Alongside the horrors of the war in Ukraine, many in the west have been confused by the insistence from Russian president Vladimir Putin that he is trying to free the country from “Nazi control”, accusing his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his supporters of crimes against the people of Ukraine.
On the face of it, Putin’s allegations seem bizarre, not least because Zelensky is Jewish and has said that members of his family were killed during the second world war. While it’s true Ukraine has had issues with the far right within its borders, there is no evidence to support what seem wild claims.
But for students of 20th-century history, Putin’s rhetoric should be no surprise. It stems from the end of the second world war and in some ways was anticipated in 1945 by a British foreign correspondent who had spent the key years of the war reporting from Moscow.
