During the webinar, participants learned how historical narratives can be manipulated for political purposes and how World War II history is used in Russian propaganda to justify today's military actions in Ukraine.
Dr Bartlomiej Gajos, a specialist in USSR history and the politics of memory, analysed the mechanisms by which Russia constructs its World War II narrative. He stressed that Russian memory policy is based on the uniqueness of the ‘Great Patriotic War’, the celebration of victory and the minimisation of certain aspects of the conflict, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the repression of Central and Eastern European countries after 1945.
Key elements of history manipulation
The speaker pointed out key elements of the propaganda message, such as the figure of 27 million victims, the militaristic celebrations on 9 May or the narrative ‘we can repeat the victory over the Nazis’, which stands in contrast to the Western slogan ‘No more war’. He also showed how the war in Ukraine was framed within this narrative through the use of the term ‘denazification’ and comparisons of current events to the struggle against the Third Reich.
“The Russians do not want to convince themselves that they are exceptional because they won the Third Reich, they also want to convince the outside world that they are exceptional because they did it.”
During the interactive part of the webinar, participants were able to analyse the war loss statistics of the various republics of the USSR, noting that the largest percentage cost of the war was borne by people of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationality, undermining Russia’s monopoly on the narrative of World War II victory and victims.
Countering disinformation
The webinar concluded with a presentation on methods to counter disinformation, including the use of EUvsDisinfo resources and the educational platform Hi-Story Lessons. Dr Gajos also provided teachers with a set of exercises that can help students critically analyse historical messages and distinguish between memory and history.
You can use already existing resources published in Disinformation of the Russian Federation section
This is one example of such an exercise:
Exercise 1
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian elites emphasize during the Victory Day celebrations on May 9 that “we lost 27 million people” in this conflict. Answer the following
questions:
a) Determine why the end of the war is commemorated on May 8 in Europe but on May 9 in Russia.
b) President Putin says, “we lost”—who exactly does he mean by “we”?
c) Find data on the Soviet Union’s losses during World War II and verify whether the figure of 27 million given by Putin aligns with expert estimates.
d) Below, you will find a statistical table showing the Soviet Union’s losses according to individual national republics. Determine which republic suffered the greatest losses in absolute numbers, and then calculate which republic suffered the highest percentage of losses relative to its total population.
e) Based on your answers to question d), formulate your own response regarding whether Vladimir Putin has the right to say, “we lost 27 million people.”
The webinar highlighted the importance of an international approach to history education and the need to build a narrative based on facts rather than emotions or political manipulation.
Recording from the webinar „Weaponizing the Past: Russia’s use of WWII in its aggression against Ukraine.” from the 19 February 2025