The Nazi condemning Nazism: The hypocrisy of Vladimir Putin’s victory speech

Vladimir Putin and his Russian forces showed off their military might as their victory day parade celebrations got underway in the Red Square of Moscow. 

It has been 77 years since the end of the Great Patriotic War for Russia which saw a costly campaign result in the end of Nazi tyranny over Europe. 

27 million Soviets gave their lives to ensure the complete defeat of Nazism in Europe, with Putin commending the efforts of the Russian people as well as the allied powers of Britain, France, and The United States of America. 

However, these days, Putin is acting like Hitler with his abhorrent invasion of Ukraine, which he compares to the Soviet victory in 1945.  

The invasion is being compared to 1945 in a positive way by Putin, but darker comparisons can be drawn with the horrific war crimes committed by Russian forces today similar to what was witnessed by Germans and Eastern Europeans in response to Nazi atrocities towards the end of the Second World War. 

While Putin laid flowers for the dead Russian troops that have fought and fallen in Ukraine, air raid sirens were going off all round Kyiv as well as 60 people lying dead under the rubble of a school in the Luhansk region after a bomb struck, causing the building to be engulfed in flames.

Amnesty International has also found evidence of war crimes including arbitrary killings, bombardments of residences and torture while the World Health Organization has documented 200 attacks on medical centers throughout the country. 

Putin justified these atrocities by claiming that it was simply ‘defending the motherland’, and that Western troop build-ups along the Russian border was enough reasoning to launch an attack on Ukraine.  

The hypocrisy becomes even clearer for Putin with his attempt to ‘de-nazify’ as Ukraine is headed by the democratically elected and Jewish President Zelensky which, despite far-right elements in the Ukrainian military, clearly shows that Ukraine is not a Nazi led country.  

Putin has even sent in Nazi paramilitary organizations, known as the Wagner Group, which have been accused of firing on fleeing civilians in the city of Popasna. 

With all this evidence, it is clear that Putin appears to embody the very thing that he is trying to destroy in Ukraine: A Nazi.