By AFP | 2025-05-08

KYIV -- For Yuriy Savchuk, the director of Ukraine's War Museum, Russia's invasion has stark parallels with the fight for survival his country waged during World War II (WWII).

As both Russia and Ukraine gear up to mark 80 years since they defeated Nazi Germany -- fighting side by side as part of the Soviet Union -- the divide over that shared legacy has deepened amid the current conflict, launched by Moscow in February 2022.

"World Wars I and II, and today's war -– they're all conflicts we fought for the right to national existence, for the right of Ukrainians to establish themselves as a people," Savchuk, 60, told AFP at the museum in Kyiv.

Russia casts its invasion of Ukraine as a fight against "neo-Nazis" and has channeled its own WWII legacy to justify the war.

Those narratives are rejected in Kyiv and the West and by independent scholars.

Ukraine sees its fight as nothing short of a modern-day existential battle -- one that has also accelerated a pushback against Moscow-led narratives over shared Soviet history.

Kyiv will this year commemorate victory in WWII on May 8, the day it is marked in western Europe -- having in 2023 moved away from celebrations on May 9, the date that the Soviet Union and Russia have used.

The difference in dates stemmed from the time difference when Germany's surrender order came into effect in 1945 but had become a symbolic dividing line in the divergence between how East and West marked their respective WWII histories.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin will preside over a huge parade of troops and military hardware, glorifying Russia's role in defeating Nazi Germany.

The plans have drawn scorn in Kyiv.

"These people are not liberators of Europe, they are [occupiers] and war criminals," the foreign ministry said May 6 in an English-language statement.

'Take away the memory'

The Kremlin uses the stories of some Ukrainian nationalists who fought against Russia during WWII -- and their modern-day followers -- to justify its claims it is fighting to "de-Nazify" Ukraine.

The war-torn country's Jewish community rejects Moscow's claims about the current conflict.

"It's Russian propaganda ... that they come here [to de-Nazify] Ukraine. ... It's a lie," Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Moshe Azman told AFP.

To counter Moscow's narrative, Savchuk emphasizes Ukraine's contribution to the victory against Nazism, rather than focusing on those who collaborated.

About eight million Ukrainians -- five million civilians and three million soldiers -- were killed in the war, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in its statement May 6.

Some 7.5 million Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army, according to the museum's researchers.

"We will not allow anyone to take away any part of this memory that we are proud of," Savchuk said, standing in front of the wreckage of a Russian helicopter downed by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine has moved to recognize 1939 as the starting year for the war -- when Germany and the Soviet Union allied to carve up Poland -- not 1941, as Russia sees it, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

In another symbolic move, the War Museum replaced a Soviet-era emblem on the country's 62-meter-high Motherland Monument with the Ukrainian coat of arms.

Valentyn Peresypkin, a 51-year-old former journalist from Zaporizhzhia, a region partly occupied by Russian forces, showed the monument to his son.

"We have been living in a state of turbulence and stressful uncertainty for three years now. I was just telling my son about World War II and the price that was paid for victory back then," he told AFP.

'Language of force'

Since Russia invaded, the museum has added exhibitions on the current conflict.

They include a replica of a basement where Ukrainians sheltered for weeks at the start of the war when Russian forces occupied swathes of the country, including towns close to Kyiv.

"This is the current historical task, for our future -- to form and preserve our memory of the ongoing war, which is a continuation of World War II," Savchuk said.

The museum's underground shelters offer visitors protection during air raid alerts, a near-daily occurrence.

Despite his position, Savchuk said actions, not words, were needed to ensure history does not repeat itself.

"The slogan 'Never Again!' can be effective only if it is based on clear, concrete actions," he told AFP.

"An enemy who is pointing a gun or a cannon or a tank at you understands only the language of force."