Who is the Enemy of the Russians?

During the Spanish Civil War, the only way each side could make itself kill fellow Spaniards was by convincing that there were no Spaniards on the other side. The Republicans knew they were fighting Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists, and the Nationals convinced themselves that there were only Soviet Marxists and Judeo-Masonic conspirators on the opposite side. This way of thinking made it easy to shoot at your brother, sister, neighbor, friend because you imagined them as evil strangers.

In a similar way, the Russians who are cheering the invasion of Ukraine have convinced themselves that they are not endorsing the killing of Ukrainians. It’s easier for them to believe that the only people in Ukraine who do not welcome the Russian invasion are neo-Nazis in the American pay. And when you say “a US Nazi”, you create an expression that brings together the two things a Russian speaker is trained from birth to detest and despise the most. It is so much easier to shoot at a Ukrainian when you have imaged that he is “an American Nazi.”