In the heart of Moscow, as the sun dipped on a Saturday afternoon, the names of both Zelenskyy and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, found their place on the ministry’s roster of individuals wanted on unspecified criminal charges. Alongside them stood the figure of Ukraine’s ground forces commander, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk.
Russian officials maintained a veil of ambiguity around the accusations against these men. According to Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, the names of Zelenskyy and Poroshenko had graced the list since late February.
In a swift rebuttal, Ukraine’s foreign ministry, in an online statement released the same day, dismissed the reports of Zelenskyy’s inclusion as mere manifestations of “the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda.”
The wanted list compiled by Russia extended its reach to encompass numerous officials and lawmakers from Ukraine and NATO-affiliated nations. Among them stood Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of NATO and EU member Estonia, a vocal proponent for increased military support to Kyiv and stricter sanctions against Moscow.
Russian authorities alleged that Kallas found herself on the list due to Tallinn’s efforts to dismantle Soviet-era monuments to Red Army soldiers in the Baltic nation, a belated act of cleansing of what many perceive as symbols of past oppression.
Fellow NATO constituents Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have also embarked on similar initiatives, tearing down monuments deemed as unwelcome remnants of Soviet occupation.
Russian legislation includes provisions criminalizing the “rehabilitation of Nazism,” extending to the “desecration” of war memorials. Among those listed are cabinet ministers from Estonia and Lithuania, alongside the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, who in the previous year drafted a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on charges of war crimes. Additionally, Moscow has leveled accusations against the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, branding his actions as “terrorist” endeavors, citing Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian infrastructure.
The Kremlin’s narrative consistently attempts to tether Ukraine’s leadership to Nazism, despite the country boasting a democratically elected Jewish president, who himself lost relatives in the Holocaust. Furthermore, many Ukrainians aspire to fortify the nation’s democracy, combat corruption, and forge closer ties with the West.
Moscow articulates “de-Nazification, de-militarization, and a neutral status” for Ukraine as the cornerstone objectives of what it terms a “special military operation” against its southern neighbor. The notion of “de-Nazification” hinges on Russia’s unfounded claims of radical nationalist and neo-Nazi influences within Ukraine’s governance—a notion vehemently refuted by Kyiv and its Western allies.
For Putin, leveraging the Holocaust, World War II, and Nazism has served as instrumental strategies in legitimizing Russia’s engagement in the Ukrainian conflict. World War II, a conflict in which the Soviet Union endured an estimated loss of 27 million lives, holds a pivotal position in Russia’s national identity, with officials fiercely guarding against any challenge to the USSR’s historical role.
Some historians posit that Russia’s narrative is coupled with efforts to revise certain historical truths from the war. Allegations include magnifying the Soviet contribution to defeating the Nazis while downplaying any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews, along with allegations of misconduct by Red Army soldiers against civilians in Eastern Europe.