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"In today’s Russia, the memory of World War II has become a state religion. Russians call it Pobedobesie, a blend of 'victory' and 'madness.' And madness is exactly what it is," writes Pekka Kallioniemi in his May 9 op-ed for The Baltic Sentinel.
Every year on May 9th, Russians gather to celebrate Victory Day with grand military parades, patriotic songs, and Soviet nostalgia. Fighter jets thunder over Red Square, children in miniature uniforms salute veterans. Tanks roll across cities as if war never ended.
To many outsiders, this looks like harmless tradition: national pride in a historic triumph over fascism. But that’s a dangerously naive view. What Russia holds on May 9th is a ritual of power. A rehearsed performance that feeds a toxic worldview.
In today’s Russia, the memory of World War II has been twisted into a state religion. The regime brands it as patriotism, but it’s closer to brainwashing. Russians call the phenomenon Pobedobesie, a combination of “victory” and “madness.” And madness is exactly what it is.
It’s a name for the cult-like obsession with the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II. And while pride in a nation’s past is normal, in Russia it runs significantly deeper than that. It’s about controlling the present by rewriting the past.
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This obsession is crucial for reinforcing the empire, legitimizing violence, silencing dissents, and masking failure with myth. The Kremlin’s entire narrative rests on the idea that Russia, as the eternal vanquisher of fascism, can never be wrong. And that lie has become a weapon, as dangerous as a tank. Russia’s historical narrative is built on deliberate amnesia. The Soviet Union did defeat Nazi Germany, but only after signing a pact with Hitler to carve up Eastern Europe. That truth is airbrushed out of Russian textbooks, museums, and media.
Let’s pause on the name itself: “The Great Patriotic War.” That’s what Russians call their part of World War II. Not “World War II,” but this carefully tailored phrase, loaded with emotional weight and political purpose. The name tells us everything about how the Kremlin wants Russians to remember the past.
It is originally a bigger, deadlier echo of Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, known as The Patriotic War. Another existential threat. Another foreign invader. Another righteous victory. Used not to mourn the past, but to justify the future.
In Russian history books, the war begins on June 22, 1941, the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. That’s when the “Great Patriotic War” officially starts. But in reality, the war began almost two years earlier, on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. And just seventeen days later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland too under a secret deal made with Hitler.
Yes, the USSR and Nazi Germany were allies at the start of the war. That’s the part you won’t find in Russian school textbooks or televised parades. That part is inconvenient. It complicates the simple story Russia wants to tell: that it was always the victim, never the aggressor, always the liberator, never the occupier.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939, was a carve-up of Eastern Europe behind closed doors. Poland was split in two. The Baltic states were marked for Soviet occupation, which began the following year.
But in the official Russian narrative, none of this exists. The war didn’t begin until Hitler turned on Stalin. Before that? Silence. Omission. Erasure. By starting the clock in 1941, Russia avoids having to explain its collaboration with a fascist regime. It skips over the invasions, the occupations, and the betrayals. It gets to present itself as the savior of Europe, full stop.
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The Soviet war machine didn’t stop when it reached Berlin. It stayed in Central and Eastern Europe. It deported hundreds of thousands, crushed uprisings, and turned nations into satellite states.
Today, you won’t find a single mention of those horrors in Moscow. Question the state-approved version of history and you risk arrest. Deny the myth and you’re branded a traitor.
The victory myth is useful for the Kremlin because it erases moral complexity. It flattens all of history into a single message: Russia = good, enemies = Nazis. That logic is now used to justify crimes in the present.
When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, it claimed it was “defending Russian speakers.” In Crimea in 2014, it said it was protecting people from a “fascist coup.” In 2022, when it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it claimed to be “de-Nazifying” the country.
That Ukraine has a Jewish president didn’t matter. That the real fascism came from the invading army didn’t matter. All that mattered was the narrative: World War II never ended, and Russia is always on the right side. It’s a myth that became a license to kill.
This mythology has bled into every corner of life. From kindergartens with children reenacting the storming of Berlin, to old women sewing pro-war symbols onto their coats. And it doesn’t stop at Russia’s borders.
In the Baltic states we see another side of this story. After decades of Soviet occupation, these countries regained independence in the early 1990s. But across their cities stood giant Soviet war memorials: tanks, soldiers, stars.
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To Russians these were naturally sacred and an indispensable part of their identity. Symbols of liberation. But to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, they are symbols of an empire, occupation, and lost independence. The Kremlin views acts of removing them as personal attacks and of course an encroachment to The Myth. Russian officials call it “historical vandalism.” Propaganda channels howl about “Russophobia.” Cyberattacks follow. Because for the Kremlin, Soviet monuments are imperial totems. Losing them feels like losing control.
Not so much about mourning history as it is about mourning lost dominance.
Russia has become a place where the past is frozen, weaponized, and repeated. World War II remembrance manifests in replaying it. And the consequences fall on its neighbors.
A testament to how dangerous this myth is can be witnessed in Ukraine today, where Russian armored vehicles roll with Soviet flags, as if the crewmen view this as some historical reenactment. In this worldview, Russia is always liberating, even when it's invading.
The West must stop treating Russia’s weaponized history as a domestic issue or cultural quirk. Pobedobesie is statecraft, an ideological foundation for war. Any meaningful strategy toward Russia must begin by understanding how the past is manipulated to serve today’s aggression.
That means confronting false narratives head-on and amplifying the histories Moscow so desperately tries to erase. It means standing with nations, like Ukraine, like the Baltic states, that refuse to have their memory dictated from Moscow.
If we fail to challenge the story, we will keep losing the plot. And the next time tanks roll under a red banner, the world will again be told it’s a liberation.