‘All that’s missing is an enlistment office’ Inside the ‘SVO Museum’ — Moscow’s new exhibition linking World War II to Russia’s war against Ukraine
In 2025, the Kremlin is marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany with particular fanfare. One of the centerpiece projects is the “SVO Museum,” a new exhibition in Moscow dedicated to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. In line with official propaganda, the curators — whose names are not publicly disclosed — draw explicit parallels between World War II and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg visited the exhibition to see what awaits its visitors. Meduza shares a translation of their reporting.
“Workers of the world, unite!” reads the Ukrainian-language inscription on a bas-relief adorning one of the central pavilions at VDNKh, a sprawling Soviet-built exhibition complex in Moscow. Although the Ukrainian SSR pavilion was renamed “Agriculture” in the mid-1960s, some Muscovites who were born in the Soviet Union still refer to it by its original name. It was in this building that a new museum dedicated to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine opened this February.
The exhibition, which wasn’t announced in advance, was timed to coincide with two events: the “Year of the Defender of the Fatherland” (declared by Vladimir Putin in a presidential decree) and the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. While press releases refer to the “SVO Museum” (the Russian acronym for “special military operation,” the Kremlin’s euphemism for its full-scale war against Ukraine) as a temporary exhibition, its website doesn’t indicate how long it will remain open.
For the past six years, the Agriculture pavilion has housed the state museum of Slavic writing, Slovo (“Word”). To make room for the war exhibition, half of Slovo’s displays were removed — visitors can no longer learn how the Cyrillic alphabet came into being or why it became the foundation of Slavic languages. But these days, the history of written language draws less interest at VDNKh than the SVO Museum. Most visitors head straight for the exhibits related to the war in Ukraine. Even on a weekday, there’s no shortage of people hoping to learn something new about Russia’s ongoing invasion. Every few minutes, another group steps through the pavilion’s doors.
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The SVO Museum is divided into seven zones, each with its own theme. There aren’t any brochures offering an overview, and it’s unclear where the exhibit is meant to begin. “Start wherever you like,” mumbles a bored staff member at the entrance, waving visitors through. Her voice is soon drowned out by that of a booming male narrator: “When Nazi scum rises again, you cannot stand by! You take up arms!”
The voice comes from a circular room that once served as a lecture hall. Now, it houses a glass panel onto which a video of a soldier in camouflage is projected. His face is partially covered with a cloth mask, and the video gives no indication of who he is. “We didn’t start this war, but we will finish it — because it is written: those who live by the sword shall die by the sword,” he says. “There, behind me, is proof of these words.”
Behind the screen lies the twisted wreckage of military equipment, bound with yellow and blue tape. On some of the pieces, messages are written in Ukrainian in white marker. Fragments of Bayraktar drones and several mangled car doors lie amongst stones, rubble, and birch branches. According to the exhibit label, these are “pieces of off-road vehicles that were converted into ‘Banderomobiles.’”
Tall, illuminated panels with vibrant illustrations of plants — peonies, cornflowers, chrysanthemums, a hazel branch, and other trees — line the hall. But in an instant, the flowers vanish, replaced by images of Russian military equipment labeled: “Pion self-propelled cannon,” “Khrizantema-S anti-tank missile system,” “Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile,” and “Topol-M mobile intercontinental ballistic missile system.” The creators of this section have named it The Russian Forest — Combat Botany.
As visitors examine the weaponry, the soldier in the video continues speaking, reciting what is clearly a script. He insists that he and his fellow soldiers don’t consider themselves heroes — only that their “conscience wouldn’t allow them to betray the memory of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.” He urges visitors to live “with a clear conscience” and promises to “return in victory.”
The rest of the SVO Museum continues in an adjacent room. Each themed zone is separated only by thin partitions, and the competing audio tracks from the exhibit’s many videos overlap.
The first object visitors encounter is a stone shaped like the Crimean Peninsula. Projected onto it are a series of images tied to dates the curators have deemed significant: the founding of Sevastopol in 1783; Nikita Khrushchev’s 1954 decision to transfer Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR; and, allegedly, the mass transition of Crimean schools to Ukrainian-language instruction in 1969 (Bereg was unable to verify this latter claim).
On a screen behind the stone, a short film about Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea plays. Nearby is a box of “trophies” (the accompanying plaque uses that term) that the Russian military “acquired” during the annexation. Among the items are radio equipment once used by Ukrainian troops, a Ukrainian flag, a bulletproof vest with Ukrainian military patches, and a laminated copy of the Ukrainian Marine’s oath. A middle-aged woman studies the objects, smiles contentedly, and places her hand over her heart. The film ends with a clip of Vladimir Putin speaking at the March 18, 2014 rally on Red Square, held “in support of Crimea’s accession to the Russian Federation.” “Glory to Russia!” Putin says from the stage. The woman’s smile broadens.
Next is a memorial to Russians killed in the war in Ukraine — a large five-pointed star composed of smaller stars. A few statues of soldiers stand nearby, each with a “Z” carved on its chest. Above them hang the Russian and Soviet flags.
Next to the soldiers is a reconstruction of a military dugout which, according to the curators, resembles the kind engineers and sappers might live in. Two glass panels nearby display a video with one soldier recounting to another how he captured a Ukrainian soldier who accidentally fell into his trench.
— “You speak Russian?” I ask. “Know the Russian anthem?”
— What did he say?
— Well, he goes: “Not very well.” And I say, “Well, we’re gonna remember Russian.”
— I’m telling you, they all remember it. They just have a NATO concussion.
— We treat that with surgical methods.
Visitors don’t linger here — it’s cramped, dark, and too loud. They’re far more drawn to the section devoted to FPV drone operators. In addition to drones, the exhibit showcases a “trophy” Ukrainian tactical map with handwritten markings, a bullet-riddled Ukrainian license plate, the dog tags and driver’s licenses of Ukrainian soldiers, and two mannequins in Russian combat gear frozen in exaggerated poses.
A young woman pauses to study the figures. Her gaze drops lower, then her expression suddenly changes. “Azov!” she mutters, pointing to pamphlets bearing the logo of the Ukrainian battalion. She wrinkles her nose in disgust and turns to her companion. “Let’s go.” But he’s already engrossed in a nearby video showing Russian snipers taking out Ukrainian soldiers. In one scene, a soldier with the call sign Yary claims to have killed 120 people. The voice-over says Ukraine has offered a $300,000 bounty “for his head.” (Bereg was unable to verify this claim through open sources.) The film then shifts to Soviet soldiers killing Nazi troops during World War II. “All our heroes are worthy descendants of the heroes of Stalingrad,” the narrator declares.
The film closes with a scene of wheat swaying beneath a vivid blue sky. “After our victory, we’ll launch the drone again to see our country without the burned-out machinery scattered across the fields,” the narrator says. In the filmmakers’ vision, “our country” includes the Dnipro River and the “new neighborhoods of Mariupol.”
From the drone section, rows of star-shaped pedestals stretch along the wall, displaying replicas of Soviet and Russian military medals and orders. A young man on crutches studies one of the medals closely. Then, he lets out a sigh and heads toward the exit.
The museum’s final section features a detailed model of urban combat: a street lined with half-destroyed five-story buildings, a dozen different types of military vehicles, several trenches draped with camouflage netting, and a hospital building — untouched by shelling and perfectly intact. Small green figurines, wearing either a yellow or white armband, are scattered across balconies, trenches, tanks, and slabs of broken concrete. The yellow-banded soldiers, representing Ukrainians, are mostly depicted kneeling with their hands behind their backs or lying down to suggest serious injuries or death. The white-banded soldiers are shown in action — firing, advancing, or evacuating their wounded comrades. On the ground lie dirty, crumpled blue-and-yellow flags, all marked with the word “Azov.”
“A 1:35 scale model of a frontline segment of the special military operation,” reads the information placard.
“That’s the kind of vehicle I drove,” says a gray-haired man of about 60, pointing to a van marked with a “V.” He smiles proudly at the young girl beside him, a preschooler. “See? They’re fighting, and the wounded go straight to the hospital.”
“Did you see the dugout?” asks a young man, joining the conversation.
“I saw it,” the older man replies. “But it’s way too clean. And no mice.”
In press materials, the museum claims the model depicts the battle for Bakhmut, though there’s no obvious resemblance to the city. The curators have included visual cues from elsewhere, though: in the background, there’s a house with an elderly woman in the yard — dressed exactly like Anna Ivanova, a villager from near Kharkiv who became a pro-war propaganda icon known as the “grandmother with the flag” after a video of her greeting soldiers with a Soviet flag circulated online. At the opposite end of the diorama is a clearly identifiable replica of the Mariupol monument to the Azovstal workers who died during World War II.
“So basically, it’s got everything — from the front line to the hospital,” says another man, turning to his companion.
“Yep,” the other replies with a laugh. “All that’s missing is an enlistment office at the entrance.”
