IN THE current environment, the Russian Federation is striving to build a truly just world order.1 What are the main characteristics implied by this epithet? One of them is the provision of a sufficiently high level of security at the global and lower levels. This feature presupposes a high threshold (set of conditions) for the use of force by states and nonstate actors (NSAs), and the ability to successfully and comprehensively resolve and prevent armed conflicts. Achieving these conditions is a priori impossible without the defeat of ultra-radical forces and the discrediting of their ideology. These forces are destructive by nature, seek to annihilate and enslave states and peoples, and thus demonstrate a misanthropic attitude toward the majority of the planet’s population, using force indiscriminately against anyone who does not support their ultra-radical tenets. Among such actors are, first and foremost, international terrorist groups and Nazi/neo-Nazi regimes.2 Accordingly, deradicalization – in other words, the elimination of ultra-radical actors – is a necessary condition for building a just world order.
Another characteristic is the proper representation of the interests and concerns of a wide range of countries around the world, especially those located outside the community of “Western democracies.” In other words, the emerging world order should not be Western-centric, but oriented toward the North, East, and South as well.
These two characteristics of a just world order are closely interconnected. The task of defeating and ideologically discrediting ultra-radical forces is extremely complex. In practice, only a very limited number of states can do this effectively and, most importantly, with lasting results. The Soviet Union and its successor, the Russian Federation, occupy a leading position on this list. It was the USSR that succeeded in forcing the unconditional surrender of the most powerful aggressor in world history – the Third Reich. The decisive contribution of the Soviet Union is reflected in the following figures. Of the total losses suffered by Nazi Germany, the USSR was responsible for putting out of action 73% of enemy personnel (by some estimates, up to 80%), 74% of artillery pieces, about 75% of tanks, and over 75% of aircraft.3
In the current environment, it was the Russian Federation, acting in close coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran and the then-authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic, that from 2015 to 2017 critically weakened the forces of ISIS (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) in Syria. This international terrorist organization had established control over vast areas of Syria and Iraq, declaring the goal of extending its authority globally. Numerous ISIS offshoots began to gain strength in Africa (primarily in Nigeria, as well as in the Sahel-Saharan region and the Horn of Africa) and the Middle East. This extremely dangerous trend was halted as a result of the defeats inflicted on ISIS in Syria by the Russian Armed Forces in just over two years (September 30, 2015 to December 11, 20174).
On February 24, 2022, Russia was compelled to launch a strategically defensive special military operation [SMO] to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. Since the end of World War II, the SMO has become the largest campaign (or, more precisely, cycle of campaigns) against ultra-radical forces.
It is noteworthy that Nazi/neo-Nazi regimes came to power in countries (Germany in 1933, Ukraine in 2014) located east of the then-borders of the community of Western democracies. These ultra-radical forces have consistently regarded the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, respectively, as their main adversaries. This fact is an important piece of evidence that the USSR and the Russian Federation are true bearers and guardians of democracy, as our homeland stands in fundamental opposition to the most undemocratic actors – Nazis/neo-Nazis and international terrorists.5
For Russia, the victorious power over German Nazism, the mass proliferation of Nazi/neo-Nazi adherents directly along its borders is an acutely sensitive issue. During the Great Patriotic War, the Ukrainian SSR was defended from the Third Reich and its satellites and later liberated from temporary occupation (from January 1943 to October 1944) through the joint efforts of the entire family of Soviet peoples. A powerful partisan movement operated within the Ukrainian SSR itself, eliminating 465,000 enemy personnel.6 After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and later the forcible change of power in Kiev on February 22, 2014, Ukraine turned from a victor over Nazism to a major hotbed for adherents of Nazism/neo-Nazism.
This trend is tragic for our Fatherland, for Ukraine itself, and for the peoples of the world as a whole. A wide range of causes for this development can and should be identified. Among them, the author considers it necessary to emphasize the factor of the destruction of the relatively just world order that emerged following World War II, whose central component was the Great Patriotic War.
It must be emphasized that the world order that arose from it, usually referred to as the Yalta-Potsdam system, was the first truly just one in world history. The task of building such an order was and remains extremely important and complex. The key condition here is the continued full and integrated participation of the state that made the decisive factual contribution to the defeat of ultra-radical forces. As soon as that condition is violated, the world order is no longer just.
As a result of the struggle against German Nazism – and more broadly, the bloc of aggressors in World War II – the country that firmly established itself as the key victorious power over ultra-radical forces was the Soviet Union. In the present context, the country steadily moving toward this position is Russia. It is important to compare the effectiveness of the efforts made by the USSR and the Russian Federation in combating ultra-radical forces with those of the Western democracies, which consistently and insistently claim leading roles in the international system.
The European “liberal democracies” failed to mount resistance to Nazi Germany. Their confrontation with the Third Reich lasted very briefly, during which time they remained in a state of constant confusion. Nazi Germany removed the Benelux countries and France from the war, and the United Kingdom was left in a position as a target for future Wehrmacht attacks.7 The US was not prepared to rush to the aid of the UK and, in the event of its defeat, risked being left face to face with Nazi Germany and militarist Japan. Furthermore, within the US itself there existed a substantial fifth column that sought to reach an accommodation with Hitlerism.8 This tragic scenario for the Anglo-Saxon powers remained a counterfactual outcome of history only because the main forces of the Third Reich were drawn into battle with the USSR, which inflicted increasingly significant losses on the aggressor.
In this situation, the Western democracies adopted a peripheral strategy of warfare, and this description reflected its scale and significance in defeating the main aggressor. The Second Front, purely auxiliary in its importance and scale, was opened by the Western democracies only in June 1944, on the 1,081st day of the Great Patriotic War. By that time, the might of the Wehrmacht had been quantitatively and especially qualitatively broken due to the actions of the Red Army.
Equally important is the following: The larger and more capable part of Hitler’s troops, even after the opening of the Second Front, continued to fight against the Red Army. The Western democracies were opposed primarily by second- and third-rate units in terms of combat capability. It is telling that by July 1944, the Red Army numbered 6.4 million personnel,9 while the American-British allied forces numbered only 1.6 million service personnel.10 While the Red Army defeated a total of 607 divisions of Germany and its satellites, including 507 divisions of the Wehrmacht itself, the Western allies defeated only 176 divisions,11 most of which were inadequately combat-capable formations from Germany and Fascist Italy.
The growing successes of Soviet arms in the struggle against German Nazism significantly bolstered the Soviet Union’s weight on the world stage. In the first period of the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942), despite suffering devastating defeats, the Soviet Union thwarted the blitzkrieg and demonstrated a level of capability in fighting Nazism that no other state possessed. During the second period (November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943), the USSR brought about a decisive turning point through a successful counteroffensive at Stalingrad, victory in the Battle of Kursk, and the crossing of the Dnepr. As a result, the Soviet Union firmly established itself as a regional power capable of exerting noticeable influence on the global situation. Politically and diplomatically, this result was solidified at the Tehran Conference (November 28 to December 1, 1943), the first such summit of the Big Three.
The USSR’s international political clout grew most visibly and rapidly during the third period of the Great Patriotic War (January 1944 to May 9, 1945). As a result of the 10 “Stalinist blows” of 1944, the Red Army largely completed the liberation of temporarily occupied Soviet territories and began the cleansing of Eastern, Southeastern, and Northern Europe from the “brown plague.”12 These events marked the definitive establishment of the Soviet Union as a world power, as reflected in the proceedings and outcomes of the Yalta Conference (February 4-11, 1945).
In the winter and spring of 1945, the Red Army made a decisive contribution to the final defeat of Nazi Germany. In total, the Red Army cleared Nazi rule from 11 European countries that had a pre-World War II population of 113 million people13; over 7 million Red Army soldiers and officers participated in the liberation, of whom 1.2 million gave their lives to free European countries from Hitlerism.14 The Great Victory established the Soviet Union as a superpower. The Potsdam Conference (July 17 to August 2, 1945) demonstrated the de facto recognition of this status by the US and the UK.
However, by the spring and summer of 1945, the Anglo-Saxon powers were already transitioning from cooperation with the Soviet Union to its “containment,” and by February-March 1946 the Cold War had fully emerged.15 It exerted a tremendous distorting influence, but for four decades it was unable to break the foundations of the genuinely just Yalta-Potsdam world order. These foundations were established by consensus among the victorious powers. Chronologically, this occurred at a time when their cooperation had reached its peak (by early spring 1945, following the Yalta Conference) and when the first symptoms of future estrangement by the US and UK had already become manifest (during the preparation and holding of the Potsdam Conference). It is no coincidence that the Yalta-Potsdam agreements, which laid the foundation for the postwar world order, were chronologically closer to the end of the Great Patriotic War (May 9, 1945) than to the end of World War II as a whole (September 2, 1945). This was yet another important testament to the decisive contribution of the USSR in the fight against the Third Reich – the most powerful of the Axis powers – and to the Great Patriotic War as the central component of World War II.
The features of justice inherent in the Yalta-Potsdam world order – a high level of security and the absence of dominant Western-centrism – enabled a prolonged period in which armed conflicts came to be resolved or prevented, decolonization in Asia and Africa became possible, and Nazism and ultra-radical ideologies as a whole remained in a defeated state. The Yalta-Potsdam world order was certainly not ideal, largely due to the factor of the Cold War. Nevertheless, it was significantly more advanced than any other international order before it and the one that replaced it in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For more than four postwar decades, humanity existed with a rather high level of security and broad opportunities for the development of all countries, including those outside the collective West. These structural conditions were primarily set by the Great Victory of 1945 and the subsequent preservation of the Soviet Union’s rightful weight and influence, which were necessary for the Yalta-Potsdam world order to function successfully.
The most critical component of its collapse was the sharp weakening of the Soviet Union’s position on the world stage in the late 1980s, followed by the USSR’s self-dissolution. The world order that replaced the Yalta-Potsdam system was characterized by Western-centrism and a steadily declining level of security both globally and at lower levels. Since the 1990s, NATO and EU member states have focused on combating nontraditional threats in zones of instability, yet they have failed to develop effective and productive mechanisms for resolving armed conflicts under those circumstances.16 The following example is illustrative: Between 2015 and 2017, EU member states faced a massive, uncontrolled influx of refugees and a rise in terrorist activity within their own borders – in other words, they found themselves targets of projected powerful threats resulting from ISIS’s advance in Syria and Iraq.
This forced loss of agency by the Western democracies occurred a quarter-century after they declared themselves responsible for settling local armed conflicts (in the Balkans, then in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel-Saharan region), and a decade and a half after the launch of a large-scale antiterrorist campaign. In practice, what allowed EU member states to cease being targets of projected instability threats was the use of the Russian Armed Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic (main phase: September 30, 2015 to December 11, 2017).17 This example showed that Russia’s counterterrorist practices are significantly more effective than those of the Western democracies.
Russia’s role in fighting Nazism/neo-Nazism is exceptional in practical terms, as demonstrated particularly clearly by the SMO. On the eve of World War II and during its earliest stages, the Western democracies remained under the illusion that they could direct Nazi Germany’s aggressive ambitions away from themselves (toward the USSR) or at least delay the threat significantly. These dangerous delusions manifested themselves in the appeasement policy (1936-1939) and its continuation – the “Phoney War” (from September 3, 1939 to May 9, 1940). In essence, both strategies amounted to tolerating and even indirectly helping to strengthen Nazi Germany. But as soon as the Third Reich’s potential became comparable to that of the “Western democracies,” the Wehrmacht dealt them a crushing defeat. Only then, with the resources of almost the entirety of continental Europe at its disposal, did Nazi Germany turn its focus to its principal adversary – the Soviet Union.
In early spring 1945, as the collapse of the Third Reich rapidly approached, several high-ranking Nazi officials (primarily from Heinrich Himmler’s circle) began seeking contacts with the UK and the US, hoping to conclude a separate peace and continue fighting against the USSR. In March 1945, negotiations were held in Bern between Allen Dulles and Karl Wolff. However, these contacts did not develop further. The official protest made by the USSR to the Western allies regarding attempts to conduct separate negotiations was significant. Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon elites (in particular, Winston Churchill) were prepared to utilize German military potential for the containment of the USSR, but only on the condition that the Nazi regime would be destroyed – thus allowing for the political modernization of at least part of Germany in accordance with the interests and rules of the Western democracies. The military component of these plans was clearly outlined in Operation Unthinkable.18
During the Cold War, the victorious Western powers (the US, the UK, and France) allowed the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to emerge within their occupation zones (in 1949) and later agreed to the rearmament of West Germany (de jure from 1955), utilizing its potential for the containment of the USSR. The FRG came to be considered an organically integrated part of the liberal democratic community. However, the US and the UK failed to bring the denazification process in West Germany to a complete and irreversible conclusion. One confirmation of this is the presence of neo-Nazi underground elements even within the modern Bundeswehr.19 Also telling is the fact that as of spring 2025, Germany ranked second in arms and military equipment deliveries to the Armed Forces of Ukraine,20 which are notably characterized by strong neo-Nazi sentiments.
The emergence and spread of these sentiments are by-products of the destruction of the truly just Yalta-Potsdam world order. Even during the Cold War, the US, the UK, and other NATO member states sought to downplay the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazism, thereby indirectly diminishing the perception of its dangers. This extremely dangerous trend started becoming increasingly pronounced in the 1990s; its tragic symbols include the numerous acts of destruction and desecration of monuments to Soviet liberator soldiers in East European countries (especially Poland) and in several republics that were part of the USSR (primarily the Baltic republics and Ukraine). The Western democracies are increasingly determined to relegate the memory of the Great Patriotic War to a purely domestic topic for Russia, even striving, where possible, to cause the Victory of 1945 to be forgotten within Russia itself (a telling example being the activities of numerous individuals designated as foreign agents in Russia).
All these trends have created a favorable environment for the revival of Nazism/neo-Nazism. This ultra-radical ideology has become widespread in one of the former Soviet republics (Ukraine), as well as some others (with attempts to glorify former Waffen-SS members in Estonia and Latvia). Such developments are especially significant as part of broader efforts to erase the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of the Third Reich – an achievement that was a crucial prerequisite for building a just world order.
By providing support – primarily large-scale military assistance – to Ukraine, the liberal democracies have in many ways repeated the fundamental mistake they made with the Third Reich prior to the spring of 1940. The Western democracies regarded Nazi Germany and now Ukraine, with its widespread neo-Nazi sentiments, primarily as a powerful tool for the containment of the USSR and the Russian Federation. This means that the West European powers and the US have failed to recognize and critically underestimated the serpentine nature of Nazism/neo-Nazism. The latter was willing to present an image of obedience as long as it remained significantly weaker than the liberal democracies and was satisfied with ever-expanding concessions and support from the West. However, once at least one of these two conditions failed to be met, Nazism/neo-Nazism would begin to inflict painful blows on its would-be patrons. The Third Reich did so from the spring of 1940 until early 1945, until it was faced with the threat of total collapse as a result of the Red Army’s actions.
Modern Ukraine is incomparably weaker than the combined power of NATO’s European member states, not to mention the US. Nevertheless, the support it receives – especially weapons supplies for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) – contributes to the cultivation of a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev as a “strategic monster.” It brazenly seeks to lead and not be led – i.e., to attempt to direct the actions and plans of the liberal democracies. The Kiev authorities emphasize the creation of the largest armed forces in Europe outside of Russia (up to 900,000 service personnel at their peak strength in 2023-202421) and engage in various forms of nuclear blackmail.
Vladimir Zelensky (whose hold on power persists even after the expiration of his presidential mandate, despite democratic norms) clearly demonstrated this uncontrollability to the [45th and] 47th president of the US Donald Trump. It appears that the Trump administration was one of the first in the West to recognize the danger that Ukraine’s attempt to become a “strategic monster” poses to the US itself. However, for the Trump administration, the task of regaining established control – of once again leading Ukraine – has proven very difficult. The challenge is compounded by the willingness of most European liberal democracies to continue supporting the AFU.
Meanwhile, the elites of EU member states who persist in this support fail to realize that their countries may soon face a massive influx of neo-Nazis into their territory (who will portray themselves as “defenders of Western interests”). Frustrated that their extremist and ambitious plans have not been implemented (and could not have been, in principle), these adherents of ultra-radical ideology will begin carrying out terrorist acts and other highly dangerous actions in EU member states. Local neo-Nazi underground networks22 (including individuals who served in foreign units of the AFU) may also join in this activity. Given the painful experience of the 2015-2017 crisis, it raises the question of how capable the European liberal democracies are of independently eliminating a threat to their own security.
There is, however, a powerful obstacle to Ukraine’s transformation into a strategic monster – Russia’s SMO. Through the SMO, Russia is making a significant contribution to the security and defense of many countries around the world, including the peoples of Europe and the US. Conducting armed struggle against Nazism/neo-Nazism is extremely difficult, but Russia is consistently pursuing this path. Particularly significant in this regard is the following statement made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in late March 2025 about the AFU: “Only recently, I said that we would ‘squeeze them into a corner,’ but now we have reason to believe that we are set to finish them off.”23
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NOTES:
1 http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/75375
2 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202412280115
3 Vtoraya mirovaya voyna. Itogi i uroki. Мoscow: Voyenizdat, 1985, pp. 211-212.
4 http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56351
5 Trunov F.O. “Prakticheskiye kriterii demokratichnosti,” Svobodnaya mysl, No. 5 (2022), pp. 161-172.
6 Atlas ofitsera. Moscow: Voyenno-topograficheskoye upravleniye GSh VS SSSR, 1974, p. 279.
7 see [3], pp. 33-37.
8 Bezymensky L.A. Tayny front protiv Vtorogo fronta. Moscow: APN, 1987, 287 pp.
9 Zhukov G.K. Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya. Moscow: APN, 1969, p. 552
10 see [3], p. 92.
11 https://mil.ru/winner_may/history/more.htm?id=11982000@cmsArticle
12 Trunov F.O. “Operatsii Krasnoy armii 1944 goda: otseneny li oni po dostoinstvu v istoricheskoy pamyati Rossii?” Vestnik Rossiyskoy akademii nauk, No. 5 (2024), pp. 469-477.
13 https://mil.ru/winner_may/history/more.htm?id=12279787@cmsArticle
14 Shtemenko S.M. Generalnyy shtab v gody voyny. Kn. 2. Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1974, pp. 111, 156, 226, 370, 412, 446.
15 Korniyenko G.M. “Kholodnaya voyna.” Svidetelstvo yeye uchastnika. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, 1994, pp. 7-39.
16 Alekseyeva T.A., Trunov F.O. “Strany Zapada i borba s ugrozami nestabilnosti v Azii i Afrike: teoretiko-prakticheskiye aspekty,” Aktualnyye problemy Yevropy, No. 4 (2022), pp. 18-49.
17 Trunov F.O. “Rossiya kak garant bezopasnosti dlya Zapada v sfere borby s ugrozami nestabilnosti,” Elektronnyy nauchno-obrazovatelnyy zhurnal “Istoriya.” No. 12 (146), Part 2 (2024), https://history.jes.su/s207987840033936-8-1
18 Filippovykh D.N. “Igra v ‘Nemyslimoye’: nemetskaya karta,” Voyennyy akademichesky zhurnal, No. 1 (2017), pp. 59-66.
19 Belinsky A.V. “Svastika na shevrone: pravyy ekstremizm v pravookhranitelnykh organakh i bundesvere FRG,” Aktualnyye problemy Yevropy, No. 4 (2021), pp. 247-282; https://www.bundeswehr.de/de/organisation/heer/aktuelles/aufloesungsappell-der-2-kompanie-des-ksk-864840
20 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/lieferungen-ukraine-2054514
21 https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6787d2139a79471463f26ce7
22 Novikova O.N. “Sovremennyy ultrapravyy ekstremizm i terrorizm v Zapadnoy Yevrope: tendentsii i osobennosti,” Aktualnyye problemy Yevropy, No. 4 (2023), pp. 82-104.