Ruscism (/ˈrʌʃɪzəm/RUSH-iz-əm),[3] alsoRashism[a] orRussism[b] and also calledRussian fascism,[c] is a neologism[4][5] and aderogatory term which is used to describe the political ideology and policies of theRussian state underVladimir Putin.[6] It is used in reference to the Russian state'sautocratic political system,ultranationalism andneo-imperialism,militarism,expansionism,corporatism, possibly neofascism, close alignment ofchurch and state,political repression, use ofcensorship andstate propaganda, the justification for several wars in the 21st century, and acult of personality around Putin.[7][1][8][9]
Ruscism is described as based on the imperialist ideas of so-called "Russian world" and "specialcivilizational mission" of theRussians, such asMoscow as the third Rome,[10][11][12] which manifests itself inanti-Westernism and supportsregaining former lands by conquest.[13][14][15] Ukrainian officials and media often use 'Rashist' to broadly refer to members and backers of theRussian Armed Forces.[16][17]
The current usage of the term originated in 1995 during theFirst Chechen War, but it became more prevalent after theRusso-Georgian andRusso-Ukrainian wars, and it became especially prevalent during theRussian invasion of Ukraine.
"Ruscism," "Rashism," and "Russism" are portmanteaus combining 'Russia' and 'fascism'.[3] They transliterate the term, reflecting English, Ukrainian, and Russian pronunciations.[3][18]
The term, in the formRussism (Russian:русизм,romanized: rusizm), was popularized, described and extensively used in 1995 by President of theChechen Republic of IchkeriaDzhokhar Dudayev, who sawthe military action by Russia in Chechnya as a manifestation of the rising ideology.[19][20][21] According to Dudayev, Ruscism is:
a variety of hatred ideology which is based onGreat Russian chauvinism, spiritlessness and immorality. It differs from other forms of fascism, racism, and nationalism by a more extreme cruelty, both to man and to nature. It is based on the destruction of everything and everyone, the tactics ofscorched earth. Ruscism is aschizophrenic variety of theworld domination complex. This is a distinct version of slave psychology, it grows like a parasite on the fabricated history, occupied territories and oppressed peoples.[22]
The term was later used by the next president of theChechen Republic,Aslan Maskhadov who considered Ruscism a variety of fascism, but more dangerous than fascism and existing during the last 200 years.[23] The Chechen news websiteKavkaz Center featured a regular column titled "Russism", in which around 150 articles were published between 2003 and 2016.[23]
The term Ruscism/Rashism (Russian:рашизм,romanized: rashizm,Ukrainian:рашизм,romanized: rashyzm) became increasingly common in Ukrainian media after theannexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula by the Russian Federation,[24] the downing ofa Boeing 777 nearDonetsk on 17 July 2014, and the start of theRusso-Ukrainian War in 2014.[25][26][27] It appears in the Russian-language song "That's, Baby, Ruscism! (Orthodox Fascism!)" by Ukrainian composer and singer-songwriterBorys Sevastianov.[23]
TheCommittee of the Verkhovna Rada on Humanitarian and Information Policy supports the initiative of Ukrainian scientists, journalists, political scientists and all civil society to promote and recognize the term "Ruscism" at the national and international levels.[28]
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By 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, terms likeRashyzm andRashyst were widely used by Ukrainianmilitary,political, and media circles.[29][30]Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine'sNational Security and Defense Council Secretary, prominently advocated for "Ruscism" to describe Russia's aggression,[31] asserting it as worse than fascism:
Today, I would like to appeal to all journalists to use the term 'Ruscism,' because it is a new phenomenon in world history that Mr. Putin has created with his country. These are modern-day ruscists, who are little different from fascists, and in fact, have surpassed them. I'll explain why: previously, there was no capability to destroy cities with such a quantity of aerial bombs and equipment; there was not such power. Now, there are entirely different capacities, and they are using them in an inhumane way.[32]
On 23 April 2022, President of UkraineVolodymyr Zelenskyy stated that a new concept called "Ruscism" will be in history books:[33][34]
This country will have a word in our history textbooks that no one has invented, which everyone is repeating in Ukraine and in Europe – 'Ruscism'. It's not just random that everyone is saying that this is Ruscism. The word is new, but the actions are the same as they were 80 years ago in Europe. Because for all of these 80 years, if you analyse our continent, there has been no barbarism like this. So Ruscism is a concept that will go into the history books, it will be in Wikipedia, it will be [studied] in classes. And small children around the world will stand up and answer their teachers when they ask when Ruscism began, in what land, and who won the fight for freedom against this terrible concept.[34]
On 2 May 2023, theVerkhovna Rada of Ukraine officially recognized Ruscism as the state ideology of Russia.[35][36] According to the Rada's definition, Ruscism is "militarism,cult of the leader's personality and sacralisation of state institutions, self-glorification of the Russian Federation through violent oppression and / or denial of the existence of other ethnicities,the imposition of the Russian language and culture on other peoples, propaganda of the ‘Russian world doctrine’, systemic violation of norms and principles of the international law, sovereign rights of other countries, their territorial integrity, and internationally recognised borders".[35]
On 22 May 2023,NATO Parliamentary Assembly officially used the term Ruscism to describe the ideology and practices of Russia in Declaration 482, article 20.[37] Currently, this term is widely used in various international anti-war activities, for example in the "Stop Ruscism" Manifesto.[38]
On 7 March 2024, American PresidentJoe Biden has given the2024 State of the Union Address where he comparedRussia under Vladimir Putin toAdolf Hitler'sconquests of Europe.[39]
Timothy D. Snyder ofYale University believes that the ideology of Putin and his regime was influenced by Russian nationalist philosopherIvan Ilyin (1883–1954).[8][40][41] A number of Ilyin's works advocatedfascism.[40] Ilyin has been quoted byPresident of Russia Vladimir Putin, and is considered by some observers to be a major ideological inspiration for Putin.[42] Putin was personally involved in moving Ilyin's remains back to Russia, and in 2009 consecrated his grave.[43]
According to Snyder, Ilyin "provided a metaphysical and moral justification for political totalitarianism" in the form of a fascist state, and that today "his ideas have been revived and celebrated by Vladimir Putin".[44]
Ilyin's book,Our Tasks was in 2013 recommended as essential reading for state officials by the Russian government, whileWhat Dismemberment of Russia Would Mean for the World is said to have been "read and reread" by Putin according toThe Economist.[9]
In 1997, Russian thinkerAleksandr Dugin, widely known for fascistic views,[45][46] publishedThe Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, a book believed to have garnered significant impact among Russia's military, police and foreign policy elites.[47][48] In it, he argued that Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning", "no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness", that "[its] certain territorial ambitions represen[t] an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". He argued that Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is a "sanitary cordon", which would be "inadmissible".[47] The book may have been influential inVladimir Putin's foreign policy, which eventually led to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[49] Also in 1997, Dugin hailed what he saw as the arrival of a "genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism" in Russia, in an article titled "Fascism – Borderless and Red"; previously in 1992, he had in another article defended "fascism" as not having anything to do with "the racist and chauvinist aspects of National Socialism", stating in contrast that "Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes."[50] Another of Dugin's books,The Fourth Political Theory, published in 2009, has been cited as an inspiration for Russian policy in events such as thewar in Donbas,[51] and for the contemporaryEuropean far-right in general.[52]
Although there is a dispute on the extent of the personal relationship between Dugin and Putin, Dugin's influence exists broadly in Russian military and security circles.[53] He became a lecturer at theMilitary Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia in the 1990s, and hisFoundations of Geopolitics has become part of the curriculum there, as well as in several other military/police academies and institutions of higher learning. According toJohn B. Dunlop of theHoover Institution, "[t]here has perhaps not been another book published in Russia during the post-communist period that has exerted an influence on Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites comparable to that of [...]Foundations of Geopolitics."[53]
According toEuractiv, Russian political operative Timofey Sergeitsev is "one of the ideologists of modern Russian fascism".[54]
During the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the victims ofthe massacres inKyiv Oblast became known,[55][56] the website of the Russian state news agencyRIA Novosti published an article by Sergeitsev titled "What Russia Should Do with Ukraine", which was perceived to justify a Ukrainian genocide. It calls for repression, de-Ukrainization, de-Europeanization, andethnocide of theUkrainians.[57][58][59][60][61][62] According to Oxford expert on Russian affairs Samuel Ramani, the article "represents mainstreamKremlin thinking".[63] The head of theLatvian Ministry of Foreign AffairsEdgars Rinkēvičs called the article "ordinary fascism".[64] Timothy D. Snyder described it as a "genocide handbook", and he also described it as "one of the most openly genocidal documents I have ever seen".[65]
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TheRussian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) officially deems the invasion of Ukraine to be a "holy war".[66][67][68] During theWorld Russian People's Council in March 2024, it approved a document stating that this "holy war" was to defend "Holy Russia" and to protect the world fromglobalism andthe West, which it said had "fallen intoSatanism".[66] The document further stated that all of Ukraine should come under Russia'ssphere of influence, and thatUkrainians andBelarusians "should be recognised only assub-ethnic groups of theRussians".[66]Patriarch Kirill also issued a prayer for Russian victory in the war,[69] and the church has punished or expelled priests who refuse to say it.[70]
In late 2022, theSecurity Service of Ukraine (SSU) searched churches of theUkrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in multiple Ukrainian cities andoblasts.[71] The SSU found manuals from Patriarch Kirill on how propaganda can be spread through parishioners, as well as pro-Kremlin literature (e.g. by ideologist Ivan Ilyin).[71]
From 1999 to February 2020Vladislav Surkov was an influential Russian politician and was dubbed the "Grey Cardinal" and theKremlin's main ideologist and also was commonly regarded as the mastermind of Putin's policies towards Ukraine.[74] Surkov helped create pro-government youth movements, including theNashi Youth Movement, meeting with their leaders and giving them lectures.[75][76] TheNashi Youth Movement has been likened to theHitler Youth[77] and the Soviet-eraKomsomol.[78]
On 26 February 2020, Surkov gave an interview toAktualnyie kommentarii where he said that "There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainianism ... it is a specific disorder of the mind, sudden passion for ethnography, taken to its extremes. ... It's a muddle instead of a state ... there is no nation".[79][80][74][81]
Russian presidentVladimir Putin is known for denying Ukrainian and Belarusiannationhood, referring to Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians as "one people" making up atriune Russian nation. He said there is "no historical basis" for the "idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians".[82] Putin has repeatedly denied Ukraine'sright to exist, calling the country "an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space". He claimed that it was created by the RussianBolsheviks and that it never had "real statehood".[83][84][85] Moreover, Putin admitted that theRussian invasion of Ukraine was an attempt to reclaim "Russian" land.[86]
Putin describes Russia as a distinct "civilization" and said that it must be preserved through genetics and protected by advanced weapons. He decreed in 2019 that all Russians be assigned "genetic passports" by 2025.[87]
On 2 May 2023, theVerkhovna Rada officially defined Putin's political rule as Ruscism and condemned its ideological foundations.[88]
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine,Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of theSecurity Council of Russia and former Russian president, has been described as a "Russian rashist (Russian fascist)" and the "Kremlin's Nazi" by Ukrainian and American media.[89] He publicly wrote that "Ukraine is NOT a country, but artificially collected territories" and thatUkrainian "is NOT a language" but a "mongrel dialect" ofRussian.[90] Medvedev said that Ukraine should not exist in any form and that Russia will continue to wage war against any independent Ukrainian state.[91] He said Ukrainians had to choose between joining Russia or "death".[92] On 22 February 2024, Medvedev said that the Russian Army will go further into Ukraine, seizingKyiv andOdesa, which he called "Russian cities".[93][94] He also described the invasion as a sacred war against Satan.[95]
In 2023, Medvedev threatened toannex the territories of the self-proclaimed republics ofAbkhazia andSouth Ossetia.[96]
In March 2024, during theWorld Festival of Youth inSochi, Medvedev described Ukraine as part of Russia,[97][98][99] and spoke in front of a large map showing Russia in control of most of the country, with western Ukrainepartitioned between other states.[100]
According toThe Economist, as a political calculation in response to his waning popularity in the early 2010s, Vladimir Putin began to draw more heavily on post-Soviet fascist thinking, concepts which emerged after the collapse of theSoviet Union.[9] According toMark Lipovetsky, Ruscism has become "the cultural mainstream of Putinist Russia".[101] In 2007, the first post-SovietPrime Minister of RussiaYegor Gaidar warned about the rise of post-imperial nostalgia, stating that "Russia is going through a dangerous phase", and making a reference to history by stating "[w]e should not succumb to the magic of numbers but the fact that there was a 15-year gap between the collapse of theGerman Empire andAdolf Hitler's rise to power and 15 years between thecollapse of the USSR and Russia in 2006–07 makes one think".[9]
In 2014,Boris Nemtsov criticized what he perceived as a turn towards "cultivating and rewarding the lowest instincts in people, provoking hatred and fighting" by the Russian regime, stating in his final interview – hours beforehis assassination – that "Russia is rapidly turning into a fascist state. We already have propaganda modelled after Nazi Germany. We also have a nucleus of assault brigades ... That's just the beginning."[9]Alexander Yakovlev, architect of democratic reforms underMikhail Gorbachev, noted the connection between security services and fascism, stating "[t]he danger of fascism in Russia is real because since 1917 we have become used to living in a criminal world with a criminal state in charge. Banditry, sanctified by ideology—this wording suits both communists and fascists."[9]
Several scholars have posited that Russia has transformed into a fascist state, or that fascism best describes the Russian political system, especially following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2017, Russian academicianVladislav Inozemtsev considered that Russia is an early-stage fascist state, thus claiming the current Russian political regime as fascist.[102]Tomasz Kamusella, a Polish scholar on nationalism and ethnicity, andAllister Heath, a journalist atThe Daily Telegraph, describe the current authoritarian Russian political regime as Putin's fascism.[103][104] Political scientist Maria Snegovaya believes thatRussia as led by Putin is a fascist regime.[105]
In March 2022, Yale historianOdd Arne Westad said that Putin's words about Ukraine resembled, which Harvard journalist James F. Smith summarized, "some of the colonial racial arguments of imperial powers of the past, ideas from the late 19th and early 20th century".[106]
In April 2022,Larysa Yakubova [uk] from theInstitute of History of Ukraine in her article "The Anatomy of Ruscism" stated that Russia has not reflected on the tragedies of totalitarianism and did notdecommunize its own Soviet totalitarian heritageunlike Ukraine. According to her, that was the major reason for the formation and rapid development of Ruscism in modern Russia both among political and intellectual/cultural elites. She also noted that Ruscism, in the form of a threat to the world order and peace, will remain until there is "a global condemnation of communist/bolshevik ideology as well as its heir – Ruscism and Putinism."[107]
On 24 April 2022,Timothy D. Snyder published an article inThe New York Times Magazine where he described the history, premises and linguistic peculiarities of the term "Ruscism".[4] According to Snyder, the term "is a useful conceptualization of Putin's worldview", writing that "we have tended to overlook the central example of fascism's revival, which is the Putin regime in the Russian Federation".[4] On the wider regime, Snyder writes that "[p]rominent Russian fascists are given access to mass media during wars, including this one. Members of the Russian elite, above all Putin himself, rely increasingly on fascist concepts", and states that "Putin's very justification of the war in Ukraine [...] represents aChristian form of fascism."[4]
Snyder followed this article in May with an essay titled "We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist".[8] According to Snyder, "[m]any hesitate to see today's Russia as fascist becauseStalin'sSoviet Union defined itself as antifascist", stating that the key to understanding Russia today is "Stalin's flexibility about fascism": "Because Soviet anti-fascism just meant defining an enemy, it offered fascism a backdoor through which to return to Russia [...] Fascists calling other people 'fascists' is fascism taken to its illogical extreme as a cult of unreason. [...] [It is] the essential Putinist practice".[8] Based on this, Snyder refers to Putin's regime asschizo-fascism,[108][8] a termthat was also used byMikhail Epstein who defined the "schizofascism" in Russia or "fascism disguised as a struggle against fascism" as a "worldview that combines the theory of moral, ethnic or racial superiority, divine mission, imperialism, nationalism, xenophobia, aspiration to superpower, anti-capitalism, anti-democracy, anti-liberalism."[109]
In an April 2022 discussion, historianNiall Ferguson stated that in his view, "one can compare the regime that now exists in Russia with a fascist regime", going on to assert that "there is this toxic cocktail of Russian nationalism,orthodoxy and imperial nostalgia in the PutinWeltanschauung—world view—which is distinctly fascistic. And if you watch therecent rally in the Moscow soccer stadium, that was a fascist event. And moreover, if you look at the way the Russian troops are conducting themselves in Ukraine, it looks an awful lot like fascism in action — not least the appalling scenes that we've now seen in film clipsfrom Bucha ... Somehow or other, Russia has ended up as a fascist regime, with a fascist ideology and fascist modes of operations."[110] In the same discussion, economistJohn H. Cochrane also contended that Russia under Putin has "the same fascist economic model as the fascist regimes, a nominally private industry run by a bunch ofoligarchkleptocrats with their own little monopoly sources, who trade vast wealth for political support of the regime."[110]
In July 2022, Japanese-American political scientistFrancis Fukuyama stated that Putin's regime in Russia more than anything resembles to that ofNazi Germany whose only ideology isextreme nationalism, but it is at the same time "less institutionalised and revolves only around one manVladimir Putin".[111]
In February 2023, a Slovenian philosopherSlavoj Žižek stated that "[t]he ideology of people around Putin, and Putin himself, seems quite clear-cut. It's Neo-Fascism. They don't use this term, but the entire framework of Russian imperialist views — with the right to aggressively expand the state borders, the internal politics with regard to oligarchs, etc. — this mindset is the core of what we would call Neo-Fascism."[112]
Since 2022 in Russian there was a noticeable increase of statements by politicians, experts and media personalities that were described as genocidal, violent and threatening not only against Ukraine, but almost every other country in the world not sharing the Russian narrative.[113][114]
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In 2017, Yuliia Strebkova ofIgor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute indicated that Ruscism in combination withUkrainophobia constitutes the ethno-national vector of the more broad Russian neo-imperial ideological doctrine of "Russian world".[116]
In 2018, Borys Demyanenko (Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi State Pedagogical University) in his paper"'Ruscism' as a quasi-ideology of the post-Soviet imperial revenge" defined Ruscism as a misanthropic ideology and an eclectic mixture of imperialneocolonialism, great-power chauvinism,nostalgia for the Soviet past, and religious traditionalism. Demyanenko considers that in internal domestic policy, Ruscism manifests itself in a violation ofhuman rights along with a freedom of thought, persecution of dissidents, propaganda, ignoring of democratic procedures. While in foreign policy, Ruscism demonstrates itself in a violation of international law, imposing its own version of historical truth, the justification of occupation and annexation of the territories of other states.[117]
Political scientistStanislav Belkovsky argues that Ruscism is disguised asanti-fascism, but has a fascist face and essence.[118] Political scientist Ruslan Kliuchnyk notes that the Russian elite considers itself entitled to build its own "sovereign democracy" without reference to Western standards, but taking into account Russia's traditions of state-building. Administrative resources in Russia are one of the means of preserving the democratic facade, which hides the mechanism of absolute manipulation of the will of citizens.[119] Russian political scientistAndrey Piontkovsky argues that the ideology of Ruscism is in many ways similar to Nazism, with the speeches of President Vladimir Putin reflecting similar ideas to those ofAdolf Hitler.[120][121]
According toAlexander J. Motyl, an American historian and political scientist, Russian fascism has the following characteristics:[122]
According to ProfessorOleksandr Kostenko [uk], Ruscism is an ideology that is "based on illusions and justifies the admissibility of any arbitrariness for the sake of misinterpreted interests of Russian society. In foreign policy, Ruscism manifests itself, in particular, in violation of the principles of international law, imposing its version of historical truth on the world solely in favor of Russia, abusingthe right of veto in theUN Security Council, and so on. In domestic politics, Ruscism is a violation of human rights to freedom of thought, persecution of members of the 'dissent movement', the use of the media to misinform their people, and so on." Oleksandr Kostenko also considers Ruscism a manifestation ofsociopathy.[123]
Timothy D. Snyder argued in an essay that a "time traveler from the 1930s" would "have no difficulty" identifying the Russian regime in 2022 as fascist, writing:
The symbol Z, the rallies, the propaganda, the war as a cleansing act of violence and the death pits around Ukrainian towns make it all very plain. The war against Ukraine is not only a return to the traditional fascist battleground, but also a return to traditional fascist language and practice. Other people are there to be colonized. Russia is innocent because of its ancient past. The existence of Ukraine is an international conspiracy. War is the answer.[8]
Boris Kagarlitsky describes the regime as "Post-Fascism", a logical outcome of "neoliberalism and postmodernism", lacking "the goal of thetotalitarian-corporate reorganization of capitalism" that Fascism had, when "the system is unable to build a workable totalitarian machine that corresponds to" its "totalitarian ideology and rhetoric" as the industrial system of the first half of the 20th century no longer exists; it is a "product of the... degradation of late Soviet society combined with the degradation oflate capitalism", which "suggests not integration but fragmentation of society", so the regime follows not "a coherent worldview", but "a haphazard pasting together of ideas, scraps of concepts and randomly assembled images."[124]
Ilya Budraitskis cites the definition of "post-fascism" by the definition ofEnzo Traverso: unlike fascism of the 20th-century, which was a "movement", the "modern fascism" is a "move" made from above, as by Traverso's definition, "post-fascism... no longer needs mass movements or a more or less coherent ideology. It seeks to affirm social inequality and the subordination of the lower classes to the higher classes as unconditional as the only possible reality and the only credible law of society." Budraitskis believes that "Russian society... has consistently been reduced to a state of silent victimhood, a malleable material from which a full-fledged fascist regime can be built."[125]
Russian sociologistGrigory Yudin emphasized the importance of the socialatomization anddepoliticisation of Soviet society during the "Era of Stagnation" and later during the rule by Putin, followed by the mobilization of Russian societyto attack Ukraine in 2022. According to him, all historical fascist regimes also atomized the societies to mobilize them. He also says that the image of general popular support for Putin is false and that it's being used by Putin to threaten the elites and the people: the elites fear that 'the people' will support repressions against them, while individuals of the atomized society fear that if they express their disagreement, they will alone confront the non-existent "people masses".[126][127] Kagarlitsky argued that the term "molecurization" is more adequate, as the society is split not into atoms, but into "molecules – households, which can be considered the last historical form of existence of the Russian community."[128]
Tomasz Kamusella highlights the important and often overlooked role of Russian language in Ruscism when thegovernment of Russia claims that allRussian speakers must be "protected" by expanding Russia's territorial borders until they fully overlap with this perceived "Russian world" orGreater Russia. Simultaneously, the existence of Russian-speaking communities in countries such as Belarus andUkraine has been used to claim that Belarus and Ukraine are "pseudo-states", because Belarusian and Ukrainian are not "real languages". According to Kamusella, ethnolinguistic nationalism officially became part of the Russian government's ideology in 2007 with the creation of theRusskiy Mir Foundation, while the weaponization of Russian language andculture and transition of it from an element ofsoft power tohard power took place after the2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.[129] Latvian legal scholarKristine Jarinovska described constitutional amendment initiatives to introduce Russian as a second official language in Latvia as a potentially effective tool for the ″destruction of the nation-state″, due to the impact such an amendment would have on Latvia's human rights and general principles of law, creating an obligation for hundreds of thousands of Latvian students to learn Russian despite a minority of students voluntarily choosing to learn Russian as a foreign language.[130]
In 2014, Russian actorIvan Okhlobystin, who holds pro-Putin views, publicly called himself a "Rashist" and made a tattoo "as a sign that I'm a Rashist, I'll live as a Rashist and I'll die as a Rashist".[131] In 2015, he released a series of wristwatches withChi Rho and the text "I am Rashist" (Russian:я рашист,romanized: ya rashist) on the clock face, written with aGothic font, and with "Not onlyCrimea's ours – everything's ours!" on the back.[132] The term was also embraced by Russian nationalistYegor Kholmogorov who published an article titled "Russism. Choosing Putin", in which he broke down Russism into three components: "Russia is above all. Russia is a state of Russians. The Lord is with Russia and the Russians".[23]
In 2015, Russian journalistAndrei Malgin compared Putin's desire to restore a "lost" empire and hissupport for the church and "traditional values" to the policies of Italian fascist leaderBenito Mussolini.[133] British historianMark Galeotti stated in 2024 that Putin'sstatism is increasingly closer to Mussolini's fascism.[134]
Russian economist Yakov Mirkin said that the term "Rashizm" is incorrect because it equates the entireRussian nation with "the ideology that brings trouble". He noted that asNazism has never been called "Germanism" andItalian fascism has never been called "Italism", Putin's ideology should be called "as you wish", with "the most cruel nicknames", but not "Rashizm".[135]
Artyom Yefimov wrote inSignal (email-based media created byMeduza) that although the word "Rashizm" was created in Ukraine as an emotionalcliché, it may become a real term, as history knows examples of pejoratives being turned into real terms (e.g.Tory andSlavophilia). In Ukraine, he writes, it has been used in scientific works since 2014 (although rarely in scientific publications of other countries).[135]
Oleg Tinkov, a Russian entrepreneur stated he hoped others would "follow my example and stop working for fascism" after renouncing his Russian citizenship after the 2022 invasion.[136]
In 2023,Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Board of Human Rights Center "Memorial", said that Russia under Putin had descended into fascism and that the army is committing "mass murder".[137][138]
Russian television presenterTina Kandelaki, who supportedRussia's war against Ukraine,[139][140] criticized Wikipedia's use of the term "Rashizm" on herTelegram channel, accusing Wikipedia of "digital fascism" targeting Russian people and calling Russians to stop using it.[141]
Russia's federal censorRoskomnadzor reportedly ordered theEnglish Wikipedia on 18 May 2022 to take down the articles "Rashism" and "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", asserting that they contain false information about the war the Russian government calls a "special military operation".[142][143] AfterWikimedia Foundation refused to do so, a Moscow court imposed a $88,000 fine, a decision that the foundation has appealed.[144][145]
On 20 May 2022, during the showEvening with Vladimir Solovyov, the hostVladimir Solovyov and his panelists responded with outrage at Timothy D. Snyder's article "We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist", an article which according to Russian media watchdogJulia Davis has "spread through Russian state media like wildfire". Solovyov attacked Snyder by calling him a "pseudo-professor of a pseudo-university" and "simply a liar", and, addressing Americans, stating: "Let me tell you a secret: first of all, your signs are idiotic in their nature. Secondly, looking at your listed indications, how are they any different from the election campaign ofDonald Trump?"[146]
HistorianStanley G. Payne said that Putin's Russia "is not equivalent to the fascist regimes of World War II, but it forms the nearest analogue to fascism found in a major country since that time" and "it is not the product of any revolutionary movement or ideology -- fascist or otherwise. It has developed the characteristics of what some political analysts have called a 'mafia state,' though under centralized personal dictatorship."[147] He believes that the political system in Russia is "more a revival of the creed ofTsar Nicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality' than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini."[147]
HistorianRoger Griffin notes that unlike the fascist dictators who gave themselves absolute dictatorial authority, Putin prefers to manipulate "the trappings of the proto-democratic system", pretending to "defend and guarantee the Russian Constitution" and making amendments to it instead of completely rejecting it. Griffin compares Russia to militaristJapan, which he says "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist".[147]
According to postdoctoral fellow Maria Snegovaya, Russian "extremely passive and atomized" society passively accepts Putin's ideas, but doesn't actively embrace them because Russia is a post-totalitarian society that has "a very bad experience of mobilizing around big ideas". She also said that "[Putin's Russia] lacks a vision of the future. Russia complains about the existing international order and Russia's place in it, but it does not have any alternative vision."[147]
Three-quarters of the letters in a Ukrainian neologism from English ("Pаша") are brought together with five-sixths of the letters from an adopted Italian word ("фашизм," fascism) [...] The Ukrainian language has offered a neologism whose formation helps us to see deeper into the creativity of another culture, and whose meaning helps us to see why this war is fought
Ukrainian press has been presenting .... the term Rashism, which conflates Russia and fascism
Pro-Ukrainian commentators have also used the word 'Rashism'
20. Denouncing Russia's employment of hunger as a weapon as part of its ideology and practices of Ruscism, and stressing the ongoing importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye, to global food security
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