© Sputnik
A Soviet patriotic poster from 1945, stating: “The enemy is insidious – don’t lose your guard.”
The swastika and other symbols of the Third Reich can be used, but only if it's done to condemn Nazism, the State Duma ruled.
The previous legislation was too harsh, even making addressing classic WWII movies a problem.
There was an outright ban on Nazi symbols in Russia due to them offending the memory of the grave losses suffered by the country during the Great Patriotic War against the German invaders in 1941-45.
But the amendments to the relevant law, which MPs passed in the second reading on Tuesday, allow for the restrictions to be lifted in cases when those symbols are used "to form a negative attitude towards the ideology of Nazism
and when signs of propaganda or justification of Nazism are absent." This includes art, science, education and all other areas.
The changes were needed to correct "an absurd situation," one of the deputies behind the initiative, Elena Yampolskaya, explained.
Our people want to honor the memory of their ancestors and uphold the legacy of the Great Patriotic War, but doing this through visual means, while avoiding any Nazi symbols, is almost impossible.
Yampolskaya wondered how the authors of the previous legislation could forget about the World War II movies from the "golden portfolio" of Soviet cinema; patriotic posters from that period, which may, for example, show "a Soviet soldier smashing the swastika - a Nazi symbol - with his foot," historic photos, videos and other materials.
A total ban on Nazi symbols is also wrong as "one should never forget, what his enemies look like," she added.
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