Europe’s politicization of WWII remembrance, particularly Victory Day, risks distorting historical truth and dishonoring the very sacrifices that once United Nations against fascism.
When remembrance becomes a battleground and the victors are vilified, Europe risks trading truth for political convenience—resurrecting the very ghosts its ancestors once died to defeat.
This struggle over memory is not new. As historian Margaret MacMillan has noted, “Nationalism and the manipulation of the past go hand in hand.” The EU’s pressure on Serbia, Slovakia, and others to distance themselves from Russia’s May 9th Victory Day events reflects a broader shift in Europe’s historical narrative—where moral clarity about the past is increasingly muddled by present-day political alignment. Soviet and Russian Wartime Legacy
Every year, I take the time to honor the Soviet Victory over Fascist Germany, particularly when I am in Georgia, a country with the highest percentage of war dead for its small size. With over 330,000 Georgian soldiers killed or missing during WW2 out of 770,000 men sent to the front, from a population of 4.5 million, these men simply disappeared and never returned. May 9th is, not surprisingly, a revered public holiday in Georgia, despite the sometimes difficult post-Soviet relationship with Russia, and is so in the face of stiff opposition from some Western countries.
Now this pressure is spreading like a cancer, and it is going to be interesting to see which Eastern European countries, at least those who have indicated they will attend the celebrations of the pivotal Soviet victory over Nazism, held annually in Moscow, will actually show up or cave into European Union threats.
The overt anti-Russian racism of EU leaders, no longer confined to current events such as the SMO, is now spreading into historical events, with refusal to attend the 9th of May Victory Day Celebration by most European countries, and the threatening others who want to attend, like Serbia, i.e., that their EU membership will be in jeopardy or leadership will be punished, and Hungary and Slovakia who have been warned of unnamed “EU sanctions, all of which is further proof that fascism is alive and well in Europe—and on the comeback!”
Not all Germans or French are the same, but some are, as I often call them, real shits–they don’t know their own history, and we all know what they say about their fate–doomed for a repeat performance. Or, perhaps they do, and some want to pick up where their grandfathers, ancestors, left off!
That’s a bold and emotionally charged statement, tongue in cheek, touching on some deep tensions in contemporary European politics and my personal and the collective memory.
I am very personally very upset, especially considering my father fought in WW2, and he was severely wounded in this war, right before the Battle of a Bulge, which by happenstance saved him. He was an Army Newsreel Cameraman, a military journalist.
Of 96 men in his US Army Signal Corps outfit, only four survived the war, so I can personally appreciate the losses that the Soviet Army, and people suffered, at least 26 million, and some say the loses were even higher. They were representatives of 15 republics giving their all to defend humanity from the Germans and their erstwhile fascist allies, especially the Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Finnish and Japanese.
I am sure he would agree with me as to what should be described as historical amnesia or hypocrisy, and especially petty, particularly in how Victory Day—commemorating the defeat of fascism in 1945—is now treated in much of Europe and the western world.
My father survived as he was in an Army field hospital in the rear being operated on and recovering from his many wounds, from him, his driver and their Willis Jeep being tossed through the air from the blast of a German landmine—he was lucky, two others in the same jeep did not survive!
Modern Importance
The importance of Victory Day to the people of Russia, and most other former Soviet republics, is exemplified in the way it is commemorated, with the most moving part being the “Immortal Regiment”. Founded in 2012, the Immortal Regiment consists of people parading with photos of their ancestors who died in the Great Patriotic War, or who survived and passed away in more recent years. Starting in Russia, this movement has spread worldwide, and is particularly strong in most of the former members of the USSR, particularly in Georgia and Armenia, but not, it must be noted, in Ukraine, where the commemoration is forbidden and Nazi volunteers of the SS Galicia Division and the Banderite fascists of the OUN are instead venerated.
It is, unfortunately, no surprise that the western view of such memorials to the heroic Soviet soldiers of the 15 Soviet Republics of the USSR has been uniformly negative, with this grassroots display of solemn remembrance rudely dismissed as “Kremlin propaganda” by Western leaders and media, with outright propaganda agencies like Radio Free Europe even describing it as a “Quasi-Religious cult”, a description far more appropriate to the West’s new secular religion of LGBTQ worship and the mutilation of children.
Such is the importance of May 9th that Vladimir Putin has announced a unilateral three-day ceasefire, running from midnight on May 7th to midnight on May 10th. Ukraine’s dictator Zelensky immediately rejected the ceasefire and demanded a full 30-day unconditional ceasefire, while Donald Trump responded by demanding a permanent truce.
There are several interesting things to unpack here. The first is that this ceasefire has been offered at all, particularly after the repeated Ukrainian violations of the original energy infrastructure 20-day ceasefire, and the more recent Easter ceasefire the Russians proposed. In the former, the Ukrainians continued to attack Russian energy infrastructure, seemingly unrestrained by their western backers (or should we say puppet masters at this stage…)
As Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova stated:
“We also note that Zelensky has publicly stated that he accepts the initiative to abandon strikes on energy infrastructure and supports the proposal of the White House. But in fact, he gave the opposite order — not to stop the strikes, but, on the contrary, to inflict new ones,” the diplomat stressed, going on to say “It is absolutely clear that we are talking about another provocation specially prepared by the Kiev regime aimed at disrupting peace initiatives, including those put forward by the US president. Zelensky once again violated the understanding reached and thereby confirmed his complete incompetence,”
The same story was repeated at Easter, with Ukraine reportedly violating the ceasefire nearly 1300 times, with Zakharova officially stating:
“Well, the Kiev regime failed to observe it during Easter,” Zakharova wrote on the Telegram. “Moreover, the [Ukrainian government] has violated the truce using American HIMARS systems,” she added. “It is not a coincidence, but a pattern: during the moratorium on strikes on energy facilities, Zelensky – despite having agreed to it – was deliberately targeting civilian energy infrastructure,” Zakharova wrote.
In regard to the proposed Victory Day truce, Vladimir Putin himself warned that any violations would be responded to strongly, stating:
“In the event of violations by the Ukrainian side, Russia’s armed forces will give an adequate and effective response.”
Trump’s demands in response, this time through his US National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes, are sounding increasingly desperate:
“While President Trump welcomes Vladimir Putin’s willingness to pause the conflict, the president has been very clear he wants a permanent ceasefire and to bring this conflict to a peaceful resolution,”
The simple fact of the matter is, that the Ukrainians, and their western backers, have already lost, but being in denial of this fact, they continue to make demands. I am surprised by Russian patience in this regard, but perhaps that is because I have become jaded by decades of western duplicity and dictates towards others, but I am sure Russia’s patience is making a point. Russia is prepared for a final peace deal, but only one that addresses its requirements, one that will ensure an ongoing and permanent peace, rather than the western desire for a pause, like the Normandy and Minsk agreements, which were simply used to rearm and reorganize the Ukrainian army. Needless to say, Russia is wise to this game by now, and will no longer play it.
Russia is now in a position to dictate peace terms, and there is no reason for him to agree to a false ceasefire that will only allow for Ukraine to continue the war. Russian mistrust of the west can only be reinforced by the insane ravings of Republican Senator John Kennedy, stating:
“I think he thinks we’re afraid of him,” Sen. Kennedy said of Russia’s leader. “He has jacked around President Trump at every turn. He has disrespected our president. I don’t think it’s gonna get any better until we make it clear to Mr. Putin that we are willing to turn him and his country into fish food.”
In the face of such delusional intransigence, it seems Russia’s only option is to de-Nazify Ukraine all the ways to its western borders.
Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union
