The report examines how Russia uses the history of the Second World War as a tool of propaganda and disinformation across different language versions of its state-controlled media outlet, Sputnik. By comparing the narratives in the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian editions, this analysis demonstrates how Russian historical policy adapts its content to local audiences, reinforcing anti-Western, anti-American, and pro-Kremlin messages.
The authors argue that a key element of this strategy is the sacralisation of the “Great Patriotic War” and the heroisation of the USSR as the sole victor over Nazism, while simultaneously obscuring Moscow’s co-responsibility for the outbreak of the war (the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, the invasion of Poland) and relativising Soviet crimes, including the Katyn massacre. The analysis also shows that Russian media consistently construct a narrative of victimhood, accusing the West of “falsifying history” and “erasing the memory of Soviet sacrifice.”
The report reveals how these same historical themes are embedded in a broader anti-American discourse, including through the reinterpretation of the U.S. use of nuclear weapons, which in Sputnik’s messaging becomes a symbol of “American moral and nuclear monopoly.”
The study provides an in-depth look at Russian historical disinformation and its use in shaping public opinion in the Middle East. It demonstrates how the myth of victory over Nazism has become an ideological instrument of the Kremlin—used not only to legitimise the war in Ukraine, but also to build support for Russian policy among Arab, Turkish, and Iranian audiences.
