In recent decades around the world and especially in the Russian Federation, ideologies have discredited themselves by their failures, Sergey Erlikh says; and so they have been replaced by references to history as the chief political argument leaders use to justify their actions and attract support.

The editor of Historical Expertise, a journal based in Moldova devoted to tracking this development, has demonstrated this by pointing to how history has replaced ideology in the Putin regime in particular when it comes to Putin’s justification of the war in Ukraine (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/03/01/istoricheskaia-propaganda-v-rossii-shizofrenichna).

According to Erlikh, Putin sees himself as a great historical actor and like many officers........

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