How Russia is Creating a New "Great Patriotic War (WWII)" With Ukraine

Philosophy has the term "simulacrum" - a copy of something that does not actually exist. An excellent example of a simulacrum is the current Russian propaganda glorification of its soldiers, which imitates the Soviet propaganda heroic epic of the Patriotic War.

One of the pillars of Russian propaganda is the Great Patriotic War. This saga has programmed Russians since childhood into the desired system of thinking, where there is a great state that has defeated evil, and someone else is only jealous and wants to return the evil. Therefore, Russia believes it has the right to deal with evil as it pleases because the truth is on its side.

This cult of war replaces the religion that unites all faiths. To support it, the Kremlin has romanticized World War II for years. Now, however, Moscow has begun to cultivate a new war, which is supposed to be something that will unite a new generation of Buryats, Dagestanis, or residents of St. Petersburg. Moscow wants to join Russians with what World War II was for Soviet citizens, even though war with Ukraine is invading.

If you want to get deeper into the Russian-Ukraine war, I recommend you to watch 10 Films About the War in Ukraine.

Russian propaganda creates a pantheon of heroes from the occupiers

Let's use the example of the "Operation Z Heroes" project, which publishes the allegedly heroic deeds of Russian army soldiers during the invasion of Ukraine, to see how it works. The project itself is about real people. But there are a few buts:

• In the description of their feat, there is no data about the place of the event, the military unit, or the date when it happened. Everything is done so that journalists cannot verify the story's reliability.
• In most of the videos, there is no data about who the heroes of the operation are fighting. It would be strange to glorify the occupiers fighting in another country. Therefore, in the description of their actions, the Ukrainian army is referred to as "Nazis" and "militants" or simply "enemies" Some videos do not even mention the word "Ukraine".
• Most exploits are created according to the Soviet propaganda model and are clearly hyperbolized. At the same time, we are talking about a low-quality duplicate because all of these deeds have real prototypes in Soviet history. But the style of warfare has changed, and now the description of such deeds looks like a mockery of Soviet soldiers.

Russian propaganda was preparing Russians for the war with Ukraine even in games. I recommend you to read my article How Russian Games Propagated the War.

Concrete examples of how Russian propaganda creates heroes from occupants

One of WWII's most promoted Soviet propaganda heroes is the pilot Alexey Maresyev, who crawled to his positions for 18 days. According to legend, this was after his plane was shot down and his feet were shattered during the landing.

Now there is a new story about Alexey Likhanov. He is not a pilot, but according to the legend, he was wounded, and it took him 12 days to return to his position with two grenades in his hands. Why Alexey was holding grenades all this time is unknown, as is where it happened. It is also unknown how he could crawl deep into the defense during the advance of his troops to crawl back for 12 days.

An equally famous example of the Soviet epic is the communications officer Matvey Putilov, who died in the battle for Stalingrad. According to legend, he clenched the cable with his teeth to ensure communication while surrounded. That's how he was found dead.

The Russians decided to take quantity rather than quality because modern troops do not need cables to provide communications. Russian propaganda created Sergeant Yan Volkov, who, for some reason, was left alone with a radio communications station and came under mortar fire. He, wounded, continued tuning it under fire. As a result, Russian troops destroyed the enemy grouping.

Hussein Gadaev allegedly did something similar. His communications battalion was caught in an unequal battle, and the lieutenant was giving orders for communications during it until he lost consciousness. In general, this story is more evidence of the competence of Hussein's deputies. Nevertheless, he is in the pantheon of new heroes.

Evstafiy Anisimov is a hero of the Soviet Union because, during the liberation of Belarus from the German invaders, he demined a bridge. According to legend, he did so under constant enemy fire.

Russian propaganda went further and created the story of Kirill Balagansky, who allegedly demined two bridges under bullets. This story did not mention Ukraine because the Russian propaganda decided not to emphasize that Kirill, unlike Anisimov, was an invader.

On the contrary, the hero of the USSR, Pavel Khvostov, built a bridge across the Dnipro. Under the bullets, his group could erect a pontoon crossing and ensure the further advance of the Soviet troops. Khvostov himself was wounded during the construction of the crossing.

The Russians have a new story about Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Garanin also commanded the erection of a pontoon crossing under enemy fire. It is not specified which enemy and during the crossing of which river.

However, it is proudly noted that thanks to the crossing of the unnamed river, Russian troops continued their advance to provide humanitarian aid to an unknown settlement on the other bank. However, the inhabitants of this unknown village would not have needed humanitarian aid if the occupant Garanin and his team had not invaded another country.

General examples of how Russian propaganda creates heroes from occupants

The list of new "heroes" includes a bunch of stories about nurses who carried the wounded. For example, Arkady Smolnikov saved a thousand wounded after the "treacherous Ukrainians" struck a "Russian-controlled airfield" (in common parlance, an occupied airfield).

These stories duplicate the many stories of "Red Army" medics with several times inflated numbers of evacuees. In all cases, the main thing is the event's location is not established. Nobody even shows a video of the evacuation.

In general, there are many propaganda clichés on the list: soldiers who "first noticed the enemy" (during the offensive), pilots who covered others with their aircraft (like the Soviet pilot Viktor Talalikhin), soldiers who shot down "a flock of bayraktars” and soldiers repelled volleys of MLRS "Smerch.” When propagandists ran out of imagination, they added to the list people who died or "almost died" (Warrant Officer Arsalan Munkuyev almost died).

Conclusion

Russian propaganda easily devalues World War II heroes by rewriting their histories. As mentioned above, the war in the Russian Federation is a religion. Even if a Russian does not actively support the war (being an "atheist"), his morals are still shaped by this religion. He will celebrate war holidays and live the ethics of war, where there are evil and martyrs.

Just now, Moscow is giving birth to a new cult with new heroes, a "new covenant" of war, a kind of "Putin's gospel." In such an information flow, Russians will not be able to draw conclusions from the war because it is being romanticized again.

Thus, this war will not discourage Russians from continuing to fight; after Ukraine, Russia will prepare for a new war. And not necessarily against Ukraine, because of the very essence of the war as such. It is easy to create an enemy in this paradigm of thinking.

So the task of Ukraine and its allies is to ensure that Russia is deprived of resources and physically unable to continue the war, which is exactly what is happening now.

I recommend reading The Evolution of Warfare in Ukraine: Three New Features and Their Offices in Mariupol and Irpen Were Destroyed by Russians.