Putin’s latest theory about Zelensky: As a Jew, he was installed by the West to cover up the Nazi character of the Ukrainian regime. Historian Alexander Friedman, who has a doctorate, explains why such thoughts concern the Russian president so much. He teaches, among other things, at Saarland University.
ntv.de: Mr. Friedman, recently Russian President Vladimir Putin once again said about Volodymyr Zelensky that the Ukrainian president is not a Jew, but a disgrace to the Jewish people. What kind of narrative is he trying to establish?
Alexander Friedman: Recently it has gone even further. Last week there was a meeting to prepare for the 80th anniversary of the liberation. There he said that the West, i.e. the Americans, had specifically chosen Zelensky, a Jew, for the presidency in order to conceal the National Socialist character of the Ukrainian regime. Zelenskyj would therefore be the “product” of a conspiracy.
Do Putin’s already adventurous theories reach a new level here?
Yes, that is a closed world view that Putin is revealing here. He completely distorts the Nazi crimes that took place in Ukraine and essentially tries to show that the Holocaust in Ukraine was carried out almost exclusively by Ukrainian collaborators.
Alexander Friedman was born in Minsk in 1979. The historian, who holds a doctorate, teaches contemporary history and Eastern European history at Saarland University and at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
What role does Putin think the Germans played?
A very marginal role, if at all. And now, according to Putin, the Ukrainian Nazis are back, back in power. And particularly perfidious: a Jew, a “person of Jewish origin,” as Putin puts it, is at the head of these Nazis. This is his new narrative, a conspiracy narrative.
What goal had Putin been pursuing with his allusions so far?
Putin always liked to tell a Jew joke. They weren’t always explicitly anti-Semitic, but they were allusions to traditional clichés – the greedy Jew, for example. So the topic is not new to him. At the same time, he has always tried to make it clear that he is not anti-Semitic and in fact presents himself as philo-Semitic. He has always emphasized that he has Jewish friends, that Jewish people have accompanied him since he was a child.
That’s why he had to present Zelensky as a bad, essentially “fake” Jew?
This started before the attack, and criticism of Zelensky came very often from Russian propagandists who are themselves Jews. They called him a bad Jew or questioned his Jewish origins entirely. They emphasized that he was married to a non-Jewish woman and that his son was baptized. And since these accusations came from Jews, the accusation that they were anti-Semitic could not arise.
Putin sent Jewish “experts,” so to speak, to defame Zelensky.
Exactly. There are a number of top propagandists. One of the most famous and worst is probably Vladimir Solovyov. He and his colleagues actually presented themselves as Jews in public, systematically highlighted their origins and attacked Zelensky. According to the motto: “We are good Jews and fight against the Nazis, just like our ancestors. But Zelensky is a bad Jew or perhaps not a real Jew at all.”
But now we have decided.
Now the narrative is: Zelensky is a very bad Jew because he is at the head of Nazis. That is Putin’s style, but it is not based on his own assessment, as he repeatedly emphasizes, but on that of his Jewish friends. Because Putin definitely doesn’t want to seem like a crude anti-Semite. He’s careful there.
But if the Kremlin has been quite successful in incorporating Zelensky’s origins into its propaganda, why is Putin now upping the ante with the conspiracy narrative?
When it comes to Putin, you have to keep the following in mind: His thinking is not directed towards the future, but towards the past. He is obsessed with history – physically in the 21st century, but mentally remaining largely in the 20th century and looking even deeper. Because his time with the KGB had a huge impact on him.
And how did the Russian secret service view Judaism?
The KGB was specifically deployed to combat the emigration of Jewish people and to persecute Jewish activists. The basic mood there was as follows: “Jewish people are internationally networked, potentially or actually already enemies of the Soviet Union, and overall suspicious and dangerous.” I think this fear still affects Putin. That’s why he wants to avoid appearing anti-Semitic and challenging the “Jewish world.”
And now large parts of the “Jewish world” are on the side of his opponents.
This is a disappointment for Putin; he tried so hard to maintain a good relationship. And what’s more, there is a Jew at the head of Ukraine who is thwarting his plans. For Putin, Zelensky is a Jew who was installed by the Americans to pursue anti-Russian policies. Putin is now expressing this so strongly that I believe he no longer has his emotions and his disappointment under control.
Because the topic concerns him so much?
If he had said that once, you could still say, okay, he had a bad day, he just needed that. But he does it systematically. You saw it on TV just last week, at the meeting I mentioned earlier: Putin had an incredibly strong need to get rid of his conspiracy narrative. And everything surrounding it was meticulously staged.
In which form?
After the meeting, a “journalist” who works for Russian state television came up to him. He asked him the question again about the Jews. And then he spread his legend about Zelensky again for the general public. Putin clearly has something against the Ukrainian president. And he probably thinks that if he treats him in an anti-Semitic way, he can hit him with it. I think this is a total misjudgment because Zelensky actually doesn’t seem to have any Jewish identity. He doesn’t think in terms of “Jewish” or “not Jewish.” Zelensky’s identity is Ukrainian.
Frauke Niemeyer spoke to Alexander Friedman