Ukrainians have removed a monument commemorating Soviet-era military leaders (AFP)
After the end of World War II, when the anti-fascist alliance between the West and the Soviet Union broke apart, British Prime Minister Churchill delivered a famous speech in Fulton, Missouri in 1946: "From the Baltic Sea at Stettin to the Adriatic Sea at Trieste, an iron curtain has descended across the continent."
This marked the beginning of ideological hostility and global division between the two camps, a situation that lasted until the early 1990s and repeatedly brought the world to the brink of destructive nuclear war.
Today, Western leaders warn that Russia is returning to the shadows in Ukraine and other regions where its influence is growing. At the same time, Moscow's ruling elite complain about increasing anti-Russian rhetoric and "hatred" toward Russia, which not only exists in Western countries but also in regions that have been called the "healthy belt" in recent decades.
The campaign against all things symbolizing Russian and Soviet traditions, as well as frequent "hostile speech," highlights this, prompting the Russian Foreign Ministry to recently publish a new list of politicians accused of being anti-Russian.
The mayor of Kyiv gave a speech in front of the Ukrainian-Russia Friendship Monument built during the Soviet era. The monument was demolished in 2022 (AFP)
Boycotts Extend from Politics to Sports
After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the boycott of Russia by the West initially started politically and later expanded to multiple areas. FIFA, UEFA, and other sports organizations collectively expelled Russia, banning its athletes from regional and international competitions until today.
One consequence is Russia's absence from major football events, even officially, although Russian athletes will compete as neutrals in the 2024 Paris Olympics. This situation is expected to continue for the 2026 World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
However, if the end of the boycott depends on the end of the war in Ukraine and the permanent peace agreement, then the policy of continuing to boycott cultural symbols and destroy historical ties may be intolerable to reverse.
Not far from Moscow, the boycotts in the Baltic states and other former Eastern Bloc neighbors have evolved into the removal of everything related to Soviet memory, including statues, symbols, and historical monuments. Moscow sees this as a clear manifestation of growing hostility towards Russia.
Russia is officially absent from the 2024 Paris Olympics despite athletes competing as neutrals (Reuters)
The Legacy of the Iron Curtain
In the capital of Latvia, Riga, a monument called the "Freedom Monument" was ordered to be removed by the government. The monument was built to commemorate Soviet soldiers who defeated Nazi Germany, but many Latvians believe it symbolizes the start of a new occupation of the country after World War II.
This incident is not isolated. In Estonia, there are also widespread negative impressions of the Soviet era. A T-34 tank and other Soviet statues in Narva were also removed from public squares, with authorities stating that the move was to "maintain public order and internal security."
Since Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, there have been intense debates over the fate of a neglected historical building - the "Bazludza" monument. This monument is a symbol of the former ruling Communist Party and one of the most impressive architectural achievements of the Soviet era. Some support restoring it and reusing it as a tourist attraction to record history, while others oppose its revival, viewing it as a symbol of the authoritarianism and political corruption of the ruling party.
In fact, the current hostility of Western Europe and the former Eastern Bloc towards Russia is largely rooted in the legacy of the Soviet communist "Iron Curtain," including social and economic lifestyles, food supply lines in East Germany, similar vehicles to the Trabi, fearsome Stasi secret police, restrictions on freedom of speech, and control over the dissemination of socialist values.
These historical memories are reflected in movies. For example, the humorous film "Goodbye, Lenin!" by German director Wolfgang Becker is filled with such images and daily scenes, contrasting Soviet life with the "Western bans" on the other side of the Berlin Wall, including the capitalist markets that swept through Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall is one of the legacies of the tensions between Russia and the West (Reuters)
Berlin at the Center of the Storm
In Berlin, four Soviet monuments are scattered throughout the city, and thousands of Soviet soldiers are buried in military cemeteries. Despite the official commitment by the German government to protect and preserve these monuments under the 1990 Final Settlement Treaty signed by the two German states and the four Allied powers of World War II, the debate over the fate of these monuments continues.
As the debate expands, demands to remove these monuments in Germany have now not only been justified by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but also by the record of the Soviet Union, including the suppression of the 1953 uprising in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the 1968 Prague Spring - events that, according to German historians, have stripped these monuments of their symbolic significance.
However, some people within Germany have warned that this debate could escalate hostility towards Russia. The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has labeled the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as a leftist party. Kaja Rieper, a member of the SPD, warned that "the obsession of the German ruling class with armaments and hidden revenge spirit."
Kaja also wrote in an article on the World Socialist website about contemporary German politics, saying, "It wants to completely get rid of the post-World War II shackles and seek to regain global power status. It covers its geopolitical interests with the lie of defending democracy against Russian aggression."
The German Social Democratic Party has even warned that Berlin's plan to provide long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine could lead to dangerous escalation, resulting in Russian attacks on German targets.
The Fourth Empire?
According to TASS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not hesitate to directly criticize Germany and the European Union in a statement. He pointed out that "modern Germany and other European countries are becoming the Fourth Empire," referring to the German Empire and the Nazi period, both of which are known as the Third Empire.
Russian Foreign Minister believes that the hostility of the West towards Russia is becoming more dangerous in military terms for two reasons. First, Germany has clearly announced plans to rebuild the strongest conventional army in Europe, like before both World Wars. These plans are seen as a deterrence strategy specifically targeting Russia.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius further confirmed this when he stated in an interview with the Financial Times in mid-June 2025 that Germany's policy had undergone a significant shift. He said that if Russia attacked NATO members, Berlin was prepared to abandon its military restraint policy since the end of World War II and "kill Russian soldiers."
The second reason relates to the plan proposed by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to raise 80 billion euros for "rearming Europe," which mainly focuses on urgent areas such as air defense, missiles, drones, air defense systems, and artillery systems.
These two reasons are closely tied to developments in the Ukraine situation, where Ukraine has received strong military support from the EU and has effectively become the first line of defense for European security against the threat that Brussels and other Western countries consider to be a threat to the survival of EU member states.
Russian Hostility Towards Ukraine
Similarly, Ukraine also poses a threat to Russia. In this context, Fabian Baumann, a researcher in the Department of History at the University of Chicago and author of "The Diverging Paths: The Close Historical Relationship Between Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism" (2023), argues that Russian propaganda has long conflated "Ukrainian nationalism" with "fascism and Nazism," seeing it as a project supported by foreign forces aimed at establishing an "anti-Russian state."
Baumann analyzes that this "nation-state" is not directed against Russian culture, but it is a political project that challenges the foundations of the Russian Empire from the beginning.
From a political perspective, Ahmed Sheikh, a senior expert at the Paris Center for Western Studies, openly compared Russia's current situation to the U.S. invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent strong reaction from the international community to the U.S. government in an interview with Al Jazeera Network.
Sheikh stated, "This kind of unrest in Russia can only be understood as a way to divert attention from the atrocities committed by Russia in the past and present, as if it is using the slogan of anti-Semitism to suppress any voice opposing its actions."
Moscow has repeatedly threatened to respond to any projects that threaten its national security and geopolitical sphere, including destroying any hostile plans of the West in Ukraine.
Russia has also threatened to revise its nuclear strategy and hinted at various responses to complicit Western countries. However, Moscow has not yet explicitly revealed the strategies it might take to deal with what it considers an escalating "hatred" campaign against itself.
Macron, Mertz, and Others
The Russian Foreign Ministry has included several internationally renowned political figures in its latest list, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz, alongside statements that Moscow refers to as "hostile" and "inciting hatred" next to their names.
Expert Ahmed Sheikh, speaking to Al Jazeera Network, pointed out that Macron is at the top of the list of the most hostile Western politicians towards Moscow because he is committed to developing a new European defense policy. The reason for promoting this policy is that he feels the threat from Russia has increased significantly since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, while the position of the United States has fluctuated.
The list also includes German Chancellor and former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in response to Moscow's stance linking German and European security to the "Russian threat" and announcing clear political and military support for Kyiv.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella was added to the list, comparing Russia's invasion to the "Third Reich." U.S. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham was also listed. The list for Poland includes the president, prime minister, foreign minister, and speaker.
The list for the Baltic states also includes Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics and Foreign Minister Paipals Barāts, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsaknā and President Alar Karis.
The list for other European countries includes Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský, Danish Prime Minister, Luxembourg Defense Minister, Finnish President and Foreign Minister, and Icelandic Foreign Minister.
NATO and the EU have also not escaped, with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, heads of the three major European institutions - Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Metsola, António Costa, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Theodoros Roussopoulos, and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, on the list.
The Origins of "Russophobia"
"Russophobia" or "Russia phobia" is not a new term in Western countries. As early as the 19th century, liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill pointed out in a document from 1836 that the British government led by Lord Melbourne was suffering from an "epidemic of Russophobia," leading to unnecessary increases in defense spending.
This aligns with the conclusion of contemporary historian Jonathan Parry, who focused on the British liberal democratic belief that authoritarian regimes are inherently expansionist and aggressive, providing a rationale for Britain's excessive caution towards Russia.
However, the historical processes of the 19th century provided ample grounds for the anti-Russian camp to question Russia's role in the European continent. These include Russia's suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830 and the Hungarian uprising of 1848, which further deepened Russia's image as the "reckless" police of Europe.
The Crimean War from 1853 to 1856 also heightened the British Empire's concerns about Russia's future expansion plans.
Actions by Russia in the Balkan crisis and the Second Afghan War of 1878 were seen as part of the "Great Game," a term used to describe the political and diplomatic conflict between Russia and Britain in the 19th century over influence in Asia.
After the partnership between the West and the Soviet Union, which was established to counter fascism, fell apart, anti-Russian sentiment within NATO grew from 1946 to 1991, until the fall of communism, the end of Moscow's control over Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.
Subsequently, Russia entered a transitional period in the 1990s, when it was generally believed that Russia was taking reform measures to bring it closer to the West.
An analysis by the British magazine "The Nation" pointed out that this belief rapidly dissipated in the first decade of the 21st century. The assassination of Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, the 2008 cyberattacks and Russia's invasion of Georgia, as well as Putin's advocacy for multipolarity and criticism of NATO expansion, triggered the first wave of "Russophobia" in the post-communist era.
Expert Ahmed Sheikh told Al Jazeera Network: "This hatred is directed at Russian policies and wars. It is a reasonable hostility based on local crimes, not a fictional illness without solid facts."
Sources: Al Jazeera
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7540839944202289718/
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