section_path: History/Contemporary fascism (2008–present)/Post-Soviet Russia
section_name: Post-Soviet Russia
paragraph_text: Post-Soviet Russia
  
  Marlene Laruelle, a French political scientist, contends in Is Russia Fascist? that the accusation of "fascist" has evolved into a strategic narrative of the existing world order. Geopolitical rivals might construct their own view of the world and assert the moral high ground by branding ideological rivals as fascists, regardless of their real ideals or deeds. Laruelle discusses the basis, significance, and veracity of accusations of fascism in and around Russia through an analysis of the domestic situation in Russia and the Kremlin's foreign policy justifications; she concludes that Russian efforts to brand its opponents as fascist is ultimately an attempt to determine the future of Russia in Europe as an antifascist force, influenced by its role in fighting fascism in World War II.
  
  According to Alexander J. Motyl, an American historian and political scientist, Russian fascism has the following characteristics:
  
  Yale historian Timothy Snyder has stated that "Putin's regime is the world center of fascism" and has written an article entitled "We Should Say It: Russia Is Fascist." Oxford historian Roger Griffin compared Putin's Russia to the World War II-era Empire of Japan, saying that like Putin's Russia, it "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist." Historian Stanley G. Payne says Putin's Russia "is not equivalent to the fascist regimes of World War II, but it forms the nearest analogue to fascism found in a major country since that time" and argues that Putin's political system is "more a revival of the creed of Tsar Nicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality' than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini." According to Griffin, fascism is "a revolutionary form of nationalism" seeking to destroy the old system and remake society, and that Putin is a reactionary politician who is not trying to create a new order "but to recreate a modified version of the Soviet Union". German political scientist Andreas Umland said genuine fascists in Russia, like deceased politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky and activist and self-styled philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, "describe in their writings a completely new Russia" controlling parts of the world that were never under tsarist or Soviet domination. According to Marlene Laurelle writing in The Washington Quarterly, "applying the "fascism" label... to the entirety of the Russian state or society short-circuits our ability to construct a more complex and differentiated picture."
  
  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, collecting the opinions of experts on fascism, said that while Russia is repressive and authoritarian, it cannot be classified as a fascist state for various reasons, including Russia's government being more reactionary than revolutionary. In 2023, Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Board of Human Rights Center " Memorial ", claimed that Russia under Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism and that the army is committing "mass murder". On 7 March 2024, in his 2024 State of the Union Address, American President Joe Biden compared Russia under Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler 's conquests of Europe.