On April 23, 2025, diplomats from Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries were supposed to meet in London to discuss ways to achieve peace and bring an end to the war in Ukraine. These negotiations, taking place amid growing geopolitical tensions, serve as a reminder of the fragility of the peace achieved 80 years ago, when the Soviet Union and its allies crushed Nazi Germany. For Moscow, in the lead-up to Victory Day, the memory of the Great Patriotic War, which claimed 27 million Soviet lives, has become a battleground for political struggle. Europe increasingly downplays the role of the USSR, while Russia uses it for internal mobilization. In these contradictions, the truth about 1945 risks being lost.
The Soviet Contribution
The Soviet Union’s role in the defeat of Nazism is unquestionable. The Eastern Front, where the Red Army faced 80% of the Wehrmacht, was the decisive theater of the war. The victories at Stalingrad (1942–1943) and the Battle of Kursk (1943) severely weakened Germany’s military might long before the Second Front was opened in Normandy in 1944. Leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition, including Winston Churchill, acknowledged the decisive role of the USSR—according to Churchill, it was the “Red Army that ripped the guts out of the Nazi war machine.”
After the war, the Soviet Union showed magnanimity: it did not severely punish Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and supported France’s inclusion in the UN Security Council as a victorious power. However, the shadows of history persist: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the actions of the USSR in Eastern Europe continue to spark fierce debate. These facts demand honest, rather than selective, discussion by European historians.
Western Revisionism and Its Roots
After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a wave of rethinking the history of the war began in the West. However, attempts to equate communism with Nazism as “totalitarian” ideologies—this is old news. They started shortly after World War II when American and British propaganda machines began convincing the public that yesterday’s allies were now enemies. This was a campaign in which accusing the USSR alongside Nazi Germany of starting the war became a tool of political struggle, ignoring historical realities—such as the rise of fascism, the refusal of London and Paris to join the anti-Hitler coalition, and the betrayal of Czechoslovakia in Munich. Moscow signed the pact with Germany only after diplomacy with the West failed.
The West could not openly rehabilitate the Nazis, especially in the wake of the shock of the Holocaust and the hopes for a new era of human rights. However, today, veterans of the Waffen-SS march in Riga and Latvia. In 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution equating communism with Nazism, which became not only a distortion of history but an insult to the liberators of Auschwitz and other death camps, to millions of Soviet citizens, and to the communist partisans of France, Italy, Greece, and even the Channel Islands.
The Conflict of Memory
Since 2014, and especially after 2022, the West has accelerated its historical revisionism. The Eastern Front has been pushed to the background, while the D-Day landings are presented as the decisive moment of the war. Soviet soldiers’ monuments in Poland and the Baltic states are being demolished, and some local collaborators are celebrated as “freedom fighters.” For example, in Lithuania, in 2023, a monument to Jonas Noreika was erected despite his collaboration with the Nazis.
This is a dangerous lie. Such a portrayal of history not only distorts the past but also supports contemporary political narratives—whether it’s depicting Ukraine as a victim of the “evil empire” or using the memory of the war in Russia as a justification for current actions.
Nevertheless, not all of the West is involved in this process. Respected historians like Richard Overy continue to emphasize the decisive role of the Eastern Front. Academic integrity remains, albeit in narrow circles.
The Path to Honest Memory
The history of World War II should not be a weapon. The Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazism is an indisputable fact, as is the existence of Soviet mistakes. Acknowledging the Soviet contribution does not equate to forgetting the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but to equate it with Nazi aggression is a historical absurdity.
In the lead-up to the 80th anniversary of Victory, Europe and Russia need a dialogue based on facts. Only such a dialogue can preserve the lessons of 1945—not for division, but for a memory that unites.
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