On Russia’s disinformation and historical falsification to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine

B100075/2025

European Parliament resolution on Russia’s disinformation and historical falsification to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine

(2024/2988(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Ukraine and Russia,

– having regard to its declaration of 23 September 2008 on the proclamation of 23 August as European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on historical remembrance, including its resolutions of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism, of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe and of 15 December 2022 on 90 years after the Holodomor: recognising the mass killing through starvation as genocide,

– having regard to Resolution 1481 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of 26 January 2006 on the need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian Communist regimes,

– having regard to statement No 3078-IX of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of 2 May 2023 on the employment by the political regime of the Russian Federation of the ideology of russofascism and the condemnation of the basics and practices of this ideology as totalitarian and misanthropic,

– having regard to Concurrent Resolution 9 of the US Congress of 7 February 2023 entitled ‘Denouncing the horrors of socialism’,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas this year marks the 86th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols, with which Stalin and Hitler conspired to divide Europe into spheres of influence between two totalitarian regimes, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and which paved the way for the outbreak of World War II with its unprecedented levels of human suffering and the occupation of countries in Europe for many decades to come;

B. whereas, under international law, the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were void ab initio, as they were in grave breach of the prohibition of aggression that had been established by the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy of 27 August 1928; whereas their invalidity was declared by both states’ signatories in 1989, in particular by the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies on 24 December 1989, and whereas this is accepted as a well-established legal and historical fact by the international community in general, including in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights;

C. whereas the conclusion of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact amounted to an international crime against peace, such as the planning and initiation of a war of aggression, for which no justification can be found in international law;

D. whereas since 2009, 23 August has been commemorated as the European Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes at EU level;

E. whereas after World War II, half of Europe became free and democratic, while its other half remained behind the Iron Curtain and controlled by the totalitarian Soviet Union and its satellite communist regimes, which divided the continent for half a century until the collapse of the Soviet Union; whereas the consequences of this division are still felt to this day;

F. whereas tens of millions of people were executed and politically persecuted and suffered Soviet atrocities during and after World War II, including between 18 and 20 million prisoners in forced labour camps known as Gulags, of whom between 1.5 and 2 million did not survive, 6 million were forcibly deported and nearly 5 million were politically repressed by security structures, of whom at least 1 million were executed; whereas in 1932 and 1933, on the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the leadership of the Bolshevik totalitarian regime committed genocide, known as the Holodomor, against a part of the Ukrainian national group, which resulted in the deaths of at least an estimated 4.5 million people;

G. whereas Russia has failed to acknowledge its role in starting World War II and to assume its responsibility for atrocities committed in territories occupied by the Soviet Union; whereas, contrary to the crimes committed by the Nazi regime, the crimes committed by communist dictatorships in Europe in the 20th century have not been the subject of a full international legal and political assessment and condemnation and this has contributed to the instrumentalisation of history under Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia;

H. whereas 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II; whereas the Russian Federation, as the successor state to the USSR, is attempting to monopolise the victory over Nazism and has created a cult of ‘victory’ in order to ideologically mobilise Russians to continue the aggressive war against Ukraine; whereas Victory Day on 9 May has been turned into a war propaganda tool in Russia;

I. whereas Russia, as the state claiming to be both the continuator of and the successor to the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, continues to claim having an exclusive sphere of influence with regard to its neighbouring states and actively denies their sovereignty, national identity and right to exist, thus perpetuating the legacy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and reviving the tsarist ambition of imperial conquest; whereas the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 was preceded by Russia submitting its demands to the US and NATO countries to recognise its exclusive interests in Ukraine and other former Soviet, Soviet-occupied and Soviet-satellite countries;

J. whereas the continuing imperial colonial policy of Russia resulted in military aggression against Georgia in 2008, the occupation of Crimea and the start of war in Donbas in 2014 and culminated with Russia’s full-scale illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine that started on 24 February 2022, and the systematic terrorisation of Ukraine’s civilian population, the destruction of its strategic infrastructure and the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes with a clear demonstration of genocidal intent towards the Ukrainian people;

K. whereas Russia consistently threatens EU countries with military aggression, including nuclear threats, particularly targeting the countries that were formerly occupied or indirectly controlled by Moscow, and has carried out attacks against individuals on EU soil; whereas Russia has been launching hybrid attacks against EU Member States and has been proven to interfere with EU democratic processes; whereas there is evidence of Russian interference and manipulation in many democracies, as well as of its practical support for extremist forces and radical-minded entities in order to promote the destabilisation of the Union;

L. whereas Russia has been using falsified history as a casus belli, systematically whitewashing Soviet crimes and spreading historical disinformation to justify Russia’s aggression against its neighbouring states; whereas Putin’s regime has instrumentalised history in an attempt to secure the loyalty of the Russian people by creating nostalgia for the supposed greatness of the Soviet empire, falsifying the history of Russia and Ukraine, rejecting Khrushchev’s policy to acknowledge and condemn Stalinist crimes, reneging on Gorbachev’s recognition and condemnation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and declaring the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy of the previous century; whereas Russia is demolishing Holodomor memorials and restoring decommunised monuments to Lenin in the occupied territories of Ukraine;

M. whereas Russia has been obstructing historical research, denying access to Soviet archives and persecuting civil society organisations working to investigate and assess Soviet crimes, as well as crimes committed by the current regime; whereas those attempting to tell the truth about these crimes, including the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, are being persecuted under Russian legislation;

N. whereas the whitewashing and glorification of Soviet crimes, including the full justification of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and subsequent acts of aggression, the claims to have a zone of exclusive interest comprising all the territory of the former Soviet Union and the Russian tsarist empire, taken together with an emphasis on the superiority and the exclusive mission of the Russian state and the rejection of democracy, human rights and the rule of law as allegedly alien Western values, have become the main pillars of russofascism (‘Russian world’) ideology, which is behind Russia’s wars of aggression and aggressive policies as well as its campaigns of disinformation and acts of hybrid warfare against the EU and other Western countries;

O. whereas in some Member States, communist and Nazi ideologies and symbols, as well as the symbols of Russia’s ongoing aggression, are prohibited by law;

P. whereas since 2023, the European Parliament has held an annual commemoration of the victims of mass Soviet deportations, by paying tribute to and reading the names of those deported from Soviet-occupied lands;

1. Acknowledges the shared responsibility of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for starting World War II with the aim to divide Europe into two spheres of exclusive influence of both totalitarian regimes, on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols;

2. Denounces the practices and claims regarding the establishment of zones of exclusive interests at the expense of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states as being incompatible with international law, in accordance with which each state has the sovereign right to choose its security guarantees, including defence alliances, and the means to ensure the well-being of its people; recalls that no consideration of any nature, be it political, economic, military or other, may serve as a justification for aggression;

3. Recalls that World War II was the deadliest and most brutal conflict in human history; notes that it resulted in Soviet occupation and mass crimes against the people and nations that fell under the control of the Soviet Empire; emphasises that the absence of impunity is a key condition for the effective prevention of such crimes and notes that impunity for unevaluated crimes allows them to be repeated;

4. Regrets that the Russian Federation has not acknowledged Soviet crimes at state level, has renounced previous attempts by Soviet leaders to recognise and condemn Stalinist crimes and has not renounced its imperial past or its colonial approach towards its neighbouring states and nations, which has led to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and threats of war against Western democracies;

5. Condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, other acts of aggression such as the occupation and annexation of Ukraine’s territory, war crimes and crimes against humanity that Russia has committed in Ukraine, the kidnapping and forced deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation, the policy of dehumanising Ukrainians and the denial of their national identity;

6. Condemns the systematic falsification and distortion of history perpetrated by the Kremlin and its proxies, which is used as a weapon in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, aimed at justifying its crimes and promoting imperial nostalgia in the minds of the Russian population and its supporters internationally; condemns its attacks on commemorative, cultural and educational events dedicated to the memory of the victims of crimes committed by the USSR;

7. Reiterates its recognition of mass Soviet deportations and the Gulag prison system as crimes against humanity and of the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people; considers the deportation of all Crimean Tatar people in 1944 to be genocide; considers to be genocide, further, crimes committed during the incursion of the Red Army into Upper Silesia in 1945, known as the Upper Silesian Tragedy;

8. Commends legislative, diplomatic, civil society and other initiatives aimed at researching, evaluating, recognising and raising awareness of the crimes of totalitarianism in Europe, particularly those committed by Nazi and communist regimes; encourages academic research and education in Eastern European history and culture and Russian colonialism from the 18th to the 21st centuries;

9. Calls for raising awareness of the history of Nazi and communist totalitarian crimes and its systemic integration into school curricula in all EU Member States; welcomes the Council of Europe’s Observatory on History Teaching in Europe and encourages it to reflect the need to increase knowledge of Soviet and communist crimes across Europe, in the light of historical disinformation spread by the Russian Federation and its proxies;

10. Calls on all EU Member States to make a clear and principled assessment of the crimes and acts of aggression perpetrated by totalitarian communist regimes and the Nazi regime; calls for the condemnation of Soviet communist crimes at international level, such as within the UN;

11. Calls on the Commission to provide effective support for projects of historical memory and remembrance in the Member States and at EU level, to enhance support for memory institutions and non-governmental organisations, particularly cross-country European platforms such as the Platform of European Memory and Conscience and the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, and to establish a special envoy for European remembrance and the prevention of totalitarianism;

12. Regrets the continued use of symbols of totalitarian regimes in public spaces and calls for an EU-wide ban on the use of both Nazi and Soviet communist symbols, as well as symbols of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine; expresses its support for building a pan-European memorial for the victims of 20th century totalitarian regimes in Brussels;

13. Responds to the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the nationalist imperialist ideology, policy and practices of the current Russian regime (russofascism), which foregrounds Russia’s military aggression, its efforts to challenge European security and order and its threats of further aggression against Europe and the annihilation of the European values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law; stresses the incompatibility of this ideology, policy and practices with international law;

14. Reiterates its call for the establishment of a special international tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression against Ukraine, which could end the impunity around and address the lack of a clear evaluation of repeated Soviet and Russian imperialist aggressions and atrocities against its neighbours, including the entire ideology behind those acts;

15. Expresses its support for the efforts of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and, possibly, genocide as part of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; strongly condemns instances of non-cooperation with the ICC in the execution of arrest warrants;

16. Calls for the EU to intensify research on new hybrid influence technologies used by Russia as an aggressor state and to take concrete action to counter them; calls strongly for the EU to complete the mapping of current EU activities combating disinformation and strategic communication in order to ensure the efficient use of resources and coordination, and to identify potential blind spots in our approach to countering Russian disinformation;

17. Recalls that foreign interference is a systemic threat that must be countered vigorously; highlights that hybrid warfare and foreign information manipulation and interference are not just foreign policy and security issues, but in fact threaten the very basis of our democracies; urges the EU institutions to adopt a permanent cross-cutting approach to combating foreign information manipulation and interference more effectively; stresses, in this context, that enhanced cooperation and coordination with the US and other like-minded partners is crucial in combating the instrumentalisation of history and the spread of disinformation;

18. Underscores that unresolved aspects of a bilateral and regional historical past should not be allowed to be instrumentalised by Russia and its proxies to obstruct the will for genuine reconciliation; welcomes and encourages any attempts by Ukraine and the Member States to address such pending matters, for example the Volhynia massacre, in the spirit of true and sincere reconciliation, human dignity, historical truth and good neighbourly relations; believes that with the good will of both parties concerned, a patient reconciliation process will heal the wounds of the past; welcomes, in the light of the abovementioned principles, the recent declarations of the Polish and Ukrainian Governments related to Ukraine’s consent to continue the excavation of Polish graves on the territory of Ukraine and provide the victims with a dignified burial; expresses the hope that the excavations could reconvene as early as spring 2025;

19. Believes that the destructive legacy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact can only end when sovereign nations in the neighbourhood of Russia that have Euro-Atlantic aspirations, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, can freely implement their foreign policy choices without interference or obstruction;

20. Believes that the swift Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine and other countries in the region would have a positive effect on Russia’s transformation by demonstrating to the Russian population that those countries no longer belong to Russia’s sphere of influence and by providing an inspiring example of prosperity and democratic development based on European values of human rights and peace, which could replace the pursuit of nostalgic imperial glory with the pursuit of economic and social well-being;

21. Maintains that the full military victory of Ukraine is the only path towards sustainable peace in Europe and towards the end of the aggressive revanchism of the Russian Federation, as it will not only end Ukrainian suffering, but will also help Russia to surrender its imperialist mentality and ideology, opening up possibilities for democratic change in Russia as well as in other authoritarian countries such as Belarus;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President, Government and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and the Russian authorities.