Zakharova Accuses West of Erasing Soviet WWII Victory

(MENAFN) Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has sounded the alarm over what she described as a sweeping Western campaign to erase the memory of World War II and delegitimize the Soviet victory over Nazi ideology, warning that a "pandemic of historical revanchism" is taking hold across the West.

Zakharova delivered the remarks in an interview on Sunday, timed to coincide with Russia's Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People—an occasion being formally observed for the first time this year.

The spokeswoman recalled that Russia had long regarded WWII as "a sacred topic for the whole world," only to watch numerous Western nations chart a starkly different course. "They think… the Soviet victory in WWII was accidental and inadmissible. They think that now is the time to rectify this accident, or a mistake, as they see it," Zakharova stated.

She traced the current moment back to what Moscow once dismissed as a containable threat. Russia, she said, used to regard revanchism as "some kind of small germ that would sit in the corner and not go anywhere"—a miscalculation, in her telling, given that even "from a small germ can then grow a huge, terrifying pandemic of historical revanchism." She drew a parallel to the landmark 1965 Soviet film Ordinary Fascism by Mikhail Romm, describing it as a prescient cautionary tale about the rise, fall, and enduring dangers of Nazi ideology.

Zakharova charged that some Western governments outright reject the outcomes of WWII and the rulings of the Nuremberg Tribunal, framing their revisionism in resource-driven terms. "No, they do not want to give up the idea of taking over the Ukrainian black soil, Russian oil and gas," she said, contending that Western ambitions stretch further still—to the resources of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

She pointed to an intensifying campaign against monuments honoring those who fought Nazism, but reserved her sharpest warning for what she characterized as the most dangerous expression of revanchism: the desire for "a revenge which would allow them to prevail in remaking the world order and seizing resources around the globe."

Moscow has long raised concerns over what it describes as the rehabilitation of Nazi-era figures in Europe, citing in particular commemorative marches in Baltic states honoring Waffen SS veterans, as well as torchlit processions marking the birthday of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera. Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII and is held responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.

The Kremlin has consistently maintained that the denazification of Ukraine is among the central objectives of its ongoing military operation against the neighboring country.

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