MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Wednesday accused a Ukrainian computer game developer of glorifying Nazism by producing a game which features Adolf Hitler overseeing a fictional World War Two victory parade in Moscow, a charge the developer rejects.
The game, “Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg,” invites players to take command of the German army during World War Two and offers different fictional scenarios depending on the outcome.
One such fictional scenario depicts a Nazi victory parade in the heart of Moscow and shows Hitler reviewing it as German tanks rumble across Red Square and planes screech overhead.
“Here we can only express extreme regret that this game is available in our country, especially during the year when we are marking 75 years of (the Soviet) victory. This game, for us, is nothing other than Nazi propaganda and is unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The Kremlin hoped relevant Russian government agencies would take measures, said Peskov.
One Russian senator has raised the possibility of criminal proceedings against the game’s developers.
Starni Games, its Ukraine-based developer, in a statement released on Reddit, has denied glorifying Nazism.
“…In no way (are) we trying to glorify the Nazi ideology, we strongly condemn their deeds,” the statement said. “We’ve created a historical game with alternate history possibilities: if the player loses, there are Soviet troops taking (the)Reichstag, and if he wins one of the battles German troops are taking Moscow.”
Nor, the statement said, did the game portray Hitler in a positive light.
Russia had planned to mark the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany on May 9 with a military parade across Red Square. President Vladimir Putin was forced to postpone it until June 24 however due to the coronavirus outbreak.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Ttrault-Farber; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
