Russia's foreign minister says the war has to end so that "no more Nazism" is left in Europe. Sergei Lavrov made the claim in a speech to students, casting Russia's war once again as a fight against a Nazi threat.

Earlier, Aleksei Selivanov, a sanctioned collaborator who became a senior official in the occupation administration of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, revealed the meaning behind the term "denazification". "Denazification is re-Russification," he said, adding that where Russian troops arrive, Ukrainian nationhood "ceases to exist," according to United24.

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Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, Head of the National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, linked Lavrov's statement to the recent conflict between Germany and Russia over the drone attack on Ukraine's plane in Leipzig.

"Russia’s aggression is now becoming even more overt, with the main focus being placed on the political dismantling of the current elites who refused to acknowledge this aggression right under their noses," Kovalenko said.

Germany has been a long-term supporter of Ukraine, sending tons of aid, including Gepard anti-drone guns and Leopard tanks.

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"This war must be ended so that there is no more Nazism in Europe, which has again spread its metastases here," Lavrov said.

He added that leaving Ukraine's leadership in power would betray those who defeated Nazism in 1945.

The framing collapses on contact with the facts. It was Russia that launched the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, and it continues the war today.

Ukraine has no Nazi government. Its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish and was elected democratically. "Denazification" has functioned since the invasion's first day as a pretext, drawing on the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War to recast an attack on Ukrainian identity as a war on fascism.

Earlier, Lavrov said that one of Russia's war goals in Ukraine was to protect the "honor and dignity" of Russian citizens, including their right to use the Russian language and practice the Orthodox faith, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported.

In August, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), said during a sermon at the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent that the Soviet Union's creation of the nuclear bomb was the result of divine intervention.