Putin’s cult of war

This idolisation of the Soviet military is Russia’s modern tragedy. Not least because it is crucial to Putin’s way of controlling the country. Russians are prodded to believe in a golden thread linking the achievements of an unsullied Red Army with what their soldiers are perpetrating in Ukraine today.

This is why it was entirely to be expected that at today’s Victory Day parade Putin again couched his so-called ‘special military operation’ in terms of a fight against ‘Nazis’. It’s also why the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has compared Ukraine’s Jewish president to Hitler. And why the hi-tech killing equipment trundling across Red Square this morning was led by an antique T-34 tank from the ‘Great Patriotic War’, as it is known in Russia.

The cult of that war, which Putin has assiduously fed to his people, serves multiple purposes. The most important is that it is perhaps the only idea that the Kremlin can draw upon to unite a colossal nation experiencing grossly differing living standards, rampant corruption, and thorough-going disenchantment with politics of all stripes.