Stalingrad: Russia looks to its past to legitimize its offensive

80 years have passed, but the sacrifice of Soviet soldiers against the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad still defines the city that became Volgograd. Now, Russian power is trying to inscribe its assault on Ukraine in this heritage.

It is an understatement to say that the city on the banks of the Volga is still marked by this titanic confrontation which caused more than a million deaths on the Soviet side in 1942-1943, and marked the beginning of the end for the regime of Adolf Hitler. Even today, the steppes surrounding the city surrender hundreds of bodies of soldiers from both sides every year.

“In 2022, more than 1,200 Red Army soldiers were found” and only thirty identified, explains to AFP Andreï Orechkine, who organizes excavations to find these bodies and give them a burial.

For Russians, Stalingrad has become synonymous with victory over Nazism, and the battle is also central to the patriotism promoted by the Kremlin.

As Russia prepares to celebrate the 80th anniversary of this victory on Thursday, the government wants to take the opportunity to inscribe in this heritage its assault on Ukraine, launched almost a year ago. Since the start of the offensive, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly hammered home that his neighbor must be “denazified”, calling the Ukrainian authorities “neo-Nazis” determined to exterminate Russian speakers.

Many in Russia sided with this message. Among them, Andreï Orechkine. “It is obvious that we are fighting fascism” in Ukraine, he told AFP, from the Rossochka cemetery, near Volgograd, where the Soviet, German and Romanian dead of Stalingrad are buried.

For him, the West, by supporting Ukraine, is also making a mistake similar to the Nazis. “At the time, Nazi Germany and its allies had underestimated the specificities of the Soviet Union, its power and the patriotism of its people,” he analyzes. And “today the West hopes that Russia is weak,” concludes Orechkin.

In the streets of Volgograd, the symbols honoring the Red Army now rub shoulders with those of the troops engaged in Ukraine, these letters “Z” and “V” which adorn many Russian military vehicles. The Stalingrad Battle Museum is no exception, hosting decoration ceremonies for the families of soldiers killed in Ukraine.

“The message is this: the ancestors of the people (killed on the Ukrainian front) fought fascism,” explains Tatiana Prikaztchikova, an employee of the museum, showing a panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad. “They are the heirs of this tradition, because in reality they also fight fascism,” she says.

If the inhabitants of Volgograd interviewed by AFP are generally in favor of the holding of sumptuous commemorations of the Battle of Stalingrad on Thursday, with the probable presence of Vladimir Putin, many are much less comfortable talking about the ‘Ukraine.

Ekaterina Sedova, whose great-grandfather fought in Stalingrad, notes that she does not want to “mix” things. This 21-year-old chemistry student adds that she does not learn too much about Ukraine “so as not to hurt herself psychologically”.

Vyacheslav Yashchenko, a historian of Volgograd, notes that the ceremonies of recent years celebrating Stalingrad are much more pompous than in Soviet times, and he is concerned that this year they may be used to promote the Russian assault against his neighbor. “It’s unacceptable to draw such parallels,” he told AFP, despite repression in Russia where criticizing the Russian offensive is punishable by prison.

“The authorities use past victories and the historical events that arrange them to shape the country’s image and manipulate people’s consciences,” he asserts.

At Rossochka Cemetery, Andrei Oreshkin, the head of the Union of Voluntary Researchers of Second World War Remnants, sees things very differently. “Future generations may have to do what we do,” he says, pointing to medallions found in the clay soil around Volgograd.

“I hope those in power will have learned from our experience, and that the dead will not be left on the battlefields,” he added.