Putin rewrites the past to justify the war – Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation
The Kremlin is once again attempting to explain the war against Ukraine through “historical roots.” Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation (CCD) stresses that Putin deliberately distorts history to justify aggression, killings, and destruction, with archives serving merely as a convenient propaganda tool.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin continues to use history as a justification for the war against Ukraine. According to the CCD under Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, discussions about “archives” and “historical documents” mask yet another attempt to legitimise aggression and war crimes.
The reaction follows a statement by the head of Rosarchiv, Andrei Artizov, who spoke about Putin’s supposed special regard for historical sources. “Putin enjoys reading authentic archival documents and understands the historical roots of the Ukrainian issue,” Artizov said.
The CCD emphasises that the issue is not the reading of documents itself, but how the Kremlin presents and interprets them. In Russian propaganda, history has long ceased to be a scientific discipline and has become a set of convenient myths. “Propaganda presents history as a collection of myths about a ‘single people,’ the ‘artificial Ukraine,’ and ‘historical territories,’” the Centre notes.
Experts argue that such “interpretation” creates the illusion that the war is the result of millennia-old processes. In reality, it is the outcome of the decisions of one person — Vladimir Putin — who launched a full-scale war.
The CCD highlights that the Kremlin deliberately shifts the focus away from the real causes of aggression. Instead of discussing invasion, missiles, destroyed cities, and civilian deaths, Russians and the world are presented with abstract ideas of “historical justice.” “The dictator extracts from these fantasies the ‘root causes of the war,’ which then serve to justify killings, city destruction, and the suffering of peaceful Ukrainians,” experts say.
The Centre warns that this rhetoric is dangerous not only for Ukraine. It sets a precedent in which any act of aggression can be justified with fabricated historical arguments. “Perhaps, if Putin relied on facts from verified historical sources rather than imperial distortions, the world would be a safer place,” the CCD concluded.
