1953 | Mit einem Vorwort von Leonid Luks | ISBN 978-3-89821-987-7

90 Leonid Luks | Freiheit oder imperiale Größe? Essays zu einem russischen Dilemma | ISBN 978-3-8382-0011-8 91 Christopher Gilley | The ‘Change of Signposts’ in the Ukrainian Emigration. A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s | With a foreword by Frank Golczewski | ISBN 978-3-89821-965-5

92 Philipp Casula, Jeronim Perovic (Eds.) | Identities and Politics During the Putin Presidency. The Discursive Foundations of Russia's Stability | With a foreword by Heiko Haumann | ISBN 978-3-8382-0015-6

93 Marcel Viëtor | Europa und die Frage nach seinen Grenzen im Osten. Zur Konstruktion ‚europäischer Identität’ in Geschichte und Gegenwart | Mit einem Vorwort von Albrecht Lehmann | ISBN 978-3-8382-0045-3

94 Ben Hellman, Andrei Rogachevskii | Filming the Unfilmable. Casper Wrede's 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition | ISBN 978-3-8382-0044-6

95 Eva Fuchslocher | Vaterland, Sprache, Glaube. Orthodoxie und Nationenbildung am Beispiel Georgiens | Mit einem Vorwort von Christina von Braun | ISBN 978-3-89821-884-9

96 Vladimir Kantor | Das Westlertum und der Weg Russlands. Zur Entwicklung der russischen Literatur und Philosophie | Ediert von Dagmar Herrmann | Mit einem Beitrag von Nikolaus Lobkowicz | ISBN 978-3-8382-0102-3

97 Kamran Musayev | Die postsowjetische Transformation im Baltikum und Südkaukasus. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung der politischen Entwicklung Lettlands und Aserbaidschans 1985-2009 | Mit einem Vorwort von Leonid Luks | Ediert von Sandro Henschel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0103-0

98 Tatiana Zhurzhenko | Borderlands into Bordered Lands. Geopolitics of Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine | With a foreword by Dieter Segert | ISBN 978-3-8382-0042-2

99 Кирилл Галушко, Лидия Смола (ред.) | Пределы падения – варианты украинского будущего. Аналитико-прогностические исследования | ISBN 978-3-8382-0148-1 100 Michael Minkenberg (Ed.) | Historical Legacies and the Radical Right in Post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe | With an afterword by Sabrina P. Ramet | ISBN 978-3-8382-0124-5 101 David-Emil Wickström | Rocking St. Petersburg. Transcultural Flows and Identity Politics in the St. Petersburg Popular Music Scene | With a foreword by Yngvar B. Steinholt | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition | ISBN 978-3-8382-0100-9

102 Eva Zabka | Eine neue „Zeit der Wirren“? Der spät- und postsowjetische Systemwandel 1985-2000 im Spiegel russischer gesellschaftspolitischer Diskurse | Mit einem Vorwort von Margareta Mommsen | ISBN 978-3-8382-0161-0

103 Ulrike Ziemer | Ethnic Belonging, Gender and Cultural Practices. Youth Identitites in Contemporary Russia | With a foreword by Anoop Nayak | ISBN 978-3-8382-0152-8

104 Ksenia Chepikova | ‚Einiges Russland’ - eine zweite KPdSU? Aspekte der Identitätskonstruktion einer postsowjetischen „Partei der Macht“ | Mit einem Vorwort von Torsten Oppelland | ISBN 978-3-8382-0311-9

105 Леонид Люкс | Западничество или евразийство? Демократия или идеократия? Сборник статей об исторических дилеммах России | С предисловием Владимира Кантора | ISBN 978-3-8382-0211-2

106 Anna Dost | Das russische Verfassungsrecht auf dem Weg zum Föderalismus und zurück. Zum Konflikt von Rechtsnormen und -wirklichkeit in der Russländischen Föderation von 1991 bis 2009 | Mit einem Vorwort von Alexander Blankenagel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0292-1

107 Philipp Herzog | Sozialistische Völkerfreundschaft, nationaler Widerstand oder harmloser Zeitvertreib? Zur politischen Funktion der Volkskunst im sowjetischen Estland | Mit einem Vorwort von Andreas Kappeler | ISBN 978-3-8382-0216-7

108 Marlène Laruelle (Ed.) | Russian Nationalism, Foreign Policy, and Identity Debates in Putin's Russia. New Ideological Patterns after the Orange Revolution | ISBN 978-3-8382-0325-6 109 Michail Logvinov | Russlands Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme des Bekämpfungsansatzes | Mit einem Geleitwort von Hans-Henning Schröder und einem Vorwort von Eckhard Jesse | ISBN 978-3-8382-0329-4

110 John B. Dunlop | The Moscow Bombings of September 1999. Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin's Rule | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition | ISBN 978-3-8382-0388-1

111 Андрей А. Ковалёв | Свидетельство из-за кулис российской политики I. Можно ли делать добрo из зла? (Воспоминания и размышления о последних советских и первых послесоветских годах) | With a foreword by Peter Reddaway | ISBN 978-3-8382-0302-7

112 Андрей А. Ковалёв | Свидетельство из-за кулис российской политики II. Угроза для себя и окружающих (Наблюдения и предостережения относительно происходящего после 2000 г.) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0303-4 113 Bernd Kappenberg | Zeichen setzen für Europa. Der Gebrauch europäischer lateinischer Sonderzeichen in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit | Mit einem Vorwort von Peter Schlobinski | ISBN 978-3-89821-749-1

114 Ivo Mijnssen | The Quest for an Ideal Youth in Putin’s Russia I. Back to Our Future! History, Modernity, and Patriotism according to Nashi, 2005-2013 | With a foreword by Jeronim Perović | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition | ISBN 978-3-8382-0368-3

115 Jussi Lassila | The Quest for an Ideal Youth in Putin’s Russia II. The Search for Distinctive Conformism in the Political Communication of Nashi, 2005-2009 | With a foreword by Kirill Postoutenko | Second, Revised and Expanded Edition | ISBN 978-3-8382-0415-4

116 Valerio Trabandt | Neue Nachbarn, gute Nachbarschaft? Die EU als internationaler Akteur am Beispiel ihrer Demokratieförderung in Belarus und der Ukraine 2004-2009 | Mit einem Vorwort von Jutta Joachim | ISBN 978-3-8382-0437-6

117 Fabian Pfeiffer | Estlands Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik I. Der estnische Atlantizismus nach der wiedererlangten Unabhängigkeit 1991-2004 | Mit einem Vorwort von Helmut Hubel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0127-6

118 Jana Podßuweit | Estlands Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik II. Handlungsoptionen eines Kleinstaates im Rahmen seiner EU-Mitgliedschaft (2004-2008) | Mit einem Vorwort von Helmut Hubel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0440-6

119 Karin Pointner | Estlands Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik III. Eine gedächtnispolitische Analyse estnischer Entwicklungskooperation 2006-2010 | Mit einem Vorwort von Karin Liebhart | ISBN 978-3-8382-0435-2

120 Ruslana Vovk | Die Offenheit der ukrainischen Verfassung für das Völkerrecht und die europäische Integration | Mit einem Vorwort von Alexander Blankenagel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0481-9

121 Mykhaylo Banakh | Die Relevanz der Zivilgesellschaft bei den postkommunistischen Transformationsprozessen in mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern. Das Beispiel der spät- und postsowjetischen Ukraine 1986-2009 | Mit einem Vorwort von Gerhard Simon | ISBN 978-3-8382-0499-4

122 Michael Moser | Language Policy and the Discourse on Languages in Ukraine under President Viktor Yanukovych (25 February 2010–28 October 2012) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0497-0 (Paperback edition) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0507-6 (Hardcover edition)

123 Nicole Krome | Russischer Netzwerkkapitalismus Restrukturierungsprozesse in der Russischen Föderation am Beispiel des Luftfahrtunternehmens „Aviastar“ | Mit einem Vorwort von Petra Stykow | ISBN 978-3-8382-0534-2

124 David R. Marples | 'Our Glorious Past'. Lukashenka‘s Belarus and the Great Patriotic War | ISBN 978-3-8382-0574-8 (Paperback edition) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0675-2 (Hardcover edition)

125 Ulf Walther | Russlands „neuer Adel“. Die Macht des Geheimdienstes von Gorbatschow bis Putin | Mit einem Vorwort von Hans-Georg Wieck | ISBN 978-3-8382-0584-7

126 Simon Geissbühler (Hrsg.) | Kiew – Revolution 3.0. Der Euromaidan 2013/14 und die Zukunftsperspektiven der Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-8382-0581-6 (Paperback edition) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0681-3 (Hardcover edition)

127 Andrey Makarychev | Russia and the EU in a Multipolar World. Discourses, Identities, Norms | With a foreword by Klaus Segbers | ISBN 978-3-8382-0629-5

128 Roland Scharff | Kasachstan als postsowjetischer Wohlfahrtsstaat. Die Transformation des sozialen Schutzsystems | Mit einem Vorwort von Joachim Ahrens | ISBN 978-3-8382-0622-6

129 Katja Grupp | Bild Lücke Deutschland. Kaliningrader Studierende sprechen über Deutschland | Mit einem Vorwort von Martin Schulz | ISBN 978-3-8382-0552-6

130 Konstantin Sheiko, Stephen Brown | History as Therapy. Alternative History and Nationalist Imaginings in Russia, 1991-2014 | ISBN 978-3-8382-0665-3

131 Elisa Kriza | Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Cold War Icon, Gulag Author, Russian Nationalist? A Study of the Western Reception of his Literary Writings, Historical Interpretations, and Political Ideas | With a foreword by Andrei Rogatchevski | ISBN 978-3-8382-0589-2 (Paperback edition) | ISBN 978-3-8382-0690-5 (Hardcover edition)

132 Serghei Golunov | The Elephant in the Room. Corruption and Cheating in Russian Universities | ISBN 978-3-8382-0570-0

133 Manja Hussner, Rainer Arnold (Hgg.) | Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in Zentralasien I. Sammlung von Verfassungstexten | ISBN 978-3-8382-0595-3

134 Nikolay Mitrokhin | Die „Russische Partei“. Die Bewegung der russischen Nationalisten in der UdSSR 1953-1985 | Aus dem Russischen übertragen von einem Übersetzerteam unter der Leitung von Larisa Schippel | ISBN 978-3-8382-0024-8

135 Manja Hussner, Rainer Arnold (Hgg.) | Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in Zentralasien II. Sammlung von Verfassungstexten | ISBN 978-3-8382-0597-7

136 Manfred Zeller | Das sowjetische Fieber. Fußballfans im poststalinistischen Vielvölkerreich | Mit einem Vorwort von Nikolaus Katzer | ISBN 978-3-8382-0757-5

137 Kristin Schreiter | Stellung und Entwicklungspotential zivilgesellschaftlicher Gruppen in Russland. Menschenrechtsorganisationen im Vergleich | ISBN 978-3-8382-0673-8 138 David R. Marples, Frederick V. Mills (Eds.) | Ukraine’s Euromaidan. Analyses of a Civil Revolution | ISBN 978-3-8382-0660-8

139 Bernd Kappenberg | Setting Signs for Europe. Why Diacritics Matter for European Integration | With a foreword

by Peter Schlobinski | ISBN 978-3-8382-0663-9

140 René Lenz | Internationalisierung, Kooperation und Transfer. Externe bildungspolitische Akteure in der Russischen Föderation | Mit einem Vorwort von Frank Ettrich | ISBN 978-3-8382-0751-3

141 Juri Plusnin, Yana Zausaeva, Natalia Zhidkevich, Artemy Pozanenko | Wandering Workers. Mores, Behavior, Way of Life, and Political Status of Domestic Russian Labor Migrants | Translated by Julia Kazantseva | ISBN 978-3-8382-0653-0

142 David J. Smith (Eds.) | Latvia – A Work in Progress? 100 Years of State- and Nation-Building | ISBN 978-3-8382-0648-6

143 Инна Чувычкина (ред.) | Экспортные нефте- и газопроводы на постсоветском пространстве. Aнализ трубопроводной политики в свете теории международных отношений | ISBN 978-3-8382-0822-0

144 Johann Zajaczkowski | Russland – eine pragmatische Großmacht? Eine rollentheoretische Untersuchung russischer Außenpolitik am Beispiel der Zusammenarbeit mit den USA nach 9/11 und des Georgienkrieges von 2008 | Mit einem Vorwort von Siegfried Schieder | ISBN 978-3-8382-0837-4

145 Boris Popivanov | Changing Images of the Left in Bulgaria. The Challenge of Post-Communism in the Early 21st Century | ISBN 978-3-8382-0667-7

146 Lenka Krátká | A History of the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping Company 1948-1989. How a Small, Landlocked Country Ran Maritime Business During the Cold War | ISBN 978-3-8382-0666-0

147 Alexander Sergunin | Explaining Russian Foreign Policy Behavior. Theory and Practice | ISBN 978-3-8382-0752-0

148 Darya Malyutina | Migrant Friendships in a Super-Diverse City. Russian-Speakers and their Social Relationships in London in the 21st Century | With a foreword by Claire Dwyer | ISBN 978-3-8382-0652-3

149 Alexander Sergunin, Valery Konyshev | Russia in the Arctic. Hard or Soft Power? | ISBN 978-3-8382-0753-7 150 John J. Maresca | Helsinki Revisited. A Key U.S. Negotiator’s Memoirs on the Development of the CSCE into the OSCE | With a foreword by Hafiz Pashayev | ISBN 978-3-8382-0852-7

151 Jardar Østbø | The New Third Rome. Readings of a Russian Nationalist Myth | With a foreword by Pål Kolstø | ISBN 978-3-8382-0870-1

152 Simon Kordonsky | Socio-Economic Foundations of the Russian Post-Soviet Regime. The Resource-Based Economy and Estate-Based Social Structure of Contemporary Russia | With a foreword by Svetlana Barsukova | ISBN 978-3-8382-0775-9

153 Duncan Leitch | Assisting Reform in Post-Communist Ukraine 2000–2012. The Illusions of Donors and the Disillusion of Beneficiaries | With a foreword by Kataryna Wolczuk | ISBN 978-3-8382-0844-2

154 Abel Polese | Limits of a Post-Soviet State. How Informality Replaces, Renegotiates, and Reshapes Governance in Contemporary Ukraine | With a foreword by Colin Williams | ISBN 978-3-8382-0845-9

155 Mikhail Suslov (Ed.) | Digital Orthodoxy in the Post-Soviet World. The Russian Orthodox Church and Web 2.0 | With a foreword by Father Cyril Hovorun | ISBN 978-3-8382-0871-8

156 Leonid Luks | Zwei „Sonderwege“? Russisch-deutsche Parallelen und Kontraste (1917-2014).

Vergleichende Essays | ISBN 978-3-8382-0823-7

157 Vladimir V. Karacharovskiy, Ovsey I. Shkaratan, Gordey A. Yastrebov | Towards a New Russian Work Culture. Can Western Companies and Expatriates Change Russian Society? | With a foreword by Elena N. Danilova | Translated by Julia Kazantseva | ISBN 978-3-8382-0902-9

158 Edmund Griffiths | Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism | ISBN 978-3-8382-0963-0 159 Timm Beichelt, Susann Worschech (Eds.) | Transnational Ukraine? Networks and Ties that Influence(d) Contemporary Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-8382-0944-9

160 Mieste Hotopp-Riecke | Die Tataren der Krim zwischen Assimilation und Selbstbehauptung. Der Aufbau des krimtatarischen Bildungswesens nach Deportation und Heimkehr (1990-2005) | Mit einem Vorwort von Swetlana Czerwonnaja | ISBN 978-3-89821-940-2

161 Olga Bertelsen (Ed.) | Revolution and War in Contemporary Ukraine. The Challenge of Change | ISBN 978-3-8382-1016-2

162 Natalya Ryabinska | Ukraine's Post-Communist Mass Media. Between Capture and Commercialization | With a foreword by Marta Dyczok | ISBN 978-3-8382-1011-7

163 Alexandra Cotofana, James M. Nyce (Eds.) | Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-Socialist Contexts. Historic and Ethnographic Case Studies of Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and Alternative Spirituality | With a foreword by Patrick L. Michelson | ISBN 978-3-8382-0989-0

164 Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva | The Instrumentalisation of Mass Media in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes. Evidence from Russia’s Presidential Election Campaigns of 2000 and 2008 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1013-1 165 Yulia Krasheninnikova | Informal Healthcare in Contemporary Russia. Sociographic Essays on the PostSoviet Infrastructure for Alternative Healing Practices | ISBN 978-3-8382-0970-8

166 Peter Kaiser | Das Schachbrett der Macht. Die Handlungsspielräume eines sowjetischen Funktionärs unter Stalin am Beispiel des Generalsekretärs des Komsomol Aleksandr Kosarev (1929-1938) | Mit einem Vorwort von Dietmar Neutatz | ISBN 978-3-8382-1052-0

167 Oksana Kim | The Effects and Implications of Kazakhstan’s Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards. A Resource Dependence Perspective | With a foreword by Svetlana Vlady | ISBN 978-3-8382-0987-6

168 Anna Sanina | Patriotic Education in Contemporary Russia. Sociological Studies in the Making of the PostSoviet Citizen | With a foreword by Anna Oldfield | ISBN 978-3-8382-0993-7

169 Rudolf Wolters | Spezialist in Sibirien Faksimile der 1933 erschienenen ersten Ausgabe | Mit einem Vorwort von Dmitrij Chmelnizki | ISBN 978-3-8382-0515-1

170 Michal Vít, Magdalena M. Baran (Eds.) | Transregional versus National Perspectives on Contemporary Central European History. Studies on the Building of Nation-States and Their Cooperation in the 20th and 21st Century | With a foreword by Petr Vágner | ISBN 978-3-8382-1015-5

171 Philip Gamaghelyan | Conflict Resolution Beyond the International Relations Paradigm. Evolving Designs as a Transformative Practice in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria | With a foreword by Susan Allen | ISBN 978-3-8382-1057-5

172 Maria Shagina | Joining a Prestigious Club. Cooperation with Europarties and Its Impact on Party Development in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine 2004–2015 | With a foreword by Kataryna Wolczuk | ISBN 978-3-8382-1084-1

173 Alexandra Cotofana, James M. Nyce (Eds.) | Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-Socialist Contexts II. Baltic, Eastern European, and Post-USSR Case Studies | With a foreword by Anita Stasulane | ISBN 978-3-8382-0990-6

174 Barbara Kunz | Kind Words, Cruise Missiles, and Everything in Between. The Use of Power Resources in U.S. Policies towards Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus 1989–2008 | With a foreword by William Hill | ISBN 978-3-8382-1065-0

175 Eduard Klein | Bildungskorruption in Russland und der Ukraine. Eine komparative Analyse der Performanz staatlicher Antikorruptionsmaßnahmen im Hochschulsektor am Beispiel universitärer Aufnahmeprüfungen | Mit einem Vorwort von Heiko Pleines | ISBN 978-3-8382-0995-1

176 Markus Soldner | Politischer Kapitalismus im postsowjetischen Russland. Die politische, wirtschaftliche und mediale Transformation in den 1990er Jahren | Mit einem Vorwort von Wolfgang Ismayr | ISBN 978-3-8382-1222-7

177 Anton Oleinik | Building Ukraine from Within. A Sociological, Institutional, and Economic Analysis of a NationState in the Making | ISBN 978-3-8382-1150-3

178 Peter Rollberg, Marlene Laruelle (Eds.) | Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World. Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism | ISBN 978-3-8382-1116-9

179 Mikhail Minakov | Development and Dystopia. Studies in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Eastern Europe | With a foreword by Alexander Etkind | ISBN 978-3-8382-1112-1

180 Aijan Sharshenova | The European Union’s Democracy Promotion in Central Asia. A Study of Political Interests, Influence, and Development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 2007–2013 | With a foreword by Gordon Crawford | ISBN 978-3-8382-1151-0

181 Andrey Makarychev, Alexandra Yatsyk (Eds.) | Boris Nemtsov and Russian Politics. Power and Resistance | With a foreword by Zhanna Nemtsova | ISBN 978-3-8382-1122-0

182 Sophie Falsini | The Euromaidan’s Effect on Civil Society. Why and How Ukrainian Social Capital Increased after the Revolution of Dignity | With a foreword by Susann Worschech | ISBN 978-3-8382-1131-2

183 Valentyna Romanova, Andreas Umland (Eds.) | Ukraine’s Decentralization. Challenges and Implications of the Local Governance Reform after the Euromaidan Revolution | ISBN 978-3-8382-1162-6

184 Leonid Luks | A Fateful Triangle. Essays on Contemporary Russian, German and Polish History | ISBN 978-3-8382-1143-5

185 John B. Dunlop | The February 2015 Assassination of Boris Nemtsov and the Flawed Trial of his Alleged Killers. An Exploration of Russia’s “Crime of the 21st Century” | ISBN 978-3-8382-1188-6 186 Vasile Rotaru | Russia, the EU, and the Eastern Partnership. Building Bridges or Digging Trenches? | ISBN 978-3-8382-1134-3

187 Marina Lebedeva | Russian Studies of International Relations. From the Soviet Past to the Post-Cold-War Present | With a foreword by Andrei P. Tsygankov | ISBN 978-3-8382-0851-0

188 Tomasz Stępniewski, George Soroka (Eds.) | Ukraine after Maidan. Revisiting Domestic and Regional Security | ISBN 978-3-8382-1075-9

189 Petar Cholakov | Ethnic Entrepreneurs Unmasked. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflicts in Contemporary Bulgaria | ISBN 978-3-8382-1189-3

190 A. Salem, G. Hazeldine, D. Morgan (Eds.) | Higher Education in Post-Communist States. Comparative and Sociological Perspectives | ISBN 978-3-8382-1183-1

191 Igor Torbakov | After Empire. Nationalist Imagination and Symbolic Politics in Russia and Eurasia in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century | With a foreword by Serhii Plokhy | ISBN 978-3-8382-1217-3

192 Aleksandr Burakovskiy | Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in Late and Post-Soviet Ukraine. Articles, Lectures and Essays from 1986 to 2016 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1210-4

193 Natalia Shapovalova, Olga Burlyuk (Eds.) | Civil Society in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine. From Revolution to Consolidation | With a foreword by Richard Youngs | ISBN 978-3-8382-1216-6

194 Franz Preissler | Positionsverteidigung, Imperialismus oder Irredentismus? Russland und die „Russischsprachigen“, 1991–2015 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1262-3

195 Marian Madeła | Der Reformprozess in der Ukraine 2014-2017. Eine Fallstudie zur Reform der öffentlichen Verwaltung | Mit einem Vorwort von Martin Malek | ISBN 978-3-8382-1266-1

196 Anke Giesen | „Wie kann denn der Sieger ein Verbrecher sein?“ Eine diskursanalytische Untersuchung der russlandweiten Debatte über Konzept und Verstaatlichungsprozess der Lagergedenkstätte „Perm’-36“ im Ural | ISBN 978-3-8382-1284-5

197 Victoria Leukavets | The Integration Policies of Belarus and Ukraine vis-à-vis the EU and Russia.

A Comparative Analysis Through the Prism of a Two-Level Game Approach | ISBN 978-3-8382-1247-0

198 Oksana Kim | The Development and Challenges of Russian Corporate Governance I. The Roles and Functions of Boards of Directors | With a foreword by Sheila M. Puffer | ISBN 978-3-8382-1287-6

199 Thomas D. Grant | International Law and the Post-Soviet Space I. Essays on Chechnya and the Baltic States | With a foreword by Stephen M. Schwebel | ISBN 978-3-8382-1279-1

200 Thomas D. Grant | International Law and the Post-Soviet Space II. Essays on Ukraine, Intervention, and Non-Proliferation | ISBN 978-3-8382-1280-7

201 Slavomír Michálek, Michal Štefansky | The Age of Fear. The Cold War and Its Influence on Czechoslovakia 1945–1968 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1285-2

202 Iulia-Sabina Joja | Romania’s Strategic Culture 1990–2014. Continuity and Change in a Post-Communist Country’s Evolution of National Interests and Security Policies | With a foreword by Heiko Biehl | ISBN 978-3-8382-1286-9

203 Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar B. Steinholt, Arve Hansen, David-Emil Wickström | War of Songs.

Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations | With a foreword by Artemy Troitsky | ISBN 978-3-8382-1173-2

204 Maria Lipman (Ed.) | Russian Voices on Post-Crimea Russia. An Almanac of Counterpoint Essays from 2015–2018 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1251-7

205 Ksenia Maksimovtsova | Language Conflicts in Contemporary Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine. A Comparative Exploration of Discourses in Post-Soviet Russian-Language Digital Media | With a foreword by Ammon Cheskin | ISBN 978-3-8382-1282-1

206 Michal Vít | The EU’s Impact on Identity Formation in East-Central Europe between 2004 and 2013. Perceptions of the Nation and Europe in Political Parties of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia | With a foreword

by Andrea Petö | ISBN 978-3-8382-1275-3

207 Per A. Rudling | Tarnished Heroes. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in the Memory Politics of Post-Soviet Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-8382-0999-9

208 Kaja Gadowska, Peter Solomon (Eds.) | Legal Change in Post-Communist States. Progress, Reversions, Explanations | ISBN 978-3-8382-1312-5

209 Pawel Kowal, Georges Mink, Iwona Reichardt (Eds.) | Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine I. Theoretical Aspects and Analyses on Religion, Memory, and Identity | ISBN 9783-8382-1321-7

210 Pawel Kowal, Georges Mink, Adam Reichardt, Iwona Reichardt (Eds.) | Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine II. An Oral History of the Revolution on Granite, Orange Revolution, and Revolution of Dignity | ISBN 978-3-8382-1323-1

211 Li Bennich-Björkman, Sergiy Kurbatov (Eds.) | When the Future Came. The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of National Memory in Post-Soviet History Textbooks | ISBN 978-3-8382-1335-4

212 Olga R. Gulina | Migration as a (Geo-)Political Challenge in the Post-Soviet Space. Border Regimes, Policy Choices, Visa Agendas | With a foreword by Nils Muižnieks | ISBN 978-3-8382-1338-5

213 Sanna Turoma, Kaarina Aitamurto, Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover (Eds.) | Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia. Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the State. ISBN 978-3-8382-1346-0 214 Vasif Huseynov | Geopolitical Rivalries in the “Common Neighborhood”. Russia's Conflict with the West, Soft Power, and Neoclassical Realism | With a foreword by Nicholas Ross Smith | ISBN 978-3-8382-1277-7

215 Mikhail Suslov | Geopolitical Imagination. Ideology and Utopia in Post-Soviet Russia | With a foreword by Mark Bassin | ISBN 978-3-8382-1361-3

216 Alexander Etkind, Mikhail Minakov (Eds.) | Ideology after Union. Political Doctrines, Discourses, and Debates in Post-Soviet Societies | ISBN 978-3-8382-1388-0

217 Jakob Mischke, Oleksandr Zabirko (Hgg.) | Protestbewegungen im langen Schatten des Kreml.

Aufbruch und Resignation in Russland und der Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-8382-0926-5

218 Oksana Huss | How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes. Strategies of Political Domination under Ukraine’s Presidents in 1994-2014 | With a foreword by Tobias Debiel and Andrea Gawrich | ISBN 978-3-8382-1430-6

219 Dmitry Travin, Vladimir Gel'man, Otar Marganiya | The Russian Path. Ideas, Interests, Institutions, Illusions | With a foreword by Vladimir Ryzhkov | ISBN 978-3-8382-1421-4

220 Gergana Dimova | Political Uncertainty. A Comparative Exploration | With a foreword by Todor Yalamov and Rumena Filipova | ISBN 978-3-8382-1385-9

221 Torben Waschke | Russland in Transition. Geopolitik zwischen Raum, Identität und Machtinteressen | Mit einem Vorwort von Andreas Dittmann | ISBN 978-3-8382-1480-1

222 Steven Jobbitt, Zsolt Bottlik, Marton Berki (Eds.) | Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm. Geographies of Ethnicity and Nationality after 1991 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1399-6 223 Daria Buteiko | Erinnerungsort. Ort des Gedenkens, der Erholung oder der Einkehr? Kommunismus-Erinnerung am Beispiel der Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer sowie des Soloveckij-Klosters und -Museumsparks | ISBN 978-3-8382-1367-5

224 Olga Bertelsen (Ed.) | Russian Active Measures. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow | With a foreword by Jan Goldman | ISBN 978-3-8382-1529-7

225 David Mandel | “Optimizing” Higher Education in Russia. University Teachers and their Union “Universitetskaya solidarnost’” | ISBN 978-3-8382-1519-8

226 Mikhail Minakov, Gwendolyn Sasse, Daria Isachenko (Eds.) | Post-Soviet Secessionism. Nation-Building and State-Failure after Communism | ISBN 978-3-8382-1538-9

227 Jakob Hauter (Ed.) | Civil War? Interstate War? Hybrid War? Dimensions and Interpretations of the Donbas Conflict in 2014–2020 | With a foreword by Andrew Wilson | ISBN 978-3-8382-1383-5

228 Tima T. Moldogaziev, Gene A. Brewer, J. Edward Kellough (Eds.) | Public Policy and Politics in Georgia. Lessons from Post-Soviet Transition | With a foreword by Dan Durning | ISBN 978-3-8382-1535-8 229 Oxana Schmies (Ed.) | NATO’s Enlargement and Russia. A Strategic Challenge in the Past and Future | With a foreword by Vladimir Kara-Murza | ISBN 978-3-8382-1478-8

230 Christopher Ford | Ukapisme – Une Gauche perdue. Le marxisme anti-colonial dans la révolution ukrainienne 1917-1925 | Avec une préface de Vincent Présumey | ISBN 978-3-8382-0899-2

231 Anna Kutkina | Between Lenin and Bandera. Decommunization and Multivocality in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine | With a foreword by Juri Mykkänen | ISBN 978-3-8382-1506-8

232 Lincoln E. Flake | Defending the Faith. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Demise of Religious Pluralism | With a foreword by Peter Martland | ISBN 978-3-8382-1378-1

233 Nikoloz Samkharadze | Russia’s Recognition of the Independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Analysis of a Deviant Case in Moscow’s Foreign Policy | With a foreword by Neil MacFarlane | ISBN 978-38382-1414-6

234 Arve Hansen | Urban Protest. A Spatial Perspective on Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow | With a foreword by Julie Wilhelmsen | ISBN 978-3-8382-1495-5

235 Eleonora Narvselius, Julie Fedor (Eds.) | Diversity in the East-Central European Borderlands.

Memories, Cityscapes, People | ISBN 978-3-8382-1523-5

236 Regina Elsner | The Russian Orthodox Church and Modernity. A Historical and Theological Investigation into Eastern Christianity between Unity and Plurality | With a foreword by Mikhail Suslov | ISBN 978-3-8382-1568-6

237 Bo Petersson | The Putin Predicament. Problems of Legitimacy and Succession in Russia | With a foreword by J. Paul Goode | ISBN 978-3-8382-1050-6

238 Jonathan Otto Pohl | The Years of Great Silence. The Deportation, Special Settlement, and Mobilization into the Labor Army of Ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1941–1955 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1630-0

239 Mikhail Minakov (Ed.) | Inventing Majorities. Ideological Creativity in Post-Soviet Societies | ISBN 978-3-83821641-6

240 Robert M. Cutler | Soviet and Post-Soviet Foreign Policies I. East-South Relations and the Political Economy of the Communist Bloc, 1971–1991 | With a foreword by Roger E. Kanet | ISBN 978-3-8382-1654-6

241 Izabella Agardi | On the Verge of History. Life Stories of Rural Women from Serbia, Romania, and Hungary, 1920–2020 | With a foreword by Andrea Pető | ISBN 978-3-8382-1602-7

242 Sebastian Schäffer (Ed.) | Ukraine in Central and Eastern Europe. Kyiv's Foreign Affairs and the In-

ternational Relations of the Post-Communist Region | With a foreword by Pavlo Klimkin and Andreas Umland| ISBN 978-38382-1615-7

243 Volodymyr Dubrovskyi, Kalman Mizsei, Mychailo Wynnyckyj (Eds.) | Eight Years after the Revolution of Dignity. What Has Changed in Ukraine during 2013–2021? | With a foreword by Yaroslav Hrytsak | ISBN 978-3-8382-1560-0

244 Rumena Filipova | Constructing the Limits of Europe Identity and Foreign Policy in Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia since 1989 | With forewords by Harald Wydra and Gergana Yankova-Dimova | ISBN 978-3-8382-1649-2

245 Oleksandra Keudel | How Patronal Networks Shape Opportunities for Local Citizen Participation in a Hybrid Regime A Comparative Analysis of Five Cities in Ukraine | With a foreword by Sabine Kropp | ISBN 978-3-8382-1671-3

246 Jan Claas Behrends, Thomas Lindenberger, Pavel Kolar (Eds.) | Violence after Stalin Institutions, Practices, and Everyday Life in the Soviet Bloc 1953–1989 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1637-9

247 Leonid Luks | Macht und Ohnmacht der Utopien Essays zur Geschichte Russlands im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert | ISBN 978-3-8382-1677-5

248 Iuliia Barshadska | Brüssel zwischen Kyjiw und Moskau Das auswärtige Handeln der Europäischen Union im ukrainisch-russischen Konflikt 2014-2019 | Mit einem Vorwort von Olaf Leiße | ISBN 978-3-8382-1667-6

249 Valentyna Romanova | Decentralisation and Multilevel Elections in Ukraine Reform Dynamics and Party Politics in 2010–2021 | With a foreword by Kimitaka Matsuzato | ISBN 978-3-8382-1700-0

250 Alexander Motyl | National Questions. Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe | ISBN 978-3-8382-1675-1

251 Marc Dietrich | A Cosmopolitan Model for Peacebuilding. The Ukrainian Cases of Crimea and the Donbas | With a foreword by Rémi Baudouï | ISBN 978-3-8382-1687-4

252 Eduard Baidaus | An Unsettled Nation. Moldova in the Geopolitics of Russia, Romania, and Ukraine | With forewords by John-Paul Himka and David R. Marples | ISBN 978-3-8382-1582-2

253 Igor Okunev, Petr Oskolkov (Eds.) | Transforming the Administrative Matryoshka. The Reform of Autonomous Okrugs in the Russian Federation, 2003–2008 | With a foreword by Vladimir Zorin | ISBN 978-3-8382-1721-5

254 Winfried Schneider-Deters | Ukraine’s Fateful Years 2013–2019. Vol. I: The Popular Uprising in Winter 2013/2014 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1725-3

255 Winfried Schneider-Deters | Ukraine’s Fateful Years 2013–2019. Vol. II: The Annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbas | ISBN 978-3-8382-1726-0

256 Robert M. Cutler | Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Foreign Policies II. East-West Relations in Europe and the Political Economy of the Communist Bloc, 1971–1991 | With a foreword by Roger E. Kanet | ISBN 978-3-83821727-7

257 Robert M. Cutler | Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Foreign Policies III. East-West Relations in Europe and Eurasia in the Post-Cold War Transition, 1991–2001 | With a foreword by Roger E. Kanet | ISBN 978-3-8382-1728-4

258 Paweł Kowal, Iwona Reichardt, Kateryna Pryshchepa (Eds.) | Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine III. Archival Records and Historical Sources on the 1990 Revolution on Granite | ISBN 978-3-8382-1376-7

259 Mikhail Minakov (Ed.) | Philosophy Unchained. Developments in Post-Soviet Philosophical Thought. | With a foreword by Christopher Donohue | ISBN 978-3-8382-1768-0

260 David Dalton | The Ukrainian Oligarchy After the Euromaidan. How Ukraine’s Political Economy Regime Survived the Crisis | With a foreword by Andrew Wilson | ISBN 978-3-8382-1740-6

261 Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (Ed.) | Who Are the Fighters? Irregular Armed Groups in the RussianUkrainian War since 2014 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1777-2

262 Taras Kuzio (Ed.) | Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship. Bias and Prejudice in Journalistic, Expert, and Academic Analyses of East European, Russian and Eurasian Affairs | ISBN 978-3-8382-1685-0

263 Darius Furmonavicius | LithuaniaTransforms the West. Lithuania’s Liberation from Soviet Occupation and the Enlargement of NATO (1988–2022) | With a foreword by Vytautas Landsbergis | ISBN 978-3-8382-1779-6

264 Dirk Dalberg | Politisches Denken im tschechoslowakischen Dissens. Egon Bondy, Miroslav Kusý, Milan Šimečka und Petr Uhl (1968-1989) | ISBN 978-3-8382-1318-7

265 Леонид Люкс | К столетию «философского парохода». Мыслители «первой» русской эмиграции о русской революции и о тоталитарных соблазнах ХХ века | ISBN 978-3-8382-1775-8

266 Daviti Mtchedlishvili | The EU and the South Caucasus. European Neighborhood Policies between Eclecticism and Pragmatism, 1991-2021 | With a foreword by Nicholas Ross Smith | ISBN 978-3-8382-1735-2

267 Bohdan Harasymiw | Post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Domestic Power Struggles and War of National Survival in 2014–2022 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1798-7

268 Nadiia Koval, Denys Tereshchenko (Eds.) | Russian Cultural Diplomacy under Putin. Rossotrudnichestvo, the “Russkiy Mir” Foundation, and the Gorchakov Fund in 2007–2022 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1801-4

269 Izabela Kazejak | Jews in Post-War Wrocław and L’viv. Official Policies and Local Responses in Comparative Perspective, 1945-1970s | ISBN 978-3-8382-1802-1

270 Jakob Hauter | Russia’s Overlooked Invasion. The Causes of the 2014 Outbreak of War in Ukraine’s Donbas | With a foreword by Hiroaki Kuromiya | ISBN 978-3-8382-1803-8

271 Anton Shekhovtsov | Russian Political Warfare. Essays on Kremlin Propaganda in Europe and the Neighbourhood, 2020-2023 | With a foreword by Nathalie Loiseau | ISBN 978-3-8382-1821-2

272 Андреа Пето | Насилие и Молчание. Красная армия в Венгрии во Второй Мировой войне | ISBN 978-3-83821636-2

273 Winfried Schneider-Deters | Russia’s War in Ukraine. Debates on Peace, Fascism, and War Crimes, 2022– 2023 | With a foreword by Klaus Gestwa | ISBN 978-3-8382-1876-2

274 Rasmus Nilsson | Uncanny Allies. Russia and Belarus on the Edge, 2012-2024 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1288-3 275 Anton Grushetskyi, Volodymyr Paniotto | War and the Transformation of Ukrainian Society (2022–23). Empirical Evidence | ISBN 978-3-8382-1944-8 276 Christian Kaunert, Alex MacKenzie, Adrien Nonjon (Eds.) | In the Eye of the Storm. Origins, Ideology, and Controversies of the Azov Brigade, 2014–23 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1750-5

277 Gian Marco Moisé | The House Always Wins. The Corrupt Strategies that Shaped Kazakh Oil Politics and Business in the Nazarbayev Era | With a foreword by Alena Ledeneva | ISBN 978-3-8382-1917-2

278 Mikhail Minakov | The Post-Soviet Human | Philosophical Reflections on Social History after the End of Communism | ISBN 978-3-8382-1943-1

279 Natalia Kudriavtseva, Debra A. Friedman (Eds.) | Language and Power in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Essays on Education, Ideology, Literature, Practice, and the Media | With a foreword by Laada Bilaniuk | ISBN 978-3-8382-1949-3

280 Georges Mink, Iwona Reichardt (Eds.) | The End of the Soviet World? Essays on Post-Communist Political and Social Change | With an afterword by Richardt Butterwick | ISBN 978-3-8382-1961-5

281 Kateryna Zarembo, Michèle Knodt, Maksym Yakovlyev (Eds.) | Teaching IR in Wartime. Experiences of University Lecturers during Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine | ISBN 978-3-8382-1954-7

282 Oleksiy V. Kresin | The United Nations General Assembly Resolutions. Their Nature and Significance in the Context of the Russian War Against Ukraine | Edited by William E. Butler | ISBN 978-3-8382-1967-7

283 Jakob Hauter | Russlands unbemerkte Invasion. Die Ursachen des Kriegsausbruchs im ukrainischen Donbas im Jahr 2014 | Mit einem Vorwort von Hiroaki Kuromiya | ISBN 978-3-8382-2003-1

284 „Alles kann sich ändern“. Letzte Worte politisch Angeklagter vor Gericht in Russland | Herausgegeben von Memorial Deutschland e.V. | ISBN 978-3-8382-1994-3

285 Nadiya Kiss, Monika Wingender (Eds.) | Contested Language Diversity in Wartime Ukraine.

National Minorities, Language Biographies, and Linguistic Landscape | ISBN 978-3-8382-1966-0

286 Richard Ottinger (Ed.) | Religious Elements in the Russian War of Aggression Against Ukraine. Propaganda, Religious Politics and Pastoral Care, 2014–2024 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1981-3 287 Yuri Radchenko | Vspomogatel'naia politsiia, mestnaia administratsiia. SD i Shoa na ukrainskorossiisko-belorusskom pogranich'e (1941–1943) | With forewords by John-Paul Himka and Kai Struve | ISBN 978-3-83821878-6

288 Zsofia Maria Schmidt | Hungary’s System of National Cooperation. Strategies of Framing in ProGovernmental Media and Public Discourse, 2010–18 | With a foreword by Andreas Schmidt-Schweizer | ISBN 978-3-83821983-7

289 Richard Ottinger (Hrsg.) | Religiöse Elemente im russischen Angriffskrieg gegen die Ukraine.

Propaganda, Religionspolitik und Seelsorge, 2014–2024 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1980-6

290 Galyna Zelenko (Ed.) | Crises of Political Development in Ukraine. The Challenges of Post-Soviet State-Building and Ways to Overcome Them | With a foreword by Oleg Rafalskiy | ISBN 978-3-8382-2027-7

291 Galyna Zelenko (Ed.) | Fake Russia. Investigations into Moscow’s Imitations of Greatness and Power | ISBN 978-3-8382-1997-4

292 Ian Garner, Taras Kuzio (Eds.) | Russia and Modern Fascism. New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine | With a foreword by David Satter | ISBN 978-3-8382-2015-4

293 Tatyana Shchyttsova | Solidarity of the Shaken. On the Collective Subject of the Belarusian Revolution of 2020 | ISBN 978-3-8382-2030-7

294 Andrii Martynov | Imagining Europe and Ukraine. Mutual Perceptions of Europeans and Ukrainians in the 20th and Early 21st Century | With a foreword by Eduard Afonin | ISBN 978-3-8382-2037-6

295 Felix Riefer, Julie Fedor, Leonid Luks, and Andreas Umland (Eds.) | Russia Before the FullScale War. Vol. I: Elites, Institutions, and Society, 1991–2021 | ISBN 978-3-8382-1935-6 296 Felix Riefer, Julie Fedor, Leonid Luks, and Andreas Umland (Eds.) | Russia Before the FullScale War. Vol. II: Memories, Ideologies and Politics, 1991–2021 | ISBN 978-3-8382-2045-1 297 Leonid Luks | Aggrieved Powers? Essays on Contemporary Russian and German History | ISBN 978-3-83822075-8

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