Putin’s desperate propaganda ploy to evoke the myth of Leningrad and instil victim mentality

These days, Vladimir Putin increasingly invokes the “Great Patriotic War” – the Second World War – not least the siege of Leningrad, a bloody victory that scarred his childhood but also frames his thinking about Russia’s place in the world.

In a vitriolic video address this week, he deliberately framed Western sanctions as a “blockade”, comparing it to the Nazi siege. For 872 days, between September 8 1941 and January 27 1944, Leningrad held out against shelling, bombardment, famine and the cold. Over a million defenders and civilians died – including Putin’s brother Viktor. The mass graves of the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery alone hold half a million dead, more than Britain’s total losses through the entire war.

Leningrad – since 1991 known by its original name of St Petersburg – is Putin’s city, the place he was born, in whose war-shattered ruins he ran as a child, and where, as deputy mayor in the 1990s, he made his first fortune and started his rapid ascent to the presidency.

As a symbol of dogged determination, gritty patriotism and victory over the odds, perhaps it is unsurprising that the “Hero City” appeals to Putin.

However, it also speaks to a deeper political imperative that predates Putin and even goes back to Soviet times.

On the one hand, leaders derive a certain satisfaction from feeling under siege. It is heroic and defiant and speaks to a long-standing myth that Russia stood as a solitary defender of civilisation, whether against the Mongols in the 14th century (though they lost to them), Napoleon in the 19th or even Hitler in the 20th. At last year’s Victory Day parade, Putin raised eyebrows when he edited the other Allies out of history, claiming that in “the fight against Fascism, our people stood alone – alone in the laborious, heroic and sacrificial path towards victory”.

It also justifies authoritarian measures, as anything short of full-throated support for the regime is not just opposition, but treason.

To Putin, “the Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, and simply spit them out”. In a chilling evocation of Stalin, he called for “a natural and necessary self-purification of society” as a result.

Yet Russia’s leaders are not all masochists. Even better than being besieged in Leningrad is to be at the top table at Yalta, where in February 1945, Stalin, Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt carved up Europe. Moscow, a virtual pariah before the war, had become one of the great seats of power in the new world.

Putin has tried in the past to recreate a sense of that, not least in his cosy one-to-ones with China’s Xi Jinping. However, even he must know that this is an impossible sell now. This has been the tragedy of so many Russian leaders, though: there is no middle way. They seem unable to conceive of Russia as an equal partner, let alone a junior one. If the West will not give him a Yalta, Putin will settle for Leningrad.

Leaders derive satisfaction from feeling under siege. It is heroic, defiant and justifies authoritarian measures