Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council and close Putin ally, lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his recent comments on World War Two.
Trump had posted on his Truth Social platform that the United States made the greatest contribution to the Allied victory in World War Two. He went on to declare that no country could match America’s strength, courage or military prowess during the war. The president also announced plans to rename May 8 and November 11 in the United States as Victory Days to commemorate what he claims were America’s decisive efforts in both global conflicts.
Medvedev responded by branding Trump’s remarks as “pretentious nonsense” and insisted that Victory Day is a Russian holiday, celebrated on May 9. In his statement, Medvedev stressed that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States, that bore the brunt of the Nazi war machine and eventually took Berlin. He claimed that “our people” – a term he used to include both Russians and Ukrainians – sacrificed 27 million lives to defeat fascism.
The Russian dictator’s loyalist also accused Europe of being “ungrateful” for its liberation by Soviet troops, disregarding the brutal Soviet occupation that followed in Eastern Europe after the war.
Trump’s proposal to rebrand American commemorative dates sparked international criticism not only for rewriting history but for inflating the role of the United States at the expense of the sacrifices made by other Allied nations, especially those occupied or invaded during the war.
While the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union (including Ukraine and other republics of the former USSR) endured the bulk of the Nazi onslaught for years before America’s late entry into the war in 1941, Trump’s revisionist tone aimed to stoke nationalist pride.
Critics argue that Trump’s lack of historical nuance and factual grounding once again underscores his obsession with self-promotion and undermines the role of millions of Allied soldiers, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, Kremlin propaganda attempts to hijack the memory of the Second World War, using Victory Day as a political weapon to legitimise its current aggression against Ukraine, have also become increasingly transparent to the international community.
