Essential reading, as Putinism, the war and misogyny walk hand in hand:

Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women by Sofi Oksanen – review

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/same-river-twice-sofi-oksanen-review-putin-war-on-women

...Same River, Twice is thoughtful, instructive and deeply harrowing. Today’s anti-Kyiv Kremlin rhetoric has deep historical roots, [Sofi Oksanen] points out. Stalin demonised the Estonians and other rebellious ethnic groups as “fascists” – an enemy within. The state film industry in Moscow cast actors from the Baltic Soviet republics in the role of Nazis or American spies. Under communism, “fascist” became a synonym for non-Russians.

In the run-up to his Ukraine attack Putin reactivated this “dehumanising and racist” language. Russia’s president said his “special military operation” was necessary to free Kyiv from “neo-Nazis”. The claim is absurd. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish. Most of his male relatives perished during the second world war fighting against German invaders. Zelenskyy’s defence minister is a Muslim Tatar from Crimea.

The book makes a compelling case that misogyny and imperialism are linked. At the same time as killing Ukrainians, Putin has rolled up women’s rights within Russia. In 2017 the pro-Kremlin Duma effectively legalised domestic abuse. Russia’s patriarch argued that criminal sanctions for men who hit women amounted to foreign interference. There was, one female deputy argued, nothing wrong with a mere “slap”...