The ROMANOV Archive Manifesto: On the Defense of Russian Culture

Welcome to ROMANOV: an online constantly-updated archive for all “Russian-Originated Media Archetypes & Narratives in Occidental Videogames.”

Here, the Manifesto behind this Archive shall be outlined, the guiding principles behind this project. ROMANOV is not just a catalog of references, but a deliberate attempt to document, analyze, and preserve the many ways in which Russian culture has been represented, borrowed, distorted, or celebrated in gaming. It is a living record that defends the cultural depth of Russia against reduction to clichés, while also recognizing the powerful role these tropes play in shaping how millions of players imagine the country and its people.

Introduction: Why Russia in Games?

Have you ever wondered what that familiar piece of ballet music in your Sega Genesis game was? Or why levels set in Russia are always full of snow? What those Russian gangster enemies were yelling at you? Or how come the Russian Army is so obsessed with invading New York City?

Don't worry, we've got you covered. Whatever the reference, motif, or stereotype, it will be catalogued and explained here. ROMANOV exists to trace these patterns—musical, political, social, cultural, narrative, and visual alike—and to show how they have shaped our collective image of Russia in gaming.

All across media, Russians have long been a source of fascination, mystery, and, sometimes, caricature. From the Cold War era onward, Hollywood and other entertainment industries developed a knack for portraying Russia in specific, often exaggerated ways. Videogames are no exception. As we dive into these depictions, the goal is not to defend or criticize Russia’s real-world actions but rather to explore the cultural fabric that shapes these portrayals with facts and carefully-researched sources.

One popular all-encompassing stereotype—what Russians themselves call клюква or “cranberry”—represents an idealized, sometimes laughable, version of Russia, complete with eternally snowy landscapes, fierce bears, heavy accents and stoic, vodka-loving characters, who are almost invariably guaranteed to be street thugs, terrorists and spies, ruthless gangsters, totalitarian communists, idealistic revolutionaries, corrupt government officials, religious fanatics, billionaire oligarchs, disillusioned or mad scientists, decadent prostitutes or lethal femme fatales. These stereotypes are a staple in movies and videogames, painting an image that can be more folklore than fact, but, like all stereotypes, always created with a shred of truth. Through my analysis, we’ll look at how this idea persists in videogames, examining the broader impact and underlying themes that shape these portrayals.

The ROMANOV Mission

Having stated these facts and building on these contexts—and how they connect to the broader mission of this Archive—this series will ultimately examine the complex layers of representation and misrepresentation, allowing readers to form a more nuanced view of how Russian culture usually appears in videogames. This archive exists to catalog and analyze, but also defend Russian culture against erasure, distortion, and the lazy reliance on caricature. The purpose here is not to excuse governments or justify wars, but to insist that culture must remain separate from politics. Russian art, language, and memory are now under siege, not only through Western sanctions and boycotts, but also through Ukraine’s deliberate campaign to dismantle monuments, ban literature, and erase an entire cultural legacy even while presenting itself as the victim of Russia’s cultural repression. Such contradictions expose the double standards at play: the West has sought to isolate Russia, yet Russian culture endures. This archive itself is living proof of that endurance. By analyzing and denouncing stereotypes, vilification, and historical fictions, ROMANOV stands as a reminder that no amount of propaganda can succeed in making an entire people or their culture simply vanish. To put it simply, Russia matters. And shall continue to matter.

It should be noted, that for the sake of analytical coherence and also simplicity, Japanese-developed videogames are also included, as their representations frequently align with Western cultural perspectives and stereotypes regarding Russians, not to mention, many of them are directed to a Western audience or reference Hollywood stereotypes directly. Moreover, native Russian videogames, especially those that have made an impact abroad in Western audiences or have reached international audiences broadly, will be featured here, noting that the developers are native Russians.

No game is excluded here. American, British, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian—or from any other country—all titles that feature Western tropes and clichés are welcome and will be examined through the same lens, (although the focus will be on Western-developed games). Their biases, agendas, stereotypes, and prejudices will be noted, regardless of origin. As surprising as it may seem, even Russian developers can be highly critical of their own country, culture, and government, and sometimes they too adopt or replicate Western prejudices about themselves. In fact, Russian games can be just as shaped by these tropes as they are capable of influencing Western audiences in return. For that reason, it is equally important to feature Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and other post-Soviet games here, not only to highlight how they engage with these archetypes, but also to contrast them directly with their Western counterparts. Localization is just as important as design or narrative, and this archive will also explore how Russian culture appears through language itself: from Russian dubs of Western games to the way Russian dialogue is written and spoken in English titles—sometimes authentic, sometimes riddled with errors or clichés—revealing yet another layer of how culture is filtered, misrepresented, or reimagined in gaming, through language, transcreation and localization.

Our Mission Statements

• To catalog and analyze: every Western game that features Russian characters, settings, language, or themes—as well as Russian-developed games that gained recognition in the West. We provide context-rich interpretations that go beyond surface-level stereotypes.
• To preserve and spotlight: lesser-known, forgotten, or overlooked games that deserve renewed attention for their artistic, cultural, or historical value.
• To support game developers: by promoting creators who engage thoughtfully with Russian themes or come from Russian-speaking backgrounds.
• To foster cultural understanding: by using games as a bridge to the Russian language, history, and identity—making these accessible and engaging to non-Russian speakers and the curious alike.

Russophobia Under the Gaming Lens

We must also confront the fact that this exploration inevitably touches on Russophobia—the fear, distrust, or disparagement of Russia and Russians. While the archive’s purpose is not to excuse or justify any country’s geopolitical actions, it aims to understand the cultural underpinnings of these portrayals. By doing so, it shall hopefully reveal how certain narratives become ingrained, for better or for worse, and how they contribute to our perceptions of Russia in the gaming world. With ongoing geopolitical conflicts like the current one in Ukraine, these portrayals take on new layers of meaning, sometimes reinforcing fears and misconceptions. Russophobia has, thusly, resurfaced in different forms, finding its way into cultural expressions, including videogames. The mere mention of Russophobia can also make some readers think the author sides unequivocally with Russia, right or wrong. Thus, this must be stressed: this archive doesn’t aim to exonerate or defend any nation’s actions. While there is indeed much love for Russia here, please rest assured: the method here is neutral—document, compare, and cite. Which is a much-needed breath of fresh air in a world consumed by fanaticism, hatred, extremism and jingoism. Instead, my goal is to explore how and why these representations persist in Western games and to examine what they reveal about our collective perceptions.

I would like to mention and promote the authors Guy Mettan and Dominic Basulto, who have written extensively for Western audiences on the subject of Russophobia, and I recommend their books wholeheartedly. Having read their books, and the examples they quote, especially when it comes to the dirty tricks of Western mainstream media, it is not hard to see that all articles mentioned in this manifesto (mostly Western and Ukrainian sources) align well with the Russophobia playbook that has been in use by Western powers since even before the Cold War, in Russia’s imperial times, to smear the image of Russia and Russians in the West.

Please pay close attention to the sources cited throughout this document. Most originate from Western or Ukrainian outlets, and it is crucial to examine their own language carefully: observe how they frame their arguments, why they choose certain words, and what they may stand to gain if you accept their perspective. Then weigh these narratives against the counterpoints presented here. You will no doubt notice resentment, derision, manipulation, fanaticism, aggression, and double standards woven throughout these Western sources: and that's the point.

Ukraine in Gaming: Historical Revisionism, Censorship and Suppression of Language

First, we must establish Ukraine's recent approach to gaming in order to directly see how this worldview shapes what we analyze here, which is the gaming industry. How games are made, censored, and received. The same impulses that tear down monuments, rename institutions, and police language inevitably reach into gaming, where Russian culture is erased or rewritten to fit current narratives. We’ve laid out these patterns because they matter when we turn to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.—a series whose recent remasters were stripped of Russian voices and Soviet-era relics, not for artistic reasons, but as part of the very same cultural systematic campaign of Russophobia we denounce.

Since 2022, companies like CD Projekt RED, Microsoft, Amazon, and EA suspended sales or even canceled Russian localizations, leaving countless players cut off from their own language despite having no responsibility for their government’s actions. Amazon went as far as halting the Russian localization of New World, while EA removed Russian teams from FIFA. The irony is that Russian studios themselves, even under immense political pressure, often continue to include Ukrainian as a playable language in their releases, proving that art and accessibility need not be held hostage to geopolitics. It also proves that, despite the conflict, the vast majority of Russians continue to view Ukrainians as a brotherly nation to be included, despite the vocal hatred, rejection and rampant Russophobia emerging from Ukraine in recent times. Simply put, Russians do not look at Ukrainians in the same way Ukrainians have learned to look at Russians in recent years. Cultural accessibility need not be hostage to geopolitics, even when hostility and distrust dominate the political sphere.

Remember: No Russian

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is one of the starkest examples. The remastered trilogy released in 2025 launched to “Mostly Negative” reviews not because of gameplay but because GSC Game World removed the original Russian voice tracks and deleted Soviet-era monuments from the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. As many gamers noted, what once functioned as a “museum of time”—a reminder of Soviet negligence and the catastrophe it produced—was stripped of its historical markers, not to glorify Moscow, but to maintain immersion in a setting bound to 1986. Ironically, this undermines the traditional Ukrainian anti-Soviet narrative further. Fans thus argued that this was not propaganda, but revisionism: the Zone’s cultural and historical texture gutted in the name of contemporary politics. In censoring language and revising relics, the developers inadvertently proved the point that history and culture are not immune to war—they become its first casualties.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl became one of the most politicized game releases of recent years, shaped as much by war as by design. Developed under bombardment, with parts of the team evacuated to Prague and others fighting at the front, the studio GSC Game World openly tied its sequel to Ukraine’s survival, dedicating it to fallen developers and soldiers, and lacing the game with Ukrainian songs, imagery, and the newly adopted spelling “Chornobyl.” At the same time, it severed ties with its largest historic fanbase: Russia. The game was pulled from Russian platforms, Russian dubbing was scrapped, and hackers demanding its reinstatement were rebuffed. Western, Middle-Eastern and Ukrainian media framed these choices as defiant acts of cultural resilience, praising a “victory” for Ukraine as sales hit a million in 48 hours and Xbox executives championed it as a symbol of endurance.

But this celebration revealed a double standard. Russian fans — who had carried the franchise since its 2007 debut — were written off as expendable, while forums filled with complaints about the absence of Russian localization were dismissed as petty or malicious. When Russian state officials in turn threatened to ban the game as “extremist” because of its explicit support for the Ukrainian military, Western coverage decried it as censorship and propaganda, even citing disinformation campaigns. In effect, barring Russians from access was lauded as principle, while Russia reciprocating was condemned as dictatorship. The narrative around Stalker 2 thus became less about the Zone and more about the war itself: a cultural front where the exclusion of Russians was justified as moral necessity, and the game’s very existence was cast in the West as proof that Ukraine could not be broken. Everything ceased to be about the game and gained a political connotation. The game itself became yet another cultural and political symbol of "Ukrainian resilience in the face of Russian aggression."

The case of Tetris

When people talk about how culture and politics don’t matter in games, we need look no further than the phenomenon that was Tetris. Born in 1984 behind the Iron Curtain, at the height of the Cold War, it should have been the least marketable product imaginable in the West: a Soviet puzzle game from a communist state. And yet the opposite happened—its origin became part of its mystique.

From the moment Tetris crossed the border, Western marketing leaned heavily on Russian imagery to brand it as exotic and unmistakably Soviet. Box art featured Moscow skylines, the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, red banners, hammers and sickles, cosmonauts in space stations, even stylized Cyrillic lettering to remind players that this wasn’t just another puzzle—it was a cultural export from the USSR. The soundtrack cemented the association with “Korobeiniki,” a 19th-century Russian folk tune that instantly stamped the game as foreign and distinctive. Its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, famously felt embarrassed by it, saying it would undermine Russian culture, as children would associate the folk song to the game. Despite communism being taboo in Western consumer culture, and despite political antagonism defining East–West relations, publishers made sure players knew they were buying a Soviet creation. Russianness was not hidden but highlighted, because it gave the game a unique aura that no Western competitor could imitate.

This is why Tetris remains such a revealing case study. If culture didn’t matter, its packaging and promotion would have downplayed national origin. Instead, the Soviet frame was used as a selling point. Now, decades later, imagine trying to market Tetris for the first time: in today’s climate, Russian flags, Moscow landmarks, or Cyrillic stylization would almost certainly be stripped out in favor of neutral neon minimalism or global retro aesthetics. The gameplay would be the same, but the cultural frame would be erased. And perhaps most sadly, even Tetris’s own creator has recently distanced himself from Russia, openly siding against his homeland in the war in Ukraine. It shows how deep the current fracture runs: a game once celebrated as a proud Soviet export is now caught in the same cultural fault lines that this archive seeks to examine. Pajitnov once worried the Western “Russian kitsch” wrapped around Tetris might trivialize his country’s culture; in recent years he has publicly taken positions read as aligning with Ukraine during the war, a shift that shows how far today’s fracture has reached into even the most emblematic Soviet-born game. Tetris proves that games are never “just games”—culture has always been part of the product, and sometimes, it becomes inseparable from it.

In the end, Ukraine’s approach to gaming has revealed a willingness to weaponize culture at the expense of its own authenticity. By censoring language, erasing monuments, and revising history, it punishes ordinary players rather than governments, and strips away the very texture that once gave these worlds meaning. What should have been preserved as art and memory has been turned into propaganda and grievance. In doing so, Ukraine has not defended its culture—it has diminished it, proving that in its bid to spite Russia, it is willing to impoverish its own heritage.

We now turn to Ukraine’s broader treatment of Russian language, memory, and symbols in public life. The same logic that censors voice tracks and scrubs monuments in virtual worlds operates in schools, museums, publishing, and state messaging, shaping a program of cultural separation. What follows examines that larger pattern and its consequences.

Culture as a Weapon of War

To truly understand how games portray Russia, we also need to understand the broader historical backdrop that has shaped these images. Stereotypes in media do not emerge in a vacuum; they are the echoes of older political struggles, cultural anxieties, and wartime reflexes. Many games here, as you’ll quickly notice, feature very political overtones, taking place in fictionalized Russian invasions of Western countries, or depicting internal Russian politics, coups, organized crime and civil wars. Just as today’s localization choices or narrative clichés reflect current geopolitics, earlier moments in history show how quickly art and culture can be conscripted into conflict. This pattern is not unique to Russia—it has repeated itself with German, Japanese, and other cultures before. With that in mind, we can turn to history to see how culture, in times of war, is often treated not as heritage, but as a battlefield.

History shows that in wartime, culture is invariably conscripted into politics. In 1917, King George V officially changed the surname of the British Royal Family from the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor due to strong anti-German sentiment. German-language newspapers in the United States were shuttered, schools dropped German, and even sauerkraut was rechristened "liberty cabbage"; dachshunds "liberty hounds"; and German measles "liberty measles." Germans were called "Huns." Orchestras trimmed Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Wagner from programs because the composers were German. The Second World War repeated the reflex in harsher ways; Japanese-Americans were interned in camps, Japanese language schools and cultural associations were closed, and Japanese arts were banned or discouraged. Allied repertoires again sidelined German and Austrian composers, while in the Soviet Union German music was suppressed after 1941. The Cold War added suspicion toward Russian and Soviet culture in the West regardless of artistic content. McCarthyism and witch-hunts for communists became commonplace in the West, particularly the United States, and artists and culture in general suffered as a result. Meanwhile, in the Communist East, Western music, art and literature were equally forbidden and discouraged.

How Enemies Become Allies

Now, teleport yourself from the war-torn wastelands of 1945 Germany and Japan, and come back to the present. Would you ever think of banning or demonizing the culture of present-day Germany or Japan, portraying it as eternally evil and tyrannical? Would you even consider people from those countries as enemies because of their past actions, so greatly vilified during their time to the point of attacking and suppressing their cultures?

We must dare to ask ourselves extremely uncomfortable, unnerving and complex questions: if the preceding points were untrue in any way... would it be conceivable that today we would be witnessing a former Al Qaeda leader speaking at the UN building, in New York City?

To cite one of the most recent examples of this, the shifting image of Jewish identity in the West shows how history can quickly transform cultural perception. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Jewish people were widely memorialized in art, cinema and literature as victims of persecution and symbols of resilience in the face of systematic racism, political persecution and oppression. Today, with Israel’s war in Gaza and mounting accusations of atrocities and genocide, that narrative has fractured: Jewishness is increasingly entangled in the politics of the Israeli state, fueling both rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, and Jews are now compared to their erstwhile oppressors. Antisemitism is resurfacing in troubling ways, often tied to how current events reshape collective memory. The Holocaust, once a near-universal symbol of Jewish suffering, is now met by some with apathy or revisionism, as voices—especially in light of Gaza’s devastation—draw dangerous parallels between Nazi atrocities and Israeli military actions. At its most extreme, this rhetoric has even led to attempts to justify, excuse or relativize Nazi crimes. In this way, the policies of Israel risk eroding the moral authority long associated with Jewish history as a persecuted people. From a moral standpoint, after seeing the atrocities in Gaza, it is hard to ask people to empathize with the Israeli population, especially when said population appears to not care about Gaza or the Palestinians as a whole, wanting only for their hostages to be released and not really caring about the suffering of Palestinians.

What makes this dynamic even more glaring is the sheer unevenness of Western responses. Within weeks of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia was banned from international sporting events, the Olympics, film festivals, and a wide range of cultural exchanges. By contrast, in Israel’s case, despite years of occupation and escalating conflict, boycotts or suspensions in forums like Eurovision, the Olympics, or major art festivals were not seriously considered until the devastation in Gaza reached unprecedented levels in 2023–2025. Only now, with Netanyahu politically isolated and Israel facing mounting condemnation, do we see calls for the same sweeping bans that Russia endured immediately: exclusion from Eurovision and even football. The time it took to reach this point is staggering. Such double standards fuel resentment, distort cultural legacies, and complicate any honest dialogue. More importantly, they show how quickly cultural identity can be redefined by politics—and how dangerous it is when entire peoples are judged through the prism of war rather than through the richness of their art, traditions, and voices.

The Elephant in the Room: The War in Ukraine as a Cultural Fault Line

Today, the same reflex surfaces still in new guises. Thus, we shall now address fully the elephant in the room of this website: Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine (SMO), referred to in the West as the "Russo-Ukrainian War" and "Russia's Invasion of Ukraine", or the more politically-charged “Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” “Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine” or "Russia's unprovoked/unjustified/illegal/brutal invasion of Ukraine." These terms are ever-present in the media, and they feature in Western news outlets style guides and official EU statements. No other war is described in such harsh terms, let us remember, and this includes the many US wars, some of which have notably been discovered to have taken place under false pretexts.

If I said "Special Military Operation" or "SMO" that would automatically label me as a "Kremlin mouthpiece." However, I also refuse to fall for the language and the propaganda of the other side. For the sake of simplicity in English, however, we shall refer to it simply as “the war in Ukraine,” since it’s the most general term Westerners will recognize. We will not get into the root causes of the war, about who is right or wrong or who to side with. That is beyond the scope of this archive. We will look at this "elephant in the room" through the cultural lens mentioned before, to establish the overall attitude this archive shall hold when it comes to any such topic. The war in Ukraine is not the first war that seriously challenges cultural perceptions and sensibilities of people, as we shall see shortly, and it won't be the last. That is why, going further, it's important for the archive to establish its stance.

Culture Under Siege: Erasing Russia as a Form of National Identity

Across Europe and Ukraine since 2022, Soviet-era monuments have been dismantled or boxed; statues of Pushkin and Catherine the Great removed or vandalized; Lenin toppled, and symbols recoded or renamed. Daily life and the most mundane aspects of culture are also valid targets. In Ukraine, Russian-language books are recycled, hidden, or destroyed, while others argue for curating and contextualizing rather than erasing. Across the pond, in New York City’s Brighton Beach, the politics of a distant war reshaped cultural life almost overnight. The longtime grocery store Taste of Russia dropped its name within days of the invasion and rebranded as International Food, signaling how even a shop sign could become politically charged in just a matter of days. Local community groups followed the same pattern, with the Russian Parents Network renaming itself the Russian-speaking Parents Network to distance itself from the word “Russian” and to include Ukrainians and others from the former Soviet Union. On the boardwalk, anti-war activists introduced a new white-and-blue flag (designed by a Berlin-based Russian artist, Kai Katonina) as an alternative to the tricolor to protest Russia (the flag has gone on to be used by anti-Putin demonstrators and the Ukraine-aligned anti-Russian Freedom of Russia Legion militia). Meanwhile restaurants across Manhattan erased “Russian” from their branding or menus in response to boycotts and vandalism. At the same time, the arts faced their own wave of cancellations: orchestras quietly removed Tchaikovsky from their repertoires, university courses on Dostoevsky were suspended or “balanced” with Ukrainian authors, and international theaters canceled Bolshoi Ballet performances even when individual artists had spoken out against the war. Each of these acts—renaming, rebranding, or canceling—illustrates how culture is caught in the crossfire of geopolitics, where language, music, and symbols cease to be neutral and instead become proxies for state policy. The cost is a narrowing of cultural expression and a diaspora community pressured to reframe its identity simply to remain visible and accepted.

In Lithuania, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker was suspended as part of what officials called a “mental quarantine” from Russian culture, with the national opera house replacing it for two seasons. When a new culture minister later suggested there was no danger in enjoying a Christmas fairy tale, the resulting uproar laid bare how deeply politics now dictates cultural life. In July 2025, more than 700 intellectuals and Nobel laureates signed an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen and Italian authorities demanding the cancellation of Russian conductor Valery Gergiev's scheduled concert in Caserta, denouncing it as Kremlin propaganda disguised as art. Days later, Italian organizers indeed canceled the event after political outcry and EU pressure. This happened despite years of Western institutions working with him, in spite of performances that allegedly supported Putin. The affair shows how Russian culture is now treated not as art but as an extension of state power—an assumption that erases nuance and collapses centuries of cultural heritage into a single political narrative. These acts arise from grief, rage, and a drive to decolonize public space, yet they also reveal a persistent habit of judging art by the passport of its creators. This archive rejects that habit. Culture is not an extension of any army. To confuse creators with commanders narrows the imagination and severs the channels through which societies can still speak to one another in times of war. Ukraine is framing all of this narrow-minded and hatred-driven cultural violence and suppression as noble "anti-imperialist," "anti-colonialist" struggles, actions usually associated to the political left, however, as we shall see, Ukraine is anything but leftist. The effect has been such that, in the West, some have denounced it as a form of Ukrainian "cancel culture" that will inevitably weaken Ukraine culturally.

Names, Language, and Cultural Power

So what’s in a name? When I studied at the University of Granada, the “Russian Center” was still proudly called the Centro Ruso, a space explicitly dedicated to the study and diffusion of Russian language and culture. Today, however, the same institution exists under a different banner: Centro de Culturas Eslavas (Center of Slavic Cultures). The change is not merely cosmetic but deeply symbolic. In 2022, the university severed ties with the Russkiy Mir Foundation and moved to rebrand the center, reflecting broader political pressures that made “Russia” a problematic word to display on a Spanish campus. The new name seeks neutrality by expanding to “Slavic cultures,” but in practice it dilutes the visibility of Russian culture, reducing it from a central focus to one component of a broader and less defined category. To further showcase the anti-Russian bias behind this decision, the center now prominently features the Ukrainian flag in its website and courses on Ukrainian language, with Ukrainian speakers being hosted. It is a stark contrast from the prominent Russian flags and Soviet-Russian veterans and artists that used to be hosted. This renaming illustrates how politics reaches into cultural and academic institutions, reshaping not only international relations but also the very vocabulary with which students encounter language, literature, and art. I should also add that it was a pleasure to take part in a public reading of my own Pushkin translation and to take photographs standing beside the Pushkin Monument (inaugurated on September 15, 2015) in Granada with Russian Center organizers, professors and invited artists. I attended the site on its second anniversary during the MAPRYAL Congress. That monument honors a figure revered in the Russian-speaking world as deeply as Shakespeare is in the English-speaking world—yet in Ukraine today, Pushkin’s statues are being torn down and defaced, acts openly sanctioned and even celebrated by Western media. With the Russian Center having forsaken its own name and identity, it remains to be seen whether the monument itself shall survive in the coming years.

You will notice that, through this manifesto (and this website in general), the Russian spellings of Ukrainian cities are used. The reasons for this are simple: the Ukrainian government launched entire campaigns aimed at the West urging the public to abandon Russian spellings in favor of Ukrainian ones—“Kyiv” not “Kiev,” “Odesa” not “Odessa”—with Ukrainian journalist, officials and activists insisting (quite aggressively and heavy-handedly, at that) that correct language was a matter of respect, identity, and decolonization. Yet, within the European Union itself, Catalan continues to be denied official status, blocked by Germany and Italy on the grounds of cost and bureaucracy. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, even went so far as to suggest dismissively that artificial intelligence will soon make interpreters unnecessary, as though machine translation could replace political recognition. The contrast is striking: while Ukrainian linguistic sovereignty was framed as a moral imperative against Russian dominance, Catalan, spoken by millions within the EU, is dismissed as an inconvenience. It shows that principles loudly invoked against Russia are selectively applied when the issue lies closer to home. It is, once again, also, a question of anti-democratic origin: who consulted us whether we would prefer to say Kyiv instead of Kiev? Linguists and experts have commented, as is the case in Spanish, that Kyiv is simply an unnatural spelling in the Spanish language and makes no sense, which is a valid point. After all, in Spanish, the correct spelling for Catalonia is Cataluña, not Catalunya (something denounced by Catalans themselves in similar “anti-colonialist” stances). Yet, who are we to demand of others to use certain spellings, especially when they’re not natural in our language? Such is the case with Turkey and Turkiye. While it is indeed noble to defend a country’s right to self-identity, sometimes it is simply not feasible or pragmatic for a foreign language when the term has taken root, and language itself over time decides what it’s most comfortable with. Russia does not demand of others to be called Rossiya, after all, or for us to call Moscow Moskva. Such is the case with Kiev and Kyiv, however, but the motives here are purely political, not linguistic. Ukraine simply seems far more interested in imposing its own narrative and truth. When dismissing why it's not the same that we don't say Roma instead of Rome, Ukrainians are quick to dismiss this as "it's not the same anti-imperialist struggle," in a victimhood "you're ignorant and don't understand Ukraine" stance which has been very prevalent in the media every time there is resistance to cave in to Ukrainian cultural demands. During their Oval Office clash on 28 February 2025, Zelenskyy insisted, “from the very beginning of the war, we have been alone,” prompting Trump to counter, “You haven’t been alone … We gave you military equipment. Your men are brave, but they had our military. If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks,” before adding, “You’re buried there. Your people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers.” When Trump described Ukrainian cities as destroyed with “not a building standing,” Zelenskyy immediately objected: “You have to come to look… we have very good cities. Yes, a lot of things [have] been destroyed, but mostly cities [are] alive, and people work and children go to school. Sometimes it’s very difficult. Sometimes, closer to [the] front line, children have to go to underground schools or online. But we live, Ukraine is fighting, and Ukraine lives.” Here lies the contradiction: Ukraine is cast both as “alone,” devastated, and desperate for help, and at the same time as resilient, functioning, and defiant in the face of Russia’s assault. Zelenskyy takes offense at Trump’s bleak portrayal of Ukraine, yet his own rhetoric often leans on the language of catastrophe and victimhood. This oscillation between fragility and strength allows Ukraine to argue for maximum sympathy and support while projecting endurance—but it also exposes a tension that undermines the consistency of the narrative.

Diminishing Others: Ukraine’s Lowercase Guerrilla War

Ukraine has adopted another more subtle linguistic tactic that diminishes its adversaries by refusing to capitalize their names. In many Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian media outlets, references to “russia,” “russian,” and “belarus” appear deliberately in lowercase (something we might think of as typos at first), a symbolic gesture that denies these states the dignity normally accorded to sovereign nations. Publications openly acknowledge this choice, explaining that it is done as a form of protest, and the practice has become widespread enough that Ukraine’s own National Commission on State Language Standards has stated that writing “russia” in lowercase will not be considered a grammatical mistake. This practice functions as a cultural weapon: by breaking with standard orthography, Ukraine embeds a statement of defiance directly into everyday language, ensuring that every mention of its adversaries carries a subtle undertone of humiliation. Over time, this stylistic choice has spread across journalism, social media, and even academic or activist writing, creating a shared code that signals both solidarity with Ukraine and disdain for its opponents. In this way, the rejection of capitalization becomes more than a matter of typography—it is an institutionalized strategy of narrative warfare, designed to strip disliked countries of symbolic legitimacy while reinforcing Ukraine’s own national identity in opposition to them.

Ukraine: A Former Russian Colony?

Ukraine's victimhood narratives of having been some kind of oppressed colony of Russia are extremely controversial to say the least. In recent years, a noticeable trend has emerged in Western discourse: the sweeping use of “anticolonialism” or “decolonization” as a catch-all moral badge applied to virtually any struggle or narrative—even when historical circumstances do not align with classical colonial paradigms. Scholars and critics have warned that such ideological inflation risks erasing the very specificity of colonial history and turning the term into a rhetorical trope.

In the case of Ukraine, invoking the language of colonial liberation positions the country as if it endured the kind of overseas colonization faced by nations in Africa, Asia, or Latin America—an analogy that flattens both the Ukrainian experience and those histories of violent subjugation. It is a narrative of emotional blackmail used only to keep Western nations interested. Let us remember Ukraine's embarrassing efforts trying to persuade Spain by citing its own history fighting fascism. This, coming from a government that worships the likes of Stepan Bandera, was thought of in Spain by the left as some kind of joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, Western media coverage of Ukraine has at times adopted frames reserved for “victims of empire,” contrasting it with non-European conflicts in which resistance is often dismissed or criminalized. This rhetorical shift, distorts historical truth: conflating Ukraine’s complex imperial legacy with the classic colonial model not only misleads but also dilutes the suffering of peoples whose lives were broken by actual colonial conquest.

Not even religion has escaped the notice of things Ukraine can do away with in its "anti-colonialist" struggle. Ukraine’s decision to move Christmas celebrations from January 7 to December 25 was less a theological reform than a political gesture—a deliberate break with Russian Orthodoxy. While the government and the newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine framed it as “abandoning Russian heritage,” many faithful were reluctant to follow, and even Western outlets admitted the shift was embraced as a symbolic protest rather than a majority tradition.

It raises a serious question: as Ukraine aligns itself more and more with the West, does continuing to use Cyrillic even make sense? Why not adopt a Latin alphabet, as Poland, Czechia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia have done? If the goal is to abandon the old orientation entirely—even down to moving away from Orthodox Christmas—then such a step would only seem consistent.

Dehumanization of the Enemy: Orcs, Pigs, Devils, Rats and Subhumans

Dehumanization is another aspect we in the West are tolerating openly. It is fine to refer to the Russian military as being comprised of a mass of orcs in a horde; not only is it fine, as we shall see later, it is also fine to explain why it is fine.

In this Ukraine Crisis Media Center article, the tone is unapologetically hostile toward Russians, openly equating them to Tolkien’s evil, subhuman race. It frames Russians not just as enemies, but as inherently cruel, sadistic, and beyond redemption, drawing on Tolkien’s mythology to “explain” their supposed nature. It ends up justifying the orc metaphor as not exaggeration but reality.

The RUSI piece, while more academic and analytical, still validates the use of the “orc” metaphor, describing it as a powerful “tactical narrative” that boosts morale and simplifies the war into a story of good vs. evil. It compares it to past dehumanizing wartime language (like calling Germans “Huns” in WWI) but frames it positively, as a necessary myth to inspire Ukrainians. Both articles clearly show how dehumanization is normalized and even celebrated in mainstream Ukrainian and Western-aligned discourse. Russians are reduced to monsters or a “horde,” with little or no recognition of them as human beings.

It reminds one of the American caricatures of the Japanese during WW2, portraying them as ugly, rat-like, sneaky little animals with big ears and teeth. When extrapolating such treatment to other peoples, say, for example, the Jews (with Nazis often comparing them to rats) anti-defamation leagues and institutions would be in an uproar today; this is not the case for dehumanization rhetoric and racism against Russians, which has been so normalized no one raises an eyebrow.

Ukrainian Boorishness: Trolling, Meme Culture and Celebrating Profanity as a Proud Symbol of Defiance

A major part of its cyber warfare and propaganda campaign, we can see indeed how a lot of Ukraine’s wartime messaging has leaned into outright provocation and meme culture. Ukrainians, throughout this conflict, have consistently reveled in a rude, boorish demeanor they even trace proudly to their Cossack heritage, as depicted in Ilya Repin's 19th-century painting of Zaporozhian Cossacks drafting an insulting letter to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV in 1676, taunting him as a "hen-thief," "drunkard," "sausage," and "fool" in a barrage of juvenile mockery rather than measured defiance—much like their modern "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" postage stamp, a profane, moronic retort from Snake Island border guards immortalized in 2022 as a symbol of vulgar bravado complete with a raised middle finger. This contrasts sharply with Soviet and Russian traditional refined stamps honoring arts, literature, and achievements like Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight, eschewing crass obscenity for cultural elevation. Another episode in Sudzha, where retreating Ukrainian forces scrawled “Russians, learn to fight” across the town square, illustrates again the crude and juvenile register so often paraded as bravery. The slogan, written with spelling mistakes and aimed more at humiliation than wit, pales in comparison to the historic Russian precedent it clumsily mimicked—graffiti left by Russian troops in Gori during 2008, which carried irony and even a teacherly admonition. Where Russian soldiers once turned an insult into a memorable cultural meme, Ukraine’s attempt in Sudzha exposed little more than bitterness and boorishness, a spectacle of adolescent spite rather than dignified resistance. The same unrefined spirit fuels NAFO's trolling legions, a meme-driven "Twitter army" of Shiba Inu dog avatars harassing Russian diplomats and propagandists since May 2022, blending childish antagonism with donation drives for Ukrainian forces while disrupting online narratives through relentless mockery.

DeepState (DeepStateMap.live) is the most-watched public battle map in Ukraine, and its interface leans hard into meme-ified, mocking visuals without the seriousness a war monitoring map interface is due (it's their own men and territory being compromised, after all). Beyond the standard NATO symbology, the legend lets users swap the “enemy unit” marker for a pig icon—an overtly derisive cue baked right into the UI. This syncs with a broader Ukrainian info-space that cheerfully frames the invader as a Tolkienian “orc horde." The project is also famous for playful—and pointed—Easter eggs: if you zoom in on Moscow, you'll see a message near the Kremlin, "Путин хуйло" ("Putin khuylo," "Putin is a dickhead"). Russia, Belarus and even North Korea are, for some reason, represented with Soviet Red Stars, with Hammers and Sickles at the center. Clown emojis represent Slovakia and Hungary, under the names "Pro-Russian clown Fico" and "Orban's pro-Russian regime." Ukrainians clearly don't forget whoever doesn't side with them automatically. Ukraine is represented by its national coat of arms. If pressed, a war drone will appear and hover around, and when pressing on any of these enemy capitals, it will head over and obliterate them, complete with an explosion animation.

Various regions are labeled with tendentious captions. Kaliningrad (Kaliningrad Oblast), for instance, is marked in red as “East Prussia temporarily occupied, annexed in 1946 as a result of WWII.” The same treatment is applied to “occupied Latvia and Estonia territories under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.” Karelia (Republic of Karelia, Russian Federation) in Finland is tagged “Occupied in 1940 in result of the Winter (Karelo-Finnish) War. Re-occupied in 1945.” Petsamo (Pechenga District, Murmansk Oblast) and Salla (part of Murmansk Oblast) are also included, as "Occupied in 1945." Transnistria (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, de facto; internationally Moldova) is described as “Occupied in 1992 by the 14th Army of Russia.” The map extends this logic to the “temporarily occupied territory of the Republic of Ichkeria,” claiming it was “Occupied in 1995 after the First Chechen War, recognized independence of CRI, and re-occupied in 2009 after the Second Chechen War.” Tskhinvali (capital of South Ossetia, de facto independent; internationally Georgia) is labeled “Occupied in 1994 as a result of separatist support, re-occupied in 2008 by ‘peacemaker troops,’” while Abkhazia (Abkhazia, de facto independent; internationally Georgia) bears nearly identical wording. Even the Kuril Islands (Kurilsky District, Sakhalin Oblast) are marked "Occupied in 1946. Not returned to Japan since 1956." The reality is that these islands have been administered by Russia ever since the end of the Second World War and are integrated into Sakhalin Oblast. Japan continues to claim them as its Northern Territories, but Moscow considers the issue settled by the outcome of the war. Although the Soviet Union once discussed transferring two of the smaller islands back in the 1950s, Cold War politics froze the deal, and no peace treaty was ever signed. Today, only Japan contests the status of the islands; for Russia, they are not “occupied” but sovereign territory secured in 1945.

The inconsistency is clear: the map jumbles together lands that are fully recognized Russian territory, like Kaliningrad, with genuinely disputed zones by the West against Russia, such as Transnistria. This makes the whole exercise look less like a sober geopolitical critique and more like a bitter attempt at score-settling. By the same strained logic, one could label Texas, California, and other U.S. states as “rightfully Mexican, stolen by America.”

WIRED describes a hidden “Baby Yoda” (Grogu) animation that, when triggered, pulverizes Russian unit markers on screen. Like the drone mentioned earlier, this is a quite sad form of spiteful wishful thinking since, if you bother to check daily, you'll quickly see all battlefield update notifications start with "the enemy advanced/the enemy occupied."

But not everything is juvenile troll armies posting crude memes. Ukraine's own top diplomats revel in this behavior too. Exemplifying this attitude, then-Ambassador Andriy Melnyk's October 2022 "Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply to you" tweet to Elon Musk—dismissing his peace plan to cede Crimea (which is actually something Zelensky himself inevitably ended up considering)—mirrors the Cossacks' insolence, prioritizing shock over diplomacy and even risking much-needed Starlink support. Capping the capitalist hypocrisy, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service sought to trademark the warship slur since 2022 for souvenirs, bags, and clothing to monetize their profanity, only for the EU General Court to reject it in November 2024 as a non-commercial political slogan, underscoring a tacky bid to profit from rudeness amid wartime desperation rather than fostering genuine unity.

Ukraine’s relentless appeals for money and weapons, often framed in tones of urgency or even emotional blackmail, have drawn mounting criticism from its own allies. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace famously warned Ukraine that “we’re not Amazon” after being handed yet another shopping list of arms, while Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico went further, branding President Zelensky a “beggar” and “blackmailer” who pressures Europe with endless demands. Such rhetoric reflects a growing fatigue in Western capitals, where leaders increasingly resent being cast as suppliers expected to deliver on cue, while receiving little more than scolding in return. Unsurprisingly, the demanding and often heavy-handed tone of Ukrainian officials at the highest diplomatic levels has done little to improve Ukraine’s image in the long run. Even President Zelensky himself was forced to soften his approach after a sharp clash with U.S. President Donald Trump—a confrontation in which Trump’s own bluntness collided with Zelensky’s defiant posture, leading him to talk over the President and even resorting to disrespectfully address the Vice President on a first-name basis. In contrast, Russian diplomatic messaging has largely emphasized restraint and decorum, with double-entendres and sardonic witticisms in place of straightforward profanity; only Dmitry Medvedev stands out as the principal figure whose language at times matches the provocations hurled from the Ukrainian side. Zelensky went on to say that Putin was a "crazy Russian" as well as a "killer and terrorist." Putin has never gone on record saying anything remotely equivalent about Zelensky. The worst he has said on record was in mid-2023, when he said, “according to my Jewish friends, Zelensky is not a Jew but a disgrace to the Jewish people.” In an era where we feel entitled to criticize our top politicians and leaders as boorish and crude, in comparison to the more refined and polite leaders of old, it comes across as particularly disingenuous that Ukraine celebrates its Cossack-like boorishness as something to be proud of culturally, when Donald Trump has always been criticized in the media for the exact same behavior. Speaking of Zelensky’s Jewish heritage and the broader question of Israel, I cannot substantiate this at present, but it has been striking how frequently the media once highlighted and celebrated his Jewish identity, only for such references to diminish noticeably as Israel has grown increasingly isolated in the aftermath of its genocide in Gaza.

Ukraine's Struggle with Endemic Fascism

Another uncomfortable truth is that Ukraine itself has struggled with a genuine fascist inheritance—one that Western outlets openly acknowledged and expressed worry about, during and after Euromaidan, but have since increasingly whitewashed. In 2014, the BBC reported on Svoboda banners, Confederate flags and portraits of Stepan Bandera in Kiev’s city council, noting the far right’s “outsized” role in the street battles, but their tone was whitewashing even when confronted with all the evidence. The BBC continued to report, now at least finding something wrong with Ukraine's openely fascist icons; the Azov Battalion's symbology, the fascist Black Sun and Wolfsangel rune (this last one taken from Andriy Parubiy's own Ukrainian Nazi Party). Up until 2020, the West admitted something wrong with Ukraine's endemic fascism, particularly the Azov Battalion, but by 2022 everything was apparently normalized by a change in logos (note: the Wolfsangel is still in use to this day). NBC News in the same year observed that Svoboda secured nearly a quarter of cabinet posts in the interim government, despite its leader’s history of antisemitic rhetoric. Andriy Parubiy, founder of the official post-Soviet Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Party, the Social-National Party of Ukraine, and one of the most prominent engineers of the Euromaidan, was eventually assassinated in Lvov, by the disgruntled father of a deceased Ukrainian soldier killed in action in Bakhmut. Prominent assassinations of other Ukrainian fascists, such as Demyan Hanul, organizer of the Odessa Trade Unions fires, are spoken of in the same terms as Parubiy, not as known fascists, but mere “activists” or “nationalist politicians,” greatly bringing down the ideological tone, increasing the media whitewashing of Ukraine’s known problem with deep-rooted fascism. Military staffers, while not openly fascist as more politically-motivated agents, also undergo the same treatment in the media. SBU colonel Ivan Voronych, known for war-time sabotage operations inside Russia, was killed in a similar fashion as the prominent fascists, and his death was welcomed by Russian pro-war bloggers, who cited similar Ukrainian-engineered assassination plots of prominent Russian military staffers, as well as terrorist operations inside Russia that Ukraine celebrates as “take that” tit-for-tat victories. On 1 July 2025, a Ukrainian drone strike happened on the Kupol Electromechanical Plant in Izhevsk, killing three and injuring 45, according to Russian officials. The factory, located more than 1,000 km from the front line, produces air defense systems such as Tor and Osa. Ukrainian sources confirmed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) carried out the attack, framing it as a blow to Russia’s military industry. Beyond the headlines, Google Maps comments and social media were flooded with Ukrainians celebrating the blast and the deaths, turning tragedy into spectacle, whereas the news portrays every Russian strike on Ukraine, with similar bodycounts, as unacceptable tragedies which quickly flood headlines. The visceral war-time hatred between both factions, while understandable to a degree, shows nevertheless that the media bias and hypocrisy is apparent, and that Ukrainians are clearly not above their hated Russian enemies when it comes to lack of empathy and celebrating the deaths of civilians.

Consortium News has documented how U.S. and British intelligence after the Second World War worked with Ukrainian nationalists tied to atrocities against Jews and Poles, keeping Bandera’s cult alive in exile. More than 50 Bandera monuments now stand across Ukraine, with torchlight parades on his birthday an annual ritual. Even sympathetic voices in the West admit the Azov Regiment grew out of openly neo-Nazi origins, later absorbed into the National Guard but never entirely cleansed of its symbols or mythology. The irony is sharp: when Russia frames “denazification” as its pretext for war, the West reflexively denies Ukraine’s far-right elements altogether, as if admitting them would hand Moscow propaganda victory. The result is selective amnesia. The same Europe that once warned against Banderism now tolerates Bandera statues in Kiev, provoking outrage in Poland, where the massacres of 100,000 Polish Jews by the UPA in Volhynia and Galicia remain officially recognized as genocide. Warsaw’s recent calls to outlaw Banderite symbols as equal to Nazi and Communist ones show how unsustainable this whitewashing has become, at least in some EU member states like Poland.

In January 2023, Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE, in a report meant to highlight the Orthodox Christmas traditions of Ukrainian refugees, inadvertently filmed walls adorned with portraits of Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, alongside the insignia of the Waffen-SS “Galizien” Division and a Right Sector flag. The images, quickly noted by viewers, sparked controversy online, with commenters on the YouTube video quickly noticing and expressing outrage, and underscored how symbols once universally condemned as fascist can now pass almost unnoticed in the effort to present Ukrainians solely as victims.

Canada’s 2023 “Hunka scandal”—when Parliament honored a Waffen-SS Galicia veteran for “having fought the Russians in WW2” before retracting and apologizing—further exposed how Western institutions can stumble into historical revisionism without even noticing, too blinded by their pre-conditioned hatred of Russians. incidentally, the incident brought to light how Canada, an Allied Nation during WW2 who fought the Nazis, has streets named after Nazis or Nazi collaborators. What's worse: it was revealed that Hunka wasn’t an anomaly, but merely one of the thousands of Nazi collaborators who had been welcomed to Canada after the war, many of whom had quietly escaped prosecution.

In March 2022, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council suspended the activities of eleven parties on the basis of purported Russian ties, including all those with leftist or socialist leanings—among them the Left Opposition, the Union of Left Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, and the Socialist Party—citing alleged ties to Russia. The Communist Party had already been outlawed years earlier under decommunization laws. In effect, this means that, as of today, Ukraine is still a country with no legal left-wing parties, leaving the entire political spectrum dominated by nationalist, centrist, and liberal-conservative forces. How this aligns with Ukraine’s status as democracy, an aspect often invoked by its Western partners—who often contrast it with Russia’s status as an “autocracy”—, remains a matter of interpretation for the reader. Think for example, what would happen in a European country such as Spain, France, Italy or Germany if the ruling government suddenly erased all left-wing parties in one fell swoop for suspected Russian ties. How would people in a true democracy react? The Ukrainians, and by that I mean the whole of the population, didn't seem to mind... that is, of course, not counting the Eastern population, which rose up in arms.

It needs to be said: Ukraine has a far-right problem: it may not define the country in its totality, as Ukraine, like any other country, is vast and varied, with many regional, language and cultural variations across it. But it the problem remains significant. Let's admit that we've seen enough evidence to suggest this is not what a normal democracy looks like. Its government, what is referred to in Russia as the Kiev Regime or Military Junta, openly celebrates Nazi collaborationists like Stepan Bandera, officially a Hero of Ukraine. "Denazification" in this context becomes easier to see when the true nature of these "heroes" is laid bare. The country was divided for a reason, with the Russophone East taking up arms to denounce it. Ignoring it, or worse, sanitizing it as the Western media and governments have done, corrodes credibility and distorts the cultural record.

Racism and Western Media Double Standards

The racism and right-wing sentiment associated to Ukraine goes beyond claims of fascism, however, and this was very easily seen in the early media coverage of the 2022 invasion: sharp criticism was immediately drawn for racial double standards in reports by Western, something particularly criticized by Middle-Eastern journalists who felt the hypocrisy closer to home. High-profile broadcasts and columns framed Ukraine as “civilized” and “European,” contrasted against wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria or “the Third World,” with on-air references to refugees being white, Christian, “blue-eyed and blond.” Journalist associations and human-rights monitors flagged this as orientalist bias that normalizes violence elsewhere and humanizes only victims who “look like us.” Many journalists ended up having to apologize for their words, saying they were "emotinoal." Media analysts further noted how such framing shaped policy and philanthropy: Ukraine’s suffering received granular storytelling and extraordinary mobilization, while simultaneous atrocities in places like Mali or Yemen were sidelined. In other words, the same news ecosystem that swiftly sanctioned Russian culture often fell back on old hierarchies of whose pain counts—and whose doesn’t.

Speaking of media; while Russian news outlets popular in the West such as RT, Sputnik and others were swiftly banned across Western platforms on the grounds of “fake news” and pro-Russian propaganda (“pro-Russian” journalists also still get banned on YouTube to this day), entirely new channels dedicated to promoting Ukraine’s perspective were simultaneously launched, from 24-hour news networks to even a Ukrainian-themed Nickelodeon. The contrast is striking: there was never a “Nickelodeon Afghanistan,” “Nickelodeon Yemen,” or “Nickelodeon Gaza” during those wars, let alone entire 24/7 channels in their language about their wars. The creation of entertainment and children’s programming explicitly aligned with one side of a conflict marks an unprecedented development in how culture and media are mobilized during wartime.

Ukraine and Palestine: Not the Same

Yet another example of wartime double standards arise from Ukraine and Palestine contrasts; it is stark to see how each country is treated. In September 2025, Dutch MP Esther Ouwehand was forced to leave parliament for wearing a shirt with the colors of the Palestinian flag, only allowed back once she replaced it with a “watermelon” pattern—an indirect symbol of Palestine. In Spain, the Madrid regional government recently ordered public schools to remove Palestinian flags and symbols, declaring them “too political,” even though the same authorities had openly encouraged schools to show solidarity with Ukraine in 2022. Meanwhile, across Europe, the UK, and the US, politicians proudly wrap themselves in blue and yellow. Ukrainian flags are flown above Downing Street, the European Parliament is draped in them, and American leaders wear them as pins and ribbons without anyone questioning “political neutrality.” Ursula von der Leyen has always been proudly draped in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as a sign of support, as well as traditional Ukrainian outfits. The Palestinian flag is censored, the Ukrainian flag is sanctified. This selective symbolism exposes not a principled defense of neutrality, but a nakedly politicized hierarchy of causes, and has severely damaged the West in terms of credibility due to its double discourse.

Ukraine, the corrupt 'democracy'

Furthermore, Ukraine’s often-cited chronic corruption problem is no invention of Russian propaganda. Transparency International has for years ranked it among Europe’s most corrupt states, and even in wartime the issue remains acute. In July 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law curtailing the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, triggering the largest street protests since the full-scale invasion began. Demonstrators in Kiev, Lvov, Odessa, and Dnipropetrovsk accused him of abusing martial law to consolidate power and shield allies under investigation. The Kyiv Independent itself published an editorial condemning the move as a “betrayal of Ukraine’s democracy,” warning that the president was dismantling one of the few post-Maidan reforms that gave Ukrainians real oversight over their leaders. International backers, from the EU to the G7, expressed concern that Kiev’s backsliding threatened not only its EU candidacy but also the credibility of the aid it receives. Zelensky was forced to reverse these measures or else. The fact that even Ukraine’s most prominent pro-Western outlet and civil society activists openly criticized Zelensky underscores a reality often glossed over abroad: corruption is not a Russian talking point, but a structural weakness Ukraine has yet to overcome.

These contradictions highlight how political crises, corruption, and selective narratives do not remain confined to parliaments or news cycles—they spill over into the cultural sphere, shaping how nations and their people are portrayed, remembered, and even imagined in popular media. When governments struggle with corruption or suppress dissent, those realities inevitably filter into the way outside observers construct their images, whether through journalism, cinema, or videogames. The result is that culture becomes a mirror, but also a battleground: a place where stereotypes are reinforced, where political grievances are projected, and where nuance is often lost in favor of easily digestible archetypes.

Conclusion: No Enemy is Eternal

I would really like to take the opportunity to address this: throughout this manifesto, Ukraine has been spoken of in very harsh terms, and there is a reason for this. Without descending into the same kind of hatred Ukraine expresses towards its enemies, it is necessary to record its cultural wrongdoings and to highlight how far beyond the ordinary retaliations of a wartime country its hostility has reached. What we see is the reality of a nation consumed by hatred, seeking self-identity in animosity towards the enemy, one that has actively fostered hostility, cultivated Russophobia and fanaticism, celebrated fascists as heroes and suppressed Russian culture even at the risk of tarnishing its own legacy, encouraging others to do the same. It is necessary to speak about Ukraine here also because this archive exists to denounce Russophobia in all its forms, and it will never extend leniency to nations that actively promote or enforce it. This site stands in open defense of Russian culture.

The most tragic part is that, even when the war ends, no matter the outcome, it is safe to say the animosities between Russians and Ukrainians won't go away; in fact, Ukraine may also end up feeling animosity towards the Western allies who didn't do enough or couldn't come through with what was promised.

In confronting the ugliness and hatred now poisoning relations between Russians and Ukrainians in all aspects of life, it is worth recalling the words of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’s The Boss:

“Is there such a thing as an absolute, timeless enemy? There is no such thing, and never has been. And the reason is that our enemies are human beings like us. They can only be our enemies in relative terms. The world must be made whole again.”

This truth echoes an older maxim from British statesman Viscount Palmerston, who declared in 1848: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

Few lines in gaming capture so directly the truth that enmity is never eternal, that the lines we draw in moments of war are fragile and contingent. To forget this is to accept division as inevitable and eternal, when it is anything but. While it might sound very cynical to say this now, while people are suffering and dying in untold ways… this will come to pass, just like any other conflict in human history. Relations will inevitably normalize, mutate, change invariably. Any rogue, repressive or enemy state in history, be it the US Confederacy, the Russian, British or French Empires, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, Francoist Spain, the Soviet Union, Apartheid South Africa, any political regime, no matter their ideology, left or right, democratic or not, inevitably falls, relations normalize as wars come to an end and people come together. To remember it is to keep alive the possibility of reconciliation, and to affirm that culture—whether Russian, Ukrainian, or any other—must outlast politics, propaganda, and conflict. Always.

And thus, we finally reach the conclusion of this manifesto. Without further ado, join me in exploring these cultural aspects with curiosity and enjoyment, as we look at Russia through the lens of art, gaming, and translation!

The ROMANOV Archive is ongoing and entries shall be constantly added, as well as edited and updated when needed.

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