Every May 9, Russian president Vladimir Putin flexes his country’s military might with a grandiose, propagandistic display to mark the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin regularly appeals to a distorted history of the Second World War to justify Russia’s revanchist foreign policy, and it is high time for the United Kingdom and the United States to counter the Russian dictator’s exploitation of the past.

According to Putin’s version of history, the Soviet experience in World War II is a foundation stone for Russian exceptionalism: having lost millions of lives in a horrific conflict, Russia emerged set apart from other countries as a global savior uniquely qualified to combat Nazism yesterday and today. 

Putin has infused the May 9 “Victory Day” celebrations with spiritual significance, branding the day a “sacred holiday” and declaring 2025 the “Year of the Defender of the Fatherland.” This narrative has great resonance among Russians, who retain a profound emotional connection to the conflict as countless families have lost loved ones.

The Kremlin’s narrative about World War II is based on a selective reading of history. It ignores, for example, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany cooperated to divide and conquer Poland. The aftermath of this pact and a subsequent trade agreement witnessed extensive commerce between the Soviets and Nazis. More poignantly, it saw the infamous Katyn Massacre of 1940, in which the Soviets executed over 20,000 Poles.

The Russian narrative imagines that the war began only after the Nazis betrayed their erstwhile ally. Furthermore, according to Putin’s conception of history, the Poles were fascist sympathisers heroically saved from Nazi tyranny by Soviet intervention. There is no room for criticism of Soviet actions. Defending former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s actions during the war, Putin once declared that “nobody can now throw stones at those who organized and stood at the head of this victory.” 

In 2014, Russia’s parliament passed a law mandating up to five years in prison for “spreading intentionally false information about the Soviet Union’s actions during World War II.”

Beneath the façade of concern with fighting fascism, Putin leverages this narrative to justify Russia’s aggressive foreign policy. Indeed, Russia has tried to convince the world that its war against Ukraine is a continuation of the fight against the Nazis. By cloaking his revanchist wars in anti-fascist dress, Putin perversely presents his aggression as a defense against tyranny.

Putin also uses historical propaganda to attack his Western adversaries. In 2019, for example, Putin characterised former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a hypocrite, stating: “[R]emember Churchill, who at first hated the Soviet Union, then called Joseph Stalin a great revolutionary when it was necessary to fight Nazism, and after the Americans got nuclear weapons, he called for the immediate destruction of the Soviet Union.” The Kremlin has argued that the American and British bombing of the German city of Dresden “can be compared to Nazi atrocities,” portraying the Soviet military as more noble by contrast.

The UK and the US should counter the Kremlin’s shameless exploitation of World War II. Recently, the Trump administration took a meaningful step toward this end, with president Trump declaring May 8 “Victory Day” in the United States. 

When announcing Victory Day, Trump declared that “nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance,” thereby hitting Putin and his lackeys in a sensitive spot. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, called Trump’s statement “pretentious nonsense.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the Soviet Union “would have defeated the Nazis regardless” of American intervention.

The United Kingdom and its allies should launch offensive influence operations to undermine Putin’s efforts to use World War II propaganda to shape Western perceptions of Russia’s foreign policy and put Moscow on the defensive.

For example, London should needle Putin and his cronies through satire and revive Soviet-era jokes about Stalin. The information space in Russia should be filled with the famous Stalin slogan “Life has become better, comrades!” and adapted to the current situation to remind the Russians of the lack of freedom and economic hardships under Putin. 

Just as Adolf Hitler hated Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator film, the Kremlin loathes the 2017 movie The Death of Stalin. Russia’s Culture Ministry banned it for mocking Russian history and “humiliating the Russian people.” Now, the UK should strengthen a public-private effort between the British Government and the British film industry and produce a humorous movie about the Great Dictator Putin. Similar to how Stalin imprisoned people for telling disrespectful jokes, Putin approved a law that threatens to jail people for “disrespecting government.”

Tyranny is no laughing matter, but time and again humour has proven an effective antidote to dictatorship. The UK should launch a concerted effort to make Putin the butt of many jokes.