The reasons for Russia’s war against Ukraine are not particularly hard to guess. Whatever Putin may claim, he does not see Ukraine (or indeed NATO) as a genuine military threat. However, the Kremlin probably does fear the dangerous example that could be set by a prosperous Slavic, partially Russian-speaking, democracy on Russia’s doorstep. It might give ordinary Russians ideas of a type they are not allowed to have.
But it also seems clear that the creation (de jure or de facto) of a ‘Greater Russia’ made up of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine is now high on Putin’s agenda. The main reason, simple revanchism apart, for the Kremlin to work towards that end would be the added heft such a union would give to Russia globally, thanks to the territory, population, and resources it would bring under Moscow’s control.
That’s why Putin has gone to some lengths to claim that Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians are one ‘triune’ people rather than three distinct, if connected, nationalities, an argument he summarized in a paper — On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians — published last year (spoiler: much of the ‘history’ contained within it is . . . unreliable).
In itself, such claims have a touch of the ‘Greater Germany’ talk that was so popular in Berlin for a while in the course of the last century. That’s a touch awkward, given that another Russian ‘justification’ for this war is that it is attempting to ‘denazify’ Ukraine. Ludicrous from the get-go, this claim has aged particularly badly following a series of Russian atrocities and clear evidence that their war has crossed the threshold into genocide.
Perhaps that explains why Moscow feels it necessary to assert that its war against Ukraine is a war against Satan.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia’s war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna…
Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting “crazy Nazi drug addicts” in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had “saliva running down their chins from degeneracy”…
In a message marking Russia’s Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to “stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he uses – Satan, Lucifer or Iblis”.
Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said Russia had different weapons, including the ability to “send all our enemies to fiery Gehenna”, using a Hebrew term often translated as Hell…
If some reports are accurate, Medvedev is fairly well acquainted with one devil, demon rum. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that he would have used this sort of language without at least the tacit approval of the Kremlin.
And he is not alone in having done so.
State-owned Russian newspaper TASS reported Tuesday that Aleksei Pavlov, an assistant secretary on the Security Council of Russia, has called for the “desatanization” of Ukraine.
“I believe that with the continuation of the special military operation, it becomes more and more urgent to carry out the desatanization of Ukraine,” Pavlov said.
According to TASS, Pavlov said he didn’t know how many covens of satanists there were in Ukraine but that he expected it to be in the hundreds…
Claims of Ukrainian and Western Satanism are part of the media landscape in Russia. When Putin announced the illegal annexation of territory in east Ukraine, he accused the West of “outright Satanism.” In May, the Kremlin-owned news organization RIA Novosti claimed it discovered the remnants of a witches coven where Ukrainian soldiers consecrated weapons with blood magick. “A satanic seal was found on its wall, evoking associations with Hollywood films about evil spirits,” RIA said at the time.
Whether Medvedev and others believe in the literal truth of what they are saying (I’d like to think not, but…) or whether this is a not-so-veiled reference to Russia — ‘the Third Rome,’ according to an ancient conceit — as a supposed defender of Christian values against the decadent West and its Ukrainian proxies is hard to say. Nevertheless, the apocalyptic undertones (and not just undertones) accompanying this sort of talk are worth noting.