ISW: Putin's Russia ideologically preparing invasion in more European countries

From the Institute for the Study of War:

"Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 20, 2025

...

The Kremlin continues to repurpose narratives that Russian officials have repeatedly used to justify Russia's invasions of Ukraine in an effort to further militarize Russian society in the long term, likely in preparation for a potential future protracted conflict with NATO. Russian state journalist Pavel Zarubin asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a question on April 20 about the EU's recommendation that European leaders refrain from attending Russia's May 9 Victory Day Parade in Moscow.[13] (Victory Day is Russia's principal patriotic holiday and commemorates the Soviet Union's contributions to victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.) Lavrov accused the EU of stoking "neo-Nazi ideology" in Europe and stated that Russia "will make every effort to ensure that this ideology does not raise its head," and will destroy Nazism "once and for all." 

Lavrov's statements are part of a long-standing Kremlin effort to invoke the Soviet Union's contributions to victory over Nazi Germany and the wider mythos of the Great Patriotic War and vilify Europe and NATO. These efforts aim to exacerbate negative sentiments among Russia's population and drum up support for the militarization of Russian society in the long term.[14] The Kremlin has previously appealed to the mythos of the Great Patriotic War to persuade the Russian population that their increasing social and economic sacrifices for the Russian war effort in Ukraine can help achieve overwhelming victory.[15] 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking Kremlin officials regularly invoke the vague term of "denazification" to call for regime change in Ukraine and the installation of a pro-Russian proxy government, and Putin leveraged claims that supposed Nazis control the Ukrainian government to justify the full-scale invasion in February 2022.[16] The Kremlin is increasingly employing the same playbook that it used against Ukraine towards Finland and former Soviet states, including Estonia and Moldova to justify its attempts to control independent countries and set informational conditions for possible future Russian aggression.[17]"

[15] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-2-2024

[16] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-27-2024 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar041925 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar041525

[17] https://isw.pub/UkrWar050924 ; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-27-2024 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar020624