In Russia’s view, the Western world has a big problem: It doesn’t like Russians.

The reason, in the Kremlin’s telling, is not Russia’s devastation of Ukraine or its nuclear threats. Instead, the culprit is “the propaganda of Russophobia, unleashed by the West.”

Recent weeks have seen a new burst of Russian talk about “Russophobia,” a term that implies that fear of Russia is a form of mental illness. While anxiety about Russia appears quite rational these days, Moscow wants to depict Russophobia as an unhinged ideology that the world must join forces to oppose.

On July 26, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called for establishment of an “International Day Against Russophobia,” much like International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Two days before that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued some 150 examples of “hate speech” toward Russia by Western “officials and elites.” The examples, separated into collections from 2024 and 2025, were mainly from government figures.

The “hate speech” in question included statements to the effect that Putin is a dictator and Europe’s enemy; that peace depends on Western strength; that Putin is emulating the tactics of Stalin and the Nazis; that the Russian president cannot be trusted even after a ceasefire; and that........

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