WWII in contemporary Russian propaganda

[PEMM]

I decided to start a thread like this, as there are these campaigns against all neighboring countries of Russia.

I can talk about campaign against Finland. Russia is now stating that Finland's actions in WWII constituted a genocide.

Russia's shocking plan for Finland revealed: "Genocide"
The Russian Cultural Fund supports a project whose purpose is to smear Finland and drum up Kremlin propaganda to Russian youth.

he "Fascism in Finnish: lessons of history and modern times" project spreads Kremlin propaganda.
The target group is young Russians living near the Finnish border.
The project is justified by arguments familiar from Kremlin propaganda.

Nikolay Patrushev, known as Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, visited Karelia last July with a harsh speech at the security conference.

In his speech, Patrushev accused Finland of having far-right groups who allegedly demanded the return of territories lost after the Second World War. He also claimed that the United States and other Western countries are fueling the anti-Russian campaign in Finland, where the aim is to destabilize the situation in the Republic of Karelia and promote separatist sentiments there.
Also read
"Putin's right hand" went to Karelia and threatened Finland - This is what it says

The project born out of the speech has now been included in the grant program of the Russian State Cultural Fund. The working title of the project, loosely translated, is "Fascism in Finnish: lessons from history and modern times".

The project is part of the Kremlin's wider propaganda campaign aimed at supporting the state's official narrative of interpretation of history. It is also intended to debunk the "myth prevailing in Russia about a noble and benevolent Finland".

According to the plan, the project is especially important for St. Petersburg, which in January celebrated the 80th anniversary of the end of the siege of Leningrad.

- We will never forget that this tragic chapter in our history was organized not only as a result of the invasion of Nazi Germany, but also by its Second World War ally - Finland - the plan says.

https://www-iltalehti-fi.translate...._sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fi&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Finland of course de facto took part in blockade of Leningrad, with border and troops some 60km from Leningrad. Finland also had concentration camps for "non-finnish" people in eastern Karelia.

But what does it say about Russia, that they for some reason didn't care about these victims for 80 years? That they didn't use the war reparations Finland paid to aid them? And now that relations are souring, now they bring them up. Seems very callous and calculating to me.

Allies had a control commission in Finland after WWII and Finland held war tribunals. Tribunals were for war crimes Finland found itself and all that were named by the control commission. This included the wartime government. After the war the state police became "red" and it hunted around for all sorts of people. Like Lauri Törni for treason.

So the question is, why didn't the allied commission put people on trial for this genocide and siege of Leningrad? They had all the rights to do so. Soviets and Finland wasn't buddy buddy, it was "To annex or not to annex"-time as Germany was beaten. Friendship agreements came later. Could it possibly be, that for the siege of Leningrad Finland was controlling the old border (which is a small portion of the encirclement) but not actively attacking, meaning that it was seen as a mostly German operation. Unfortunately we can't go and ask Stalin anymore.

What is actually still open are the Soviet war crimes and atrocities from the 20's, 30's and beyond. They were never properly investigated and no-one was put on trial (victors). This includes killing of civilians, interment of Finns in Winter war. Killing of "untrustworthy" ethnic groups like Finns that had moved to soviet union from Americas and Finland. And the transportation (which accounts to large number of deaths) of Finns, Ingrian Finns and Estonians + other finnic peoples to Siberia. Finland of course had no way to bring these up in the tribunals as Finland was deemed solely responsible for the war with other axis power.

Edit: And of course the big elephant, war didn't start in 1941 like Russians would like. They would also have to come in terms with 1939, and admit who was the initial aggressor in eastern europe with Germans. Russian president Yeltsin already admitted that about winter war.

Finally, I have my own tips for some better propaganda. Instead of going "EvEryOne ThaT AttaCked uS WerE FasCists and FascisM iS RisIng aGaIn!!" how about mixing in some reality?

"WWII Finland that allied with the Nazis was a liberal democracy. The wartime Parliament was mostly made of predecessors of National Coalition, Social Democrats and the Center party. And now this National coalition is running the country, with the nationalist Finns party. They are bringing evil Nato HQ and troops to Finland. Social democrats took Finland to evil Nato..." etc.