The View from Moscow: Key Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin on Trump, Ukraine, Russia, and Globalism
In this special interview from Moscow, Glenn interviews key Russian analyst Aleksandr Dugin about how Russia is reacting to Trump's second term, the Ukraine war, and the expanding influence of globalism.
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
As you can see, I am not in our normal studio.
As I mentioned last night, I am traveling in order to pursue certain interviews, conduct other interviews, speak to people in places such as Russia.
Here I am currently.
In Budapest, I spent the last several days in Moscow.
I'll be in other countries.
Over the next week or so, there's obviously a lot going on in terms of the reaction to President Trump, to the Trump administration, to the massive changes he is speaking about and in some cases bringing to alliances such as NATO that have repercussions and ripple effects all throughout the world, but especially...
In Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe.
We spent the last couple days in Moscow, as I mentioned, and conducted several interviews, one of which I am very excited to show you tonight.
It is with Professor Alexander Dugan, whose role in Moscow is undoubtedly significant and influential, but oftentimes misapprehended or misdescribed.
In the West, Dugan has often been called, this sort of shorthand in Western media, Putin's brain, designed to imply that he's the person who sits behind Putin or next to Putin, whispering in his ear, shaping the dogma and ideology and geostrategy that Putin follows.
It tracks what Karl Rove used to be called in the early first term of the Bush administration, Bush's brain.
But Rove was actually in the White House as a senior advisor to George W. Bush.
And even there, that phrase overstated Rove's influence.
Whereas Dugan does not work in any official capacity in the Kremlin, let alone in the president's office.
He more is a philosopher, a scholar, a theorist.
But he has become a household name in Russia.
He is undoubtedly influential.
Although he is very influential in particular factions and particular circles, one that tend to look at President Putin almost as too moderate of a figure, too cautious of a figure, too restrained a figure.
And I think therein lies one of the fascinating parts of this interview, which I have to say, and I said this last night, I consider it to be one of the most interesting interviews I've ever conducted.
It illustrates the fact that here in the West we love to, or at least we're often subjected to these very cartoon versions of what Russia is.
It's a totalitarian regime.
And Adolf Hitler is in charge of Moscow in the form of Vladimir Putin.
He's this totalitarian figure.
He speaks and everybody obeys instantly.
There's no dissent.
There's no questioning.
The minute you question, you're killed or murdered or sent to a gulag.
And of course, the complexities of modern day life in Russia and Moscow in particular are far more nuanced, far more complex than that.
There are constantly competing factions and ideological disagreements.
I might analogize the role that Dugan plays maybe to a Steve Bannon figure where he is unquestionably pro-Putin in the way that Steve Bannon is unquestionably pro-Trump.
And there have been definitely instances in time periods and issues in which Bannon has played.
A vital role, arguably the central role in shaping the mentality and ideology and worldview of Donald Trump, much like Professor Dugan has done with the Putin circle.
But there are other times that Bannon has been kind of cast out of favor, sort of speaks and incites a significant part of the pro-Trump base, but from the outside.
And that, I think, is also true of Professor Dugan, who represents and symbolizes a very significant part of the pro-Putin faction in Moscow, but not one that always gets its way by any means.
And in fact, over the last 15, 20 years, there have been times when Professor Dugan has been ostracized.
There are other times that he has been kept far more in favor.
He probably is at a higher point of influence now because he was somebody who was urging...
Putin and Moscow to annex Crimea in the wake of the coup attempt, the successful coup that the West helped engineer with Victoria Nuland and John McCain and Chris Murphy and the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID and Ukraine right on the other side of the Russian border.
He has also been a stalwart defender of the Russian war in Ukraine, which he sees as necessary to combat the influence of the West and NATO and the United States and globalism generally.
In Ukraine, but he has also at times been critical of the Kremlin in subtle ways for not going far enough in his view, for being too eager to recreate engagement with the West, positive relations with the West, even if in his eyes it means sacrificing legitimate Russian interests.
And so there's a lot going on in Moscow given what Trump is trying to do in terms of facilitating.
He and others in Moscow are very concerned about what that might look like, what Russia might give away, what Russia might concede.
there's a lot of robust debate taking place in Budapest as well and throughout Eastern Europe, throughout Western Europe, all as a response to Trump taking the global order and kind of shaking it up, like one of those little glass paper plates you put on your desk when you have the water and you like one of those little glass paper plates you put on your desk when you have the water and you pick it
That's always been the potential that I've seen in Donald Trump, that it kind of takes these ossified 80-year-old post-World War to institutions that have done so much harm, just shakes them up and forces them to rearrange themselves.
That's the reason there's so much hysteria in establishment circles when it comes to what Trump is doing.
So this interview that we did, I entered the interview.
I had a few general ideas of what I wanted to talk to Professor Dugan about, but I didn't have any written questions, as you'll see.
I just had a little notebook in front of me, occasionally jotted down some ideas.
I wanted it to be a very organic and natural discussion as opposed to a rigid interview.
I wanted to hear what he said and react to that and kind of go where that took us as opposed to just having an agenda beforehand.
And I, like I said, found it to be an extremely thought-provoking interview.
There's a reason why we're told not to listen to Russian voices, why the EU forbade any platforming of Russian state TV so that all Western populations would hear is the propaganda of Western countries about Ukraine, about Russia.
Because when you can hear directly from the other side, from somebody you're told not to listen to, the impression that is left with you is radically different, of course, than if those ideas are mediated to you or served to you or distorted for you by somebody who wants you to have a particular impression of that other side but not than if those ideas are mediated to you or served to you or distorted for So the conversation ended up being an hour and a half, an hour and 40 minutes.
For me, the time flew.
I didn't...
In addition to having written questions, I also didn't have a clock or a phone in front of me.
I just kind of got a feel for how long the conversation went.
The time really flew.
But he's very, very – his English is excellent, but he's also a very, very clear thinker.
He was trained originally as a philosopher or actually self-taught as a philosopher, speaks multiple languages, having learned them himself.
And he thinks and reasons primarily as a philosopher, only as a political analyst secondarily.
So he really speaks from first principles, those first principles that serve as the foundation for at least a significant faction of Russian thought that wields a lot of influence in Moscow.
It's really worth hearing what he thinks about.
Donald Trump and Washington about the international aspect of this populist nationalist movement as well as the multipolar world that is clearly emerging and what that might look like and his vision for Russia and what he calls Russian civilization or Russian culture and the role that it plays in the world in relationship to other forms of culture.
It's a kind of voice that you very rarely hear, at least in depth.
in Western discourse or even in if you're listening to say RT or Sputnik which is available here on Rumble but very few other places in the West because it's a lengthy discussion as well and I purposely kind of tried to drill into the underlying and historical assumptions on which his worldview and therefore the worldview of a lot of people in Moscow So I found this discussion extremely illuminating, very thought-provoking, very engaging.
I really think you will, too.
too.
I hope you will.
And we are proud to show it to you.
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- Professor, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me It's great to see you.
I want to start with the change in what seems like the climate, certainly in Washington, in the United States, where...
There's a great deal of expectation that with a new president, one who specifically is vowing that he wants to see an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, there's a lot of expectation that that is going to happen.
I think the same is true in Western European capitals, for better or for worse.
Some people happy, some people not.
What is the expectation here in Moscow in terms of that likelihood?
So, first of all, we observe carefully how deep the changes that Mr. Trump has brought with his new team in the administration are.
So, that is something incredible.
He has changed the direction of 180 percent.
So, that is totally reversal.
In what way do you mean that?
So, ideologically, first of all.
First of all, ideologically, because there was left liberalism and globalism that was a kind of ruling power in the United States and in the collective West.
And Trump has brought nationalism, patriotism, America first, and he declared...
The war against all globalist institutions, starting from USAID and all the other clans, deep state.
And this time there was not only talk, but only speech, only words, but also the deeds with totally new persons.
So that was unexpected for us, and we could not.
Not remark this huge, huge change in the American line.
And because, in our opinion, in Russian opinion, the war in Ukraine was provoked and literally started by previous administration.
So this contrary...
To previous administration line, a strategy of Trump, we observe with very positive feeling.
When you say the prior administration provoked the war in Ukraine, what specifically do you mean by that?
They have promised Ukraine to join NATO, and that was the red line for Putin.
We always insisted that it is too much that exceeds what we could tolerate, but nevertheless...
Biden and before him Obama, Nuland, this group, the clan of globalists, not United States of America in general, but this clan of globalists, they pushed this agenda against us, provoking us.
So that's how we consider the situation.
It is important to understand not what is the reality, but what the people...
Participating in some conflict, how they conceive the realities.
So our reality, our truth was that.
And we have remarked that the enemies of Mr. Trump, they are those who have started the war and they are our enemies.
So we have common enemy.
Globalist, left liberal agenda, and second and very important point, we coincide with our defense for traditional values, for patriotism, family, religion, and many other things.
That is the difference, that makes difference between globalism and Trump.
On one hand, on the other hand, between globalists and us.
So we have many, many common ideological points with Trump.
But at the same time, we are very, very careful in our expectation that Trump could help us to finish the war.
One thing is the affinities in the ideology and the other, geopolitical interests.
In that sense, we are not so sure that his rejection of globalist agenda will necessarily...
And accepting our truth in Ukrainian conflict.
That we need to see further.
But nevertheless, we see how different is the position of Trump regarding Zelensky and Ukraine in general with the arrests of the same globalist left liberal structure in EU and Europe.
And that gives...
Another positive element of expectation, but we still are very careful because I think that globalists, before leaving the office, they tried to create conditions to make more obstacles in order to prevent...
You mean like authorizing the use of Ukrainian missiles?
Yes, yes, and many other things.
They wanted to put...
Trump in the trap.
And if he would like to finish the war, he would be incapable to do that because of all these elements they have done before leaving office.
So let me ask you, there was obviously a scandal, political scandal, in the United States during the 2016 campaign when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were competing to be the president.
And the argument was made, well...
Trump is the candidate of the Russians.
Trump is who the Kremlin wants to win, and they have a lot of animosity toward Hillary Clinton.
In Trump's first term from 2017 to 2020, he did things like sent lethal arms to Ukraine, whereas President Obama before him was very reluctant to do that.
He also campaigned to have Germany and Europe stop buying natural gas through Nord Stream, something very...
Antagonistic to Russia.
Is it true that in 2016, and it sounds like it from what you're saying, that you at least, and more broadly maybe the Russian government, had a preference for Trump to win?
So, from the beginning of his campaign, when he has appeared for the first time on the horizon, on the political horizon in the US, we have immediately remarked the difference between his strategy and globalist strategy.
So, from the beginning of his appearance, we would rather...
See him with sympathy, with some sympathy.
But there was no element of real intervention in his support.
Everybody here in Kremlin, maybe beside myself, everybody here was convinced that Hillary was going to win.
So that was just...
Something funny, sympathetic, but we didn't accept him seriously.
When he came to the power and when he has won, he was under pressure.
So they have created this...
False strategy, fake new campaign to demonize him, to undermine his influence, that he is a marionette and an instrument of Putin.
And maybe he was obliged because that was his first term.
He accepted much more.
He heard more.
What do you think about Zelensky's opponents, people from the Republican Party and so on?
And he tried to give the impression that there is absolutely senseless.
So maybe that was the kind of driver to help more Zelensky.
The situation is totally different.
First of all, the people from administration who made these claims that there was a kind of Russian intervention in favor of Trump, now they are in the court.
They are fired and they are under inquiry.
So, if now somebody of serious position starts to repeat the same lies, it is already something, a kind of crime.
So that is suspicious.
So Trump could not pay any attention for such slender and propaganda of his political opponents.
So he is totally free to deal with Russia in good terms, in bad terms.
That demands on How he consider what are...
The American interest in this field.
So he is totally free.
So he could not discount absolutely any claim that he plays in favor of Russia, in favor of Putin, because it is already established fact that all that was lie.
So that is difference between Trump...
The first term and the second term.
Let me ask you now.
You referenced U.S. aid and then sort of with the U.S. aid as the National Endowment for Democracy.
And it's gotten a lot of attention in the United States in the last two or three weeks because the new government has been targeting it with budget cuts.
And there's a lot of discussion about what are these agencies and what do they do?
And there's sort of an attempt to say, oh, these are charitable agencies.
They go around the world helping people.
They give to the poor.
And maybe there is an extent to which they do that.
But in a lot of countries, there's a lot of hostility towards these agencies because of the perception and the proof that they're used by the U.S. government to interfere in other countries.
Is that something that, from the Russian perspective, is understood or seen about the National Endowment for Democracy, about USA, that there are arms to interfere in not just other countries but specifically here in Russia?
As well as network of Soros and all the other assets linked to the USAID, you said, we have found a long time ago that there is something wrong with USAID as the agency, and instead of promotion, some humanitarian, purely humanitarian...
Help and aid to the people, to the society.
They are just the instrument to organize color revolutions, to influence media.
They were buying independent, so-called independent journalists and bloggers.
Inside Russia?
Inside Russia, outside of Russia, in the post-Soviet space.
We marked that.
We have fixed that.
And after 2012, the U.S. ID was prohibited here.
Not because they gave humanitarian aid, but because they worked to destabilize.
Political situations, they intervened in social process trying to help and to promote the regime change.
That was nothing like humanitarian agency.
That was a kind of soft power and sometimes including terrorist network used.
By globalists, not by the government of the United States, in order to promote some ideological agenda, fighting against what they called authoritarian regimes in order to install at their place so-called liberal democracies.
Ideologically engaged and very radical and illegal system, and that was for us as well.
The very astonishing, very amazing, amazing step of Trump's administration, the first week they have dismantled it.
The first week in the White House, they started with that, with revealing the truths.
That USID was some ideological assets and not just normal government agencies.
So we knew that long before and that was a very important step because I think many things will be changed now when there is no such Huge support of ideological war that globalists waged on all humanity, especially in our country, on Ukraine.
Because it seems now that 90% of so-called free press, free media in Ukraine was supported.
Financially by U.S. ID. So that is something that was clear and transparent for us and that Trump has come to the same conclusion.
Let me ask you about the motive at play in this agenda that you're describing as the globalist agenda to impose what they describe as liberal democracy on other countries.
If you go back to The Obama years, where I think a lot of the U.S.-Russian hostility began with the Hillary Clinton State Department and through the years.
Obviously, the United States is perfectly happy to partner with and deal with and even impose very dictatorial regimes.
When there were protests in Egypt for democracy by the students, the Mubarak government was very close to the United States, Hillary Clinton talked about.
The United States has partnered with and been very happy with dictatorial regimes.
So when there's this effort to use these agencies to change the government of Russia, to change the political climate in Eastern Europe and the like, it doesn't seem to me like the...
The motive is, oh, they want to just spread democracy because they love freedom.
What do you think the motive is and why there's been this effort to try and undermine stability in other governments in the region, including your own?
So, first of all, I think that was a kind...
There are two lines, two schools and international relations, as for sure you know, realism and liberalism.
According to realism...
And international relations, you can deal with any government if they are willing to, any government if it is willing to cooperate with you, to follow your line, to support you.
You just discount whether they are dictatorial, authoritarian, democratic, liberal, socialist, communist, of secondary importance.
That is realism.
Should follow your national interests.
And all the rest is of secondary importance.
That was the position of Kissinger, the position of John Mearsheimer.
That is classical realism in international relations.
And partly, the United States is based on this line, on this school.
So what is good for America, it's acceptable.
Democracy, authoritarianism, doesn't matter.
Yeah, it does not matter.
Liberalism in international relations, it is a totally different system.
So that is the idea that you should fight authoritarianism in any country, including in the United States, in Europe.
So nobody is perfect, so we need to...
To make democracy more functional, more equal, more tolerant, more woke in some sense.
And starting from those regimes that are openly not so liberal or they are called such.
So, that is the kind of different angle Mubarak was different.
Of the United States and of Israel, nothing against them.
But at the same time, he was openly authoritarian.
Like General Sassi now.
Yes, yes, yes.
There is no big difference.
They belong to different ideological camps.
But the methods they use in the rule, they are more or less similar.
So, the liberalism in international relations...
That is globalism and left liberalism, as they call it now in the US. So that is a totally different approach to the international affairs.
And in that sense, Russia represents a kind of independent civilizational state with different political philosophy, with different values.
For us, in our eyes, they are democratic.
But in the eyes of globalists, they are authoritarian.
So, the idea to overthrow a Russian political system fits...
Perfectly in these liberalism and international relations, the same with Middle East, the Islamic States.
And these schools, normally, during the last hundred years in the United States, they competed.
They were more or less in balance.
So, one step in realistic way, the other in liberal, and they...
We cooperated somehow.
But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the liberals in the international relations, they have won because they, according to Fukuyama, they have remarked that now it is the moment of unipolarity, so all the world should turn into...
Democracy, liberal democracy, no more realism, no more national state.
We need to destroy them.
We need to come to global government.
That is normal part of the manuals of international relations in this section dedicated to liberalism in international relations.
That is not conspiracy theory.
World government is a political, sociological concept of liberalism in international relations.
And that was the kind of...
This balancing move to put, to concentrate everything on this global liberal approach.
And I think that that was the loss of the balance and Trump is restoring that.
So he is not against liberal democracy, but he is against irrealist...
Attitude to the world's politics.
That is the U.S.'s responsibility or role to change other governments that he's rejecting.
Let me ask you, though, on this scale that you just described of liberal democracies on the one hand and authoritarian regimes on the other, prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, all Americans were raised, taught.
The Soviet Union is on the extreme end of authoritarianism.
There's no elections.
There's no free speech.
If you criticize the government, you go to jail.
All of the things were taught.
And after the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Yeltsin and a certain change in the relationship between the United States and Russia for a while, there was this sense of, okay, Russia is becoming more Western.
There's more democratic reform now.
And now we're very much back to the same perspective of Russia and the West that we had prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.
It's an authoritarian regime.
There were no real elections.
People who criticized the government go to prison.
There's a crackdown on individual rights and the like.
The ideas that you just used to describe the perspective of the United States, liberal democracies here, authoritarian governments here, is it fair to consider Russia more toward the authoritarian pole?
So I think that when the United States dealt with the Soviet Union, that was the path of ideological propaganda.
There were two systems competing on the global scale.
And blaming each other to be manipulated by big finance or to be authoritarian, totalitarian.
So that was the path of the ideological weaponry of the Cold War.
And there was some sense in that because...
The zone of Soviet influence was so big.
So we influenced some states in Latin America, some political parties in Europe and in Asia.
So we competed on the global level and we blamed each other.
We competed on the global level and we blamed each other to be something.
In our eyes, in the Soviet ideology, capitalism is bad because that is exploitation and all that.
In a capitalist camp, socialism was authoritarian and bad.
And that was not about the truth.
That was about ideology.
Now, when the Soviet pole collapsed, there was only one ideology, liberalism.
That has won on the planetarian scale.
And Huntington has seen very correctly from the beginning of the 90s that after the collapse of two ideological camps, there will be new actors, civilizations.
They will return.
They will emerge.
And they will not form anti-Western.
Poland, something like Soviet system, but they will try to defend their identities.
They simply don't coincide with Western ones.
So, there we need to make a translation of the terms.
So, we could not reduce all the situation to authoritarian, whether authoritarian or liberal democracy.
So, that is absolutely the violence against...
The differences of cultures, terms, for example, in our opinion, we could have democratic authoritarianism, something like that, because if we choose by our will someone who will be considered as a father of nation.
Or authoritarian figure, the father.
There are a lot of people who think the United States has that now with Donald Trump, for example.
You are experiencing exactly the same dilemma, the same question.
You could, by all your free will...
You could prefer something that should not be globalist, liberal, democratic, and maybe it could seem as well as authoritarian.
These old monuments, big monuments of Trump already done.
We passed all our history making huge monuments for our leaders.
So that was not the case in the living leaders.
The case of political philosophy, political tradition in the United States.
And now, with Trump, you have arrived immediately.
In some months, you have arrived to the same conclusion that maybe, maybe people, the society, the masses would prefer a strong leader, strong authoritarian leader with...
Extra capacity and a special, special right to change the situation that you consider to be in pitiful condition.
So that is the same logic.
So maybe you understand us much better now because...
You have one of the first experience of how great and how beautiful some kind of democratic authoritarianism could be.
But I guess the one difference is that the reason Donald Trump is in power, and presumably in another 18 months or so there'll be a Congress in place as a result as well, is that he won a...
The Democrats tried to put him in prison.
The Democrats tried to have him ineligible to even run on the ballot, but they failed.
He was able to run.
And by all accounts, there was a free election and he was chosen.
Presumably, there'll be another one of those in 18 months for the Congress and not another one of those in three and a half years for the next president.
Whereas I think this argument is that, well, in Russia, you can say that people want— So, first of all, I think that the Democrats wanted to rig elections and steal elections from Trump precisely because they were afraid that something like that could
happen in the United States because the will of the people could be different from The understanding of how democracy should work according to some abstract liberal democratic concepts.
And they started, I have remarked once, Biden has said that the freedom is more important than democracy.
So you can rig democracy if your freedom is in danger.
So there is inner paradox because the people having, Free election can vote to someone who can be considered by abstract liberal theorists as something that… Authoritarian.
Authoritarian or something that isn't exactly...
For someone who doesn't fit exactly with their understanding of how democracy should be, not how it is.
And so, a democracy that could prefer...
To strong leader and weak democratic government, it is a historical fact that things like that happened in the history.
The liberals are very, very afraid of such possibility.
And free elections, in your case, in the United States, or in the case of Europe, it is this open possibility.
To choose whoever you want, and not what the globalists suggest that you should elect.
So that is some contradiction embedded in the democracy itself.
So democracy could, in some situation, as was the passage from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, when Republican government was so...
Corrupt, incapable to solve the concrete economic, geopolitical, military problem and respond to the challenges that there was the need, the popular need, to change the type of government from passage from a republic to the empire.
I think something like that is going now on your list.
Yeah, I agree.
And obviously you see in the United Kingdom where they voted to leave the...
EU, despite being told by what you might call the globalists that they shouldn't, you see the rise of a lot of parties.
Just yesterday in Germany, the AFD is now the second most popular party.
In France and all over Europe, you see the same thing with the rise of populist parties, what you might call more nationalist parties, anti-globalist parties.
But I think the argument there is, let's say there is a decision to move in what one might call a more authoritarian direction.
Or a less liberal direction.
That there will be ongoing democratic ratification of that as long as you're holding free and fair elections every four years.
And that would still be a difference, a lot of critics of your country would say, than what happens here in Russia.
Because here in Russia you may think there's satisfaction with that system, but you don't really have free and fair elections to test it.
Is that something that is a fair critique of Russia?
Is it accurate?
And do you think there should be that kind of ratification occasionally?
So, first of all, I don't think that everything could be reduced to this dilemma, democratic system.
Or authoritarian.
There are much more versions of the political structures than these two oppositions.
Second, if we consider, for example, Russian elections as they are now, when the people are voting for Putin.
If you have Trump at the head of the United States, if you have Let us imagine IFD at the head of Germany, Marine Le Pen at the head of France, absolutely democratically elected, and there is no globalist lobby ruling the West.
So, how do you think, would they recognize Russian elections as fair?
Democratic, totally transparent and accountable.
So I have a feeling that, yes, they would say, they would prove, because they are, because it is against the logic of globalists, but the people could choose and continue to support someone they have elected as a kind of father of nation and repeat that.
But you would need alternatives that they are able to...
Not just controlled ones, but free ones.
Why?
We should have alternatives.
If we are happy with what we have...
But how do you know people are happy unless they are able to express that?
For example, referendum, voting, and they are happy, still happy, and still happy.
There is no alternative.
And that could last as long as you want.
Finally, you believe...
In your leader, in your father, father of nation, so much that you will follow his indication of the successor.
So he, for example, Putin would say, this guy will continue my line.
He know better than us and we are going to believe.
And what for this?
That without alternatives.
Sometimes alternatives are important, but sometimes no.
They could be, for example, if there is some collapse of the authority of some leadership, there could be a different way to overthrow it or by votes in democratic ways or not.
They are different.
But if there is radical discontent of the ruling leader, ruling figure, always there are ways to finish with it.
I guess Russian history has examples.
American history has examples.
European, African, Asian.
That is kind of eternal.
Questions, and Machiavelli has said if there is the ruler who is a living ruler, he is a good ruler, because the bad ruler is dead.
Let me get you back to Ukraine for a minute, because I got sidetracked with some interesting things that I wanted to ask you about anyway.
Obviously, there's a desire on the part of the Trump administration to end...
The war, Trump has said that during the campaign.
He said that over and over and over again.
He's saying that now as well.
The question, of course, is how such a war might end.
NATO, from the beginning, defined victory in a way that always seemed to me to be designed to ensure their humiliation, which was, we want every Russian troop out of every inch of what had previously been recognized as Ukraine, including Crimea.
It seems obvious now that's not going to happen.
Pete Hegseth, the new defense secretary, said we're never going to go back to the pre-2014 borders.
There was a lot of anger that he said that, but it seems true.
There are a lot of people in the West who still think that the motive for the war, the goal of Putin, is not only to take all of Ukraine, but to exert in a pre-2014 In a pre-1989 way, authority over large parts of Eastern Europe as well.
And then there are a lot of people who say, no, it seemed like what Putin and the Russians want is some buffer zone to ensure safety between NATO, encroaching NATO, moving eastward and Ukraine.
So how do you see the real Russian goal, the longer-term Russian goal, when it comes to Ukraine and Eastern Europe?
I think that if we consider the real capacity of modern Russia to, for example, to put Eastern Europe under control, as was the case of the Second World War, we arrive immediately after serious consideration that is absolutely impossible.
Maybe it was desirable.
Maybe we would...
We would do everything to accomplish that by strategical and historical reasons in order to reinforce our security, but that is absolutely out of our capacities.
Could say in Russia that we are able to do that.
Maybe we will be obliged, put in this situation, a necessity to fight with Europe, with NATO, and maybe this war will give some positive results, but it is a very, very small possibility.
And people in Russia recognize that, not just you?
Absolutely.
That is common opinion.
For example, few...
We would say that we would desire that.
Right.
But all would agree that we...
The capability is not there.
More than that, we may be...
It is now very difficult to us to establish full control over Ukraine.
And we see that.
But we would prefer...
To have at least neutral Ukraine.
Neutral, not hostile, not friendly, but just neutral, as was in the case of Kuchma or Yanukovych working with the West, having good relations with us.
And we would let Ukraine alone with Crimea, with Donbass.
We didn't want that.
Our government tried to avoid military intervention.
That is absolutely clear.
But we could, when we started...
More powerful way to keep Ukraine back under our conflicts, there was this war.
And in this war, we see some absolutely certain points.
First of all, NATO, as you have said, could not overcome Russia.
So, the goal to liberate so-called so-called liberate Crimea or eastern part of Ukraine is impossible.
On the level of the powers.
So we stand.
Strong against all the sanctions, all NATO weapons given to Ukrainians.
And we will stay in that and maybe progress until the end, until the last Russians.
We are very decisive on that.
But at the same time, we see how difficult to us is to progress.
So we would satisfy, at least now, with...
Keeping back these territories, assuring that Ukraine is not going to become the part member.
When you say keep back, do you mean that, and I realize you're not necessarily negotiating for the government, or even if you were, you wouldn't do it with me, but is there a scenario, do you think, in which...
Russia would be willing to give back to Ukraine some or all of the land it has come to occupy over the last three years?
It's absolutely zero chance for that.
Why is that?
First of all, we have paid a big price for that.
And nobody in Russia, in Russian society, no warriors, no people who have lost their children.
The people, the parents, they would accept that.
Because otherwise the loss of their children would be for no reason?
In other words, the people who lost their...
Yes, because that was a kind of patriotic, great patriotic war, and it is continuing.
And Putin has put his authority on the scale of the victory.
So without victory...
No, no, no.
Legitimity, historical legitimacy.
What is victory?
That depends.
In my opinion, there are different scales.
So, it could be, it could be a control over Ukraine with putting...
All of Ukraine.
All of Ukraine.
Putting some, not pro-Russian, but neutral figure on the top, dismantling military potential and Nazi ideology, Russophobia, this hatred to Russian Orthodox Church, Russian language.
So that would be maximal, maximal victory.
If we liberate what we call Novorossiya, the territory that includes four regions...
We have already taken and...
All the provinces in eastern Ukraine that you...
As well.
So these four provinces and new four provinces around Odessa, Kharkov, Nikolaev and Dnepropetrovsk.
But that could be next to Russia and it could be victory as well.
So if we manage to do that.
Or to take Kiev.
And to divide Ukraine in two parts, western and eastern.
And less, less possible, the smallest victory that we could maybe afford, I'm not sure, but maybe it is in the plans.
It is to keep the territories, the provinces we have already.
In Russia and Crimea, obviously, and to give all the Ukraine, all the rest of Ukraine, to accept that and to demilitarize and promising not to enter NATO. But I think that as well,
this smallest victory could provide a huge reaction from the population, and a normal victory, the victory that will immediately satisfy everybody here, and that is very important to the future period, because we need to assimilate, to integrate these new territories, old, in our history, old earths.
So that will be accepted by everybody.
The smallest, smallest victory that is inconceivable for the West, for Zelensky, and I think maybe for Washington now, that could create critical turmoil inside of Russia.
So it will be very, very difficult to present as victory.
Just maintaining what you have.
Yes.
Let me ask you about that because a lot of times there is, in Western propaganda, a kind of cartoon version of Russia that's presented, which is that Putin is not just, as you call him or described him maybe, the father figure of the country, but he's a totalitarian leader.
Only his will rules everything.
There's no dissent.
There's no opposition.
There's no questioning permissible.
My sense, following Russian politics as best as I can from a distance, is that there's actually been a lot of disagreement in Moscow and in political circles about what this war ought to achieve.
You're obviously laying out different views that people have of what it is.
Is there a certain kind of political pressure on President Putin inside Russia not to give away too much?
I think that is not so much political pressure from concrete political groups, but rather the general opinion, a kind of moods of people in the front, the people here in the country.
So the patriotism is now a kind of common position of the absolute majority of the Russians.
Patriotism, that is sociological, cultural, ideological.
Psychological.
Psychological, absolutely.
And that creates much more pressure on Putin than any fraction around him.
And what is interesting, there are people who are in tune.
With this patriotism and close to Putin, but they are still not the absolute majority.
Many representatives of Putin's elite still believe in the end of the conflicts and restoration of the pre-war relations with the West.
So they accepted this patriotic line of Putin and majority of the population, but they...
They still have the second thought and I think they are making the pressure on Putin in order to stop as soon as possible the war.
So, the pressure on Putin is not from the side of the pro-war.
Do more, take all of Ukraine.
Yes, yes, yes.
But from stop it immediately.
Stop it in any way and accept any suggestions.
Who are those people?
How would you describe people with those views?
I'm calling them sixth column.
There is fifth column.
Fifth column, there are liberals, pro-Western, who openly protest and protested against Putin.
Now they are mostly outside of Russia.
If they are here, they don't show themselves because it is over with them.
So fifth column doesn't exist here.
Is that because they've been...
Suppressed or imprisoned or just driven out because of public opinion or a combination of both?
A combination of both.
Not too much repressed, but not too much.
And despised by majority of population, but not until the moment to beat them, to hit them, to aggress them.
So they preferred to run away before the real repression, in their opinion, would.
So they have fled the country.
So we could not know whether it would be repressions or not, severe or not so severe, because they are outside.
But there is a sixth column.
So there are liberals, representatives of this 90s, Yeltsin's time, oligarchs, some bureaucrats.
Who really hate patriotism, who hate our people, sovereignty.
They had very good life during these good relations with the West, and they still keep the same mood, the same attitude.
But instead...
In spite of the rebellion against Putin, they prefer to be on his side.
Because they keep their influence that way, but not really share the vision.
Six columns.
He are now advocates of Putin, but they dream about stopping the war and return to the pre-war.
Period.
So that was, I think, that is a very interesting situation.
They are powerful.
They try to influence Putin.
They try to make pressure on him.
And they are part of this globalist network.
Maybe they were paid by USAID because now it is manifested that USAID has helped to write Russian constitution.
We are living under USAID products and many other norms and laws in the beginning of the 90s.
So, Russia was part of this network and the people from this USAID paid network in different levels, now many of them are part of our elite, close to Putin.
So, they weren't purged.
Because Putin is very, very mild to say the truth, very, very gentle.
He prefers to convince someone than to fire or to punish.
He is very, very humanistic, and he has conserved almost all the core of this pro-Western liberal elite.
Only the most radicals were fired or put outside.
But that is the real danger, because the mentality of this liberal Sixth column is much more as Scholz, Macron, Starmer, and not Trump.
So they want, now they are in a very awkward position, they want peace with the West, but they...
I don't like absolutely Trump, because in Trump they see maybe their fate, their doom.
If Putin would start something like Russian dodge, they will be first to suffer, because they are corrupted, they are traitors, they are not in any way patriots.
We really hate and despise Russian people.
I heard once a speech from President Putin, maybe it was an interview, and he referred to a certain kind of Russian who feigns patriotism, but really their heart lies in traveling to France, traveling to London, they love their foie gras, they love their western villas and the like.
And that this tension between what he called patriotic Russians and these kinds of Russians who crave, above all else, integration of Russia into this global order and to this European set of values that he considers anti-Russian always stayed with me because it really seemed like it came from a very internal place.
Is that the kind of group that you're talking about?
Yes, yes, that is political elite of 90s, because the absolute majority of the people now in power, they came in the 90s, and they stay here still.
The situation is totally changed, but nevertheless, they keep their places.
But Putin prefers not to punish them, not to fight with them, not to do what dodge has made to many agencies, but...
Rather to re-educate them, or maybe to seduce them, to give them place, to give them peace, give them place in their power, but they should.
At least pretend to be a patriot.
So that is not about the sincerity of their conversion, ideological conversion.
And Putin tolerates those who maybe with...
Words are on the side of the greatness of Russia, of patriotism, and so on.
But he doesn't go deeper.
But it sounds like you would like to see a kind of what you're calling doging of Russia.
Yes.
I think that is the problem.
We need a dodge for Russia.
We need absolutely Russian masks.
People like Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hexitt, Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and other heroes of new Trump's revolution here because we have many, many common points, the bureaucracy.
The huge corruption on any level of Russian society had the treason of Russian interests in favor of some other countries or groups' interests.
So we are in a very similar position, and we need Trump's revolution here, and dodging Russian state and political elites in order to purge these six towns.
Liberals believe that Trump has brought the Russian transformation to the United States.
In other words, you seem to be saying, oh, look, what's over there is what we need over here.
And a lot of liberals believe that Trump has sort of copied.
You see from the distance.
You see only the best thing on the other side.
Always your neighbor's grass is greener.
Absolutely, that is.
But at the same time, what I admire, I am admiring.
Personally, how fast and how rapid this velocity of the changes, that is purely American.
Putin makes everything very carefully with delay, one step ahead, two step behind.
And finally, in 25 years, you could not recognize your country.
Nothing was done.
Nothing was declared openly.
It was changed, but everything is already changed, and we didn't remark that.
With Trump, it's quite the opposite.
In one month, there is no more.
Ancient regime, there is...
It's still there, but it's under attack quite openly.
Let me ask you, because...
One of the things that Western propaganda is designed to do is to prevent anyone from ever thinking about the world from the perspective of any country deemed adversarial or hostile.
Can you describe to people why it is—well, first of all, describe to people how Western involvement and U.S. involvement in Ukraine has looked since at least 2014 or even going back, if you want, and why that is threatening to Russia?
So, in our eyes, in our society, not just in mine, but that was...
The Russian society.
Russian society, yes.
Russian people.
That was a kind of clear, hostile intervention of the power that really hated.
So we added ideology, woke, globalism, liberalism that contradicted to our traditional values and actions of the West, collective West, on the geopolitical level.
So that was the kind of combination between...
Ideological hostility and geopolitical hostility.
And we have seen, we have interpreted that as creation of artificial anti-Russia in Ukraine.
Because Ukrainians are the part of the same people, the same church, and the part of us was cut and transformed in artificial way by some kind of psyops in something...
Radically different, aligned to us, and the absolute contradiction.
So that was creation of the artificial identity with...
The great racist nationalism, anti-Russian nationalism, and supported by the globalists, by the liberals, and by all the countries, starting from the United States to the European Union.
Sometimes, some leaders, European leaders at that time were...
Which time do you mean?
Do you mean 2014?
2014, something.
But starting from that and more and more and more, some of European leaders were a bit reluctant to promote this aggression, but this time the United States, Obama's administration, Newland, other globalists, Democrats, they pushed.
This agenda against European leaders in order to escalate relations between Russia and Ukraine.
And after that, the other European leaders fall off.
This tendency, they were involved more and more and more in Russophobia.
And now, paradoxically, the region of the hostility, the hatred to Russia and most support to Ukraine is not from the United States, but from European Union.
Yeah.
Well, I guess the question that a lot of people have listening to that is...
Yeah, that was done in Ukraine.
Ukraine's a separate country.
It's a sovereign country.
It was once part of the Soviet Union with Russia, but no longer is.
Why is it threatening to Russia, if it is, to have such active US and EU involvement in Ukraine?
Because Ukraine...
In the history, it didn't exist.
It begins with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And the borders were not based on the ethnical, geopolitical, historical experience.
That was just administrative province of Tsarist Empire first, and after that of the Soviet Union.
Nobody cared about what ethnic groups, what religious groups lived there.
It was the part of the same political and administration space, the same state.
And that was just the province of it.
So nobody resolved the problem, you belong to this ethnic group or to the other.
They were considered to be the part of the same Russian world, the same Russian people.
And the collapse of the Soviet Union was made by the borders, administrative borders of the entities.
That never existed politically before.
But there was a Ukraine.
I mean, we talked before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There was not Ukraine as state.
Right, but there was a Ukrainian identity.
A state in Russia.
Within the Soviet Union.
That was kind of Nebraska or Utah.
So you could say that is state, but it is not the national state, sovereign national state.
That was just the province with very small...
So that was just a part of the Unitarian state.
And the collapse of the Soviet Union gave to this artificial entity.
The status of sovereignty.
Because the first leaders, Yeltsin, believed that we will be friends, because we belong to the same civilization, and that was not the case.
So when we have remarked, when we have understood that there is some anti-Russian movement, political, supported by the West, Already in the 90s, but in the 90s, nobody reacted properly against the threats and the challenges from the West.
But with Putin, we started to take in consideration these processes in Ukraine.
We tried to convince them to stay with us.
We supported candidates from the east of Ukraine.
We tried to convince oligarchs and political, economical elite to deal with us, not prohibiting them to deal with Europe or with the United States, but conserving some balance, natural balance, neutrality, some friendly relations with us, friendly relations with the EU. But in some limits.
And all the presidents of the Ukraine, including Yushchenko, who was very, very pro-Western, they accepted this balance.
So one president more pro-Russian, the other pro-Western, pro-Russian, pro-Western.
But in the same...
Not hostile toward Russia.
Not radically hostile to Russia.
And the coup on Maidan was precisely to destroy this balance.
That was deliberately the step to move, to put the radical nationalist circles at the top, provoke Russia.
...reaction in Crimea and elsewhere, and to divide, to cut Ukraine from Russia, including Eastern part that originally, in the beginning, were...
Almost absolutely in favor of Russia, but under propaganda, under demonization, under Western suggestions, that turned into a bloody mess.
So this anti-Russian ideology has won over Ukrainian society, and they started to hate their own history, their own religion.
Thinking that the West is paradise and Russia is hell.
And they were Russians that would like to escape so-called Russian hell.
That never existed.
But why is that a threat to Russia if that happens in this other sovereign state of Ukraine?
Why is it a threat to Russia?
You're talking about internal Ukrainian politics.
But that is not so.
First of all, what is sovereign?
If you are great power, only the other great powers are sovereign, in your opinion.
All the rest is a hypocrisy.
So, if, for example, you imagine Mexico creating anti-US government and...
Or China doing so in Mexico.
If China did so in Mexico, I guess it would be the analogy, right?
China comes, instills anti-American sentiment.
Yes, yes.
Inside anti-American sentiment.
And everybody in Mexico would think, let us hang the Yankee on the trees, as was the case in Ukraine, and supply with a huge amount of the weapon and try to provoke the United States on the border.
You would understand us.
That is not about neutrality or sovereignty.
That is the direct challenge.
And when you see the other geopolitical power, Western geopolitical power supporting that and igniting that, fueling that, fueling that, so you could understand Russian reaction.
We acted very mild.
Who finally decided to intervene.
So, there were sentiments inside Russia that that should have happened earlier.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, Putin as well, he has acknowledged that.
So, that was my opinion.
But starting from 2014, I claimed that Continuation of the conflict is inevitable because collective West and the globalists, they will not stop.
They will concentrate the powers, they will weaponize Ukraine in order to attack us, to get back the eastern territories, and these Minsk talks will lead to nothing.
I declare that starting from 2000. And they have a kind of repressions against myself.
I would cut from all the channels, all the TV channels.
So not repressions, but ostracism.
So something like that.
So that was not physical or juridical, but I was fired from Moscow State University.
So because I... I said, I continue to say what I consider the situation is.
And now...
You feel vindicated.
To huge price to that.
I don't mean you're celebrating.
I just mean you believe that that perspective, that the West was intent on expanding and expanding...
That was right.
That was just right.
And now it is acknowledged by Putin himself that now he said, he says...
We should start earlier.
Are you back in good standing with television networks and the like?
Yes, but it could change.
I don't depend from that.
No, I know that.
I know, of course, nobody wishes for war.
After the beginning of the special military operation, I was called back.
But I don't depend from that.
I am continuing to say if, for example, tomorrow I will find the conditions of the peace are not acceptable for our society, people, and they are the treason of our heroes, and I would say that.
No matter the consequences.
No matter the consequences.
Because that is the freedom.
I am a great partisan of freedom, of the opinion, of the speech.
But if my freedom should not necessarily contradict, for example, existence of authoritarian leader, I could...
Follow him.
When I agree with him, I could be against him.
If he decides to repress me, that is the rules of the game.
So I will fight not for my freedom, but for the truth, as I consider.
And I absolutely, I hope, I believe in some situation.
This dissident voice, dissident example, could win.
And everybody will say, oh, he's right.
This guy is right.
He says good things, and we support him against this corrupted, obsolete regime.
The things happen.
It is very, very difficult to stay this challenge, to be...
To be loyal to your own search of truth.
But I think That is almost equal in liberal society or in authoritarian.
If you are illiberal, for example, in liberal society, you will be crushed.
You will be cancelled.
If you are anti-authoritarian in authoritarian society, exactly the same.
So, it is not about that, I think.
So, we need to stay with truth, with our faith, with our principles and values, defending them.
Wherever we are, in democracy or in monarchy.
I just have a few more questions.
I'm finding this very illuminating.
I think a lot of people will too.
What's so interesting to me is the way you're talking, the way you're describing everything, is essentially that there is a very robust debate about what the agreement should be that ends the war if there's an agreement.
There are people who...
I think that anything short of taking over Ukraine would be inadequate to Russian interests.
There are people who think that, well, maybe if we keep everything, obviously Crimea and the Donbass, but even some more, that might be OK. Maybe there are some of these six columnist people or others who think, no, let's just keep Crimea and just get this war over with and get back to the West.
And that Putin is sort of somewhere in the middle, being influenced by all of these different factions, which sounds like a pluralistic discourse and not a top-down authoritarian one.
Exactly.
That is the case.
So that is not just formal pluralism.
That is a kind of sociological pluralism, because the only thing, the difference is we have no lobby around Putin.
We have no groups around Putin.
We have no clans.
That is much less formal.
In the West, there are moods.
They are very active, very serious moods, opinions, sentiments, feelings, interests, and many ways to hide the real interest, real motivation.
So, Russian society is much more complicated, I would say.
Not so transparent, but...
Exactly.
You're absolutely right.
There are competition of different solutions and Putin is not free to install everything he would like to be true or correct.
He is observed from many angles of our society and the groups, not formal groups, just forces of our society Could create different atmosphere of rule, of behavior, of social obedience.
So, the meaning of population really matters in Russia.
And it has its own challenge, channels to...
To get to Putin.
And not just he could dictate his will, whatever everybody would do and accept.
So that is not just, that is not authoritarianism.
Absolutely.
For example, as you said, I guess, from what I'm gathering, and I'm just creating a hypothetical example.
I don't at all think this is likely.
I just mean it to illustrate the point that If, let's say, Putin were eager to end the war in Ukraine in a way that would be as fast as possible, he could say, here's everything.
Here's the Donbass.
Here's all the territory we conquered.
We'll keep Crimea, but here's everything else.
We'll be over here and kind of keep this as a neutral zone.
It sounds like that would not really even be possible, even if he wanted to, because of all this sentiment that you're describing.
I think yes.
I think yes.
Maybe he could try.
If that will be the case, he could try that, but that will be the error, mistake.
Any leader, including very, very great leaders, could make mistakes.
So nobody is accepted from that.
So maybe Putin, from his position, he would agree to this solution.
On the ground, on the grassroots level, I think it will be not accepted because they have promised to us a victory and they have demanded from us to fight until the victory and to sacrifice everything we have for the victory.
And to take this...
It's part, small part of Ukraine after so many, many sacrifices.
It could not be the victory in the eyes of the real people, of the deep people.
Maybe elite would glorify that.
So, stop, please stop.
Let's take that as the victory.
We have won, we have won.
But there is something else.
That is the problem, I think, that if we consider the real society, including so-called authoritarian one, there is much more actors than one or the people around him.
That is a huge and very complicated, complex system of...
Powers inside of such society, including vertical and authoritarian, and always was.
In our history, Tsardom, the Tsars, the kings, they were controlled by so many processes in society, in the classes, and not only just the people around them.
So that is a kind of organism, a kind of living being.
The state is a living being, and if we consider...
That the head should rule.
That doesn't mean that all other members are exempted from their own participation in the whole.
I keep having this phrase in my head that you said earlier about dozing Russia.
Russia needs a dozing.
As you might know, I live in Brazil.
I'm American, but I live in Brazil and I have for many years.
Over the last two months, you have this right-wing populist movement led by Jair Bolsonaro, and they talk all the time now about USAID and where money has gone, because there's been a lot of USAID money into Brazil as well.
And you have now right-wing conferences in the United States, and they're often attended by right-wing leaders from every continent, from Europe, from South America, from everywhere.
And it is kind of ironic because all of these right-wing populist movements are very nationalistic in the way they describe themselves and the way you're talking about this Russian identity, Russian sovereignty, Russian patriotism.
But at the same time, maybe because of the Internet, maybe for other reasons, there seems to be a very close linkage, almost like it's like an international movement as well, where populists and nationalists are linking up together increasingly and forming a kind of worldwide movement.
Is that how you see Russian nationalism?
You're very tapped into the right-wing discourse in the United States.
I can see that.
And I see that in a lot of other populist and nationalistic movements.
Well, there's a little tension because the idea is we want an expression of our own country, our own culture, our own history, our own borders.
But at the same time, it seems increasingly, I don't want to say like globalism, but it does seem to be an internationalist movement as well.
Is that how you see it?
Yes, I agree.
Because that is interesting, that being European, Americans, Brazilians and Russians, we have the same threat of the loss of our identity and cancelling of our cultural values, traditions, because the globalists, they...
They promote the kind of postmodern relativism, so no values, no gods, everything is optional, and there is no organic identity.
All identities are just the play, the game, so you could choose any identity you prefer, and all the values are relative, and so there should not be national states, national culture, no civilization.
Only one civilization, liberal, end of history, and so on.
And that is directed against Russia, against Russian understanding of what Russia, Holy Mother Russia, is, what is our tradition, our religion, our value.
The same, it is against the United States of America.
Including against those conservative part of it, very large, as we see.
That goes against the majority of European population under the rule of global.
It's the same, I think, for Brazilian people.
So I see that this coordination or beginning coordination of these conservatives and the people...
I don't like the term nationalist because I'm not a nationalist.
I don't think that is a good term that fits for Russia because we had here much more a civilisation state with different nations.
Not just a nation state.
Absolutely.
Never a nation state.
Soviet Union wasn't a national state.
Russian Empire wasn't a national state.
So, nationalism.
Maybe for Western country, it is normal term.
For our country, it's the wrong term.
So I could not...
They describe me as ultra-national, but I'm not nationals at all.
So that is just irony.
But I think I agree.
There should be a kind of coordination between the peoples and the countries and the movements defending their own deep identity, their own civilizational values.
Because there's a common enemy, as you see here, which is globalism.
Globalism, yes.
Not the West, because not China, not socialism, just globalism.
Globalism, it could be Islamic, it could be Chinese, it could be, it was.
Soviet-Russian.
That was the kind of globalism as well.
Now it is left, liberal, western globalism.
But all kind of globalism is bad.
When you say Soviet-Russian...
Globalism, that's how it was before.
You mean the exportation of the Soviet ideology to other parts of the world, which you oppose?
Yes, I was dissident in the Soviet time.
I was formed as traditionalist, as philosopher of conservative values, and that was in the beginning of the 80s.
So 45 years ago, I started something like Conscious life.
And that was against this globalism of the Soviet Union, against materialism, against atheism.
I was in favor of restoration of great Russia, the Russia as a civilizational state.
And I fought for that against, not so much against communists, but I was against.
It was youth.
I didn't participate in some political movement, but my ideological, I was very opposed.
And when perestroika started, I tried to get from the trap of the liberalism in order to promote the return to the roots, the Russian roots, and that I still defend the same values.
But I think that...
This kind of dialogue between different tendencies, not necessarily right, not necessarily nationalists, and for sure not racist, because racism is globalism.
The globalists are racist because they think that there is only one civilization, the liberal one.
That is the superior one.
Yes, that's suprematism, liberal suprematism.
I am radically against all kind of racism, but I think that these people...
The people who defense this civilizational identity.
Being different for them should cooperate, should hear each other, should get inside the skin of others in order to understand the perspective, for example, of American patriotism, of Brazilian patriotism, Chinese, Islamic patriotism, Iranian, Jewish.
Nobody should be excluded from this.
This dialogue of the people conscious about their belongingness, conscious of their deep identity and defending this identity together against the globalist threat.
I know you're a philosopher, so just to go kind of a little bit deeper into that first principle, is the reason that you think it's beneficial or desirable?
For people to embrace this kind of cultural identity or whatever, religious identity, however people identify, is because naturally human beings are tribal and the sense of tribal belonging is important?
Or is there some other value that causes you to want to preserve that way of organizing?
Tribe is one of the level.
Of the identity, the smallest level, clans.
There is much higher, as well, the other levels.
I have studied, I have dedicated to that my book that is translated into the English ethnosociology.
And the highest point of common identity, common destiny, common social understanding of the unity, it is civilization.
But in my opinion, and that's the most important point in my philosophy, that there is not only one civilization, but there are civilizations, in the plural.
And that is the highest level.
It is not tribal, not clan, not ethnic.
It is not national.
It is something much, much higher, but they are very different from one to the other.
For example, the civilization, Chinese civilization.
China is a civilizational state.
There are many forms of life and traditional peoples and communities and societies, but there is something common.
They could not read correctly hieroglyphs in the north or in the south.
They are different.
So that is inclusive.
Great civilization, not just people or clan.
They look different.
So China is a continent, a universe.
The same for Russia.
The same for United States of America.
The same for Europe.
So there are civilizations.
And there is no direct hierarchy.
There is no hierarchy between them.
So Indian civilization, Islamic civilization, not Iranian, Persian, Turkic, Malaysian, but...
These are other nations, and you're talking on a higher level of civilization.
Yes, absolutely.
So nations could form, could be the path of civilization, but civilization is something that is highest unity possible.
And if we imagine, or if we are in search of...
Much higher level.
We need to take in consideration all these civilizations.
So we need to ask Chinese men...
How sounds the term men?
What do you mean by being men?
It's men in Chinese.
And what are the implications?
What are the basic texts you have derived this term from?
The same for Islam, the same for Africa, for Latin America, for Russia, for Europe.
Only after taking into consideration these civilizational claims or translations, we could arrive at some system.
There will be, for example, human rights.
But human rights in each civilization.
They have totally different meaning.
And now we are dealing with the Western, modern, liberal understanding of what is human and what is right.
And we discard totally Chinese understanding of what is juridic, the law, the Confucianism, and so on.
Russian, Byzantian, Christian, Orthodox tradition we don't take in consideration.
So we are dealing with the products of one civilization and not The whole civilization, because liberal globalists, they represent only small part, geographical and historically, of the Western civilization.
If we go deeper, we see totally different meaning of the man, of the right, during different period of the West.
And if we are convinced that the most modern is the better, that is the kind of...
Chronocentric racism.
Tempo-centric racism.
So you discard your own ancestors.
You consider them to be stupid, primitive, and broken.
And that is wrong.
We need to respect them.
We need to understand them.
We are dealing, for example, with Russian ancient language.
It is much more rich.
It's richer than modern.
So many meanings, so many forms.
The same with Latin, the same with German, the same with Greek.
So the ancient, that is not the primitive.
It is much...
In some ways, it's richer than...
Yeah, richer than...
Right, deeper.
Yes.
But that is...
But we need to combine them.
We could not...
Right, because they're still modernizing and progress, but by retaining what was...
Yes, yes.
That's a perfect segue to what I wanted to...
The last thing I want to tell you.
Well, you're describing this kind of—and it was, you know, the end of history was all about that, as you referenced earlier with Fukuyama, and this globalist notion that we're going to impose on everybody and everything, our Western ideals of liberalism because it's objectively superior, was possible in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union when the United States was the superpower, the unilateral world.
Governed by one major power.
And I think there's a perception now, not necessarily in the United States, but around the rest of the world, that that's changing, that the world is becoming far more multipolar.
Obviously, the rise of China is an example of that, but also the role that Russia is playing, that the West is starting to accept.
And other poles of power as well.
In India, you have huge countries with very rich and powerful histories or civilizations, as you call them.
Is that the direction that you think the world is going in, is getting away from the unilateralism of the 90s and Bush and Obama years into a more multilateral world and do these changes that you desire inevitably accompany that?
I think that we had the chance to avoid many problems if we heard Samuel Huntington, who has suggested in the beginning...
Not to fall into illusion of this unipolarity, not to fall into illusion of the liberal end of the history and the great glory of the West that now should lead the world and oblige everybody else to follow the same liberal agenda, individualism, human rights and so on, global government.
But we need to accept The fact of existence of different civilizations, including Russian, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, all that now is appearing as the powerful political entities, as big spaces, as something powerful in a material way.
Huntington has seen that.
As a concept, as the ideas.
The war of civilization, as he described it.
Clash, clash of civilization.
Clash of civilization.
But that is not an important clash.
Everybody take into consideration, pay attention.
To clash.
But we need to pay attention to civilization.
With the plural.
And that was...
Clash is possible.
Where is war, there could be peace.
Where there is peace, there could be war.
They are linked together.
Clash or not clash or dialogue.
They are interchangeable.
So the most important civilizations.
And we had the chance to go that way.
But we didn't go.
Why not?
I think that was the kind of inertia of the Cold War.
So there was a bipolar system based on propaganda, political concept.
And when one pole disappeared, there was the other.
The other didn't disappear or didn't transform.
So that was the reason why NATO... Exists still.
So why did they try to find their new enemy in order to explain its being?
So we, the West, went unipolar way.
I have spoken with one French general who has received the order after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. Precisely to create Eurocorps, to create European army because there is no more.
The threat from the east, NATO is obsolete, so we need to create European army.
And he has said that he has prepared during six months almost everything.
So that was...
Almost everything was ready to that, dealing with Germans.
And NATO would automatically disappear because the purpose of it no longer existed.
Maybe.
They thought like that.
Because there was no threat on the east, Russia was democratic and so on.
And after six months, he has received the second order.
Stop that.
Stop that.
Destroy that.
Because things weren't going to continue.
Yes.
And that was kind of...
Decisive moments where to go, either to multipolarity suggested by Huntington, and now we are obliged to accept that.
Marco Rubio has accepted that already, so we are in multipolarity, but this multipolarity is the...
Result of the wars, of the conflicts, that they still didn't end, these wars.
They continue.
So that was the wrong decision.
And this idea of continuing unipolar moment, unipolar moment, as Charles Krauthammer has said that, that was the...
Great crime against humanity.
So, in spite of accepting this and dealing with this re-emerging civilization as Chinese, Indian, Russian, Islamic, with delicate methods to accepting their claims, respecting their rights, and carefully...
Constructing the global reality in favor, maybe, of the West, but dealing carefully with these emerging civilizations.
Instead of that, that was choosing the right to go ahead, to continue this unipolarity, to continue this Cold War, but without...
Without old enemy, they tried to put Islam in the place of this global enemy that failed, and finally they returned to the same old story of Cold War about how evil those Russians are.
I think that was the mistake, and that was crime of the Western globalist elite not hearing Samuel Huntington.
Well, and ironically, you seem to be suggesting that.
Had they been more delicate about it, had they found a new way to deal with the world different than how they dealt with it during the Cold War, that maybe they would have been more effective in imposing a global order because it would have produced less of a backlash, the kind of backlash that we're now seeing.
Exactly, exactly.
Maybe the West could assure its leading role in this multipolar world, and now everybody hates the West because of this.
Artificially prolonged unipolar moment.
The more you insist, globalists insist on continuation of this unipolar moment, the more radical backlash is and will be.
And Trump, in that sense, he is wise.
He is doing exactly what they're responsible.
What correct European, global, Western leaders should do?
Let the other create their greatness, their civilization, their polls, if they can.
So Trump, he doesn't promise to the other to make them great.
So it is up to us to make us great.
That is why we need Russian Dogey.
Well, last question, and it's the perfect question.
Conclusion, I think, there was a speech, I don't know if you saw it, I think it was in 2023, by Fiona Hill, who's a long time, yeah, okay, so.
Spy, the leader of the spy, American spies.
Yeah, she's been a, you know, pretty, very, very, but she's also been a very kind of militarist person when it comes to dealing with Russia and China.
She worked in the Trump White House.
But she gave a speech to a bunch of European national security elites in 2023. Where she said, look, this may not be what I want to tell you, but I have to tell you because it's the reality that when we do things like fuel the war in Ukraine or even what the United States was doing, arming and fueling Israel's destruction of Gaza, leaving aside the morality of it or the wisdom of it,
She said that's exactly the kind of resentment that gets created around the world that is driving a lot of countries into the arms of China and BRICS and looking for alternatives to a unilateral world.
Because there's a perception that instead of respecting the world, we use our superior military force to bully it, to get our way.
And that's inevitably going to create a backlash.
It's inevitably going to push people away from us.
Do you basically agree with that?
Yes, I agree.
That's correct.
This remark, this observation is totally correct.
It was just bizarre to hear it from her.
There is the only difference.
So there is multilateralism and multipolarity.
Multilateralism is based on the idea there is only one truth, and that is Western modern liberal truth, but you need to hide that.
You need to trick the other, not necessarily cheat, but to make the image that you respect them because they are savage that you should respect, you should treat them carefully in order to promote your agenda.
It is multilateralism.
And there is multipolarity that is based on the censored faith.
That there are different civilizations that we could not compare between each other.
They have their own measures inside of them.
All of them have their proper vision of what is time, what is life, what is soul, what is God, what is space.
And if you accept this sincerely, this plurality of civilizations, that is not about leadership.
That is about humanity.
That is new, not so much realistic, but idealistic vision.
So I think that is difference.
Multipolarity is very, very sincere and very loyal to the principle of this multipolarity.
Smallest group of people, of tribe...
Could have their own universe.
We shouldn't educate them how it is in the reality, because in their reality it is so.
So we should apply to civilization a kind of anthropological approach.
That respects diversity.
Yes, absolutely.
Diversity and universes and differences and the thing that could seem...
To us, to be weird or strange.
We shouldn't judge them, because for them, maybe what we do seems very, very strange.
So that is diversity and real pluralism of civilizations.
So that is the principle.
That is philosophy.
And I think Fiona Hill just thinks how better to...
For sure, it was just a strategic point that she was making, not a broader moral or ethical one.
One that I think, nonetheless, Europeans needed to hear.
But she is right.
Yeah.
Well, Professor, thank you so much.
This has been very interesting, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
