Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war on Ukraine as a peacekeeping mission, a “denazification” of the country. In his address to the Russian people on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin said the purpose was to “protect people” who had been “subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight year..Putin’s selective telling of the past exaggerates the legacy of Nazism in Ukraine while ignoring the state’s historic struggle for pluralism and democracy.