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March 11, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:12
[ EXCLUSIVE ] - Judge Napolitano w/ Prof. Aleksandr Dugin {Moscow, Russia} pt.2
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Censor. If you censor some books with radical ideas, inciting hatred, inviting people to kill the other of race, but I am anti-racist,
I am anti-totalitarian, I am very critical to all three political theories, and I have explained that...
In my many, many books that I am against communism, liberalism, and fascism.
And so in order to make debates with myself, you need at least to accept that as this starting point and try to convince me that maybe I am wrong, maybe...
But even if you are wrong, these are ideas.
I mean, as Thomas Jefferson once said, it doesn't...
Rob my pocketbook and it doesn't break my bones, what names they call me.
So if you articulate ideas against globalism, against fascism, against certain forms of liberalism, the West wants to punish you, Alexander Dugan, for articulating those ideas here in Russia?
It doesn't make any sense.
Okay. But
even if you are wrong, these are ideas.
I mean, as Thomas Jefferson once said, it doesn't rob my pocketbook and it doesn't break my bones, what names they call me.
So if you articulate ideas against globalism, against fascism, against certain forms of liberalism, the West wants to...
To punish you, Alexander Dugin, for articulating those ideas here in Russia, it doesn't make any sense.
So, you know, it seems really strange because that is, once I have asked my friend from Italy, who is publisher, and...
Nor they say that they have prohibited my books.
The West has said, liberals, globalists have said that they have prohibited my book because of fascism.
And I have asked about one publisher in Italy who is publishing really fascist book.
Are his books prohibited in the West, in Amazon?
And he has said no, absolutely so.
They have prohibited not-fascist, anti-fascist author and letting be the other...
Clearly fascist in favor of fascist book to be distributed.
That is a bit strange.
So there should be different reasons.
And when I have spoken once with Fukuyama in Washington, I was only once in the United States in 2005.
I have spoken with Fukuyama.
He has said, ideas do matter.
So if I think that that was the kind of The term, the example of the totalitarian nature of liberalism, of globalists, they don't let something that contradicts their own ideas appear.
So they'll permit books on totalitarianism and fascism.
But not books by Alexander Dugan that criticize totalitarianism and fascism.
Exactly, exactly.
And that is, I think, it should not be a mistake.
They could misjudge some interviews, some people, some journalist articles in the propagandistic liberal globalist newspaper for the truth.
In order to put the sanctions on someone, you need serious, serious arguments.
Crimes. Or crimes, yes.
That is a kind of Dugengate or Dugin hoax.
Dugengate, okay.
When I go back to America, I'm going to use that phrase, Dugengate, punishing different ideas.
You accept that as a definition of Dugengate?
Absolutely. Tell me about the origins of the special military operation in Ukraine.
I mean, President Putin just didn't wake up one morning and decide to bring the military to Ukraine.
What is your understanding?
What is the president of Russia's understanding of the origins of this conflict, this horrible conflict?
First of all, we need to take into consideration that Ukraine is the newly created state.
In these boundaries, in these borders, it never existed.
It never existed at all.
That was the part of the Soviet empire.
Part that was peopled with the ethnic groups of great Russians, Velikorossi, after we have conquered some eastern territories from Ottoman Empire.
The other part we have liberated from Poland and from Austria, and we have assembled on this territory different ethnic groups.
During our history, during Soviet Union, that was as well the character of the empire.
That was Ukrainian Republic, but not as the state, but just as territory, administrative...
Let me just stop you at this point in the history.
Didn't Stalin have a strong distaste, even hatred for things Ukrainian, even though he was from Ukraine?
Stalin wasn't from Ukraine, but he was from Georgia.
Forgive me.
That is one of the myths of the new Ukrainian nationalism, that Soviet or Russian somehow hated Ukrainians, because we consider them to be us, to be the branch of the same Russian people who had...
Western part of Ukraine had different history with being the part of Poland, but they were on the lowest level of the population.
The Polish aristocracy considered them to be orthodox, to be of the second kind, and we have liberated them and we have included them in the Russian, Christian, Slavic, Eastern Slavic.
The Soviet Union was a bit of a continuation of that, but the communists had special ideas about nations, that nations are overcome in the socialist society.
But they made great mistakes.
Confusing the ethnos and nation.
So ethnic group is one thing, the political nation is other.
In their language that was the same, that was the great misunderstanding, misconception.
And when Soviet Union collapsed...
The part of the same state, of the same people, with same language, with same culture, with same history, more or less, had obtained a kind of independence.
That was newly created state with two people living in Western Ukrainian and Eastern Ukrainians.
It is not about language.
It is just about historical experience, about history.
And when Ukraine...
Acquiring independence was more or less neutral neither to West, NATO, European Union nor entering back in Russian context.
That was acceptable.
That was not too brilliant for us, but that was acceptable.
And that worked.
That worked during three decades.
So somehow they managed to overcome the contradictions.
But when Newland and the globalists, they made this coup d'état...
You said Newland, you mean...
The infamous Victoria Nuland.
Victoria Nuland and this Obama's administration, neocons, American neocons, they have prepared this coup on Maidan in 2014.
They have destroyed, toppled, they have toppled President Yanukovych who fled to Russia.
He was not so much Russian.
He was...
Just he wanted to keep the same balance between East and West, and they declared they are going to enter NATO.
They started to make the marches against Russians, Russophobic, declaring that all the ethnic Russians should be purged, should be cleansed.
They started this kind of repression against everything Russian.
All that was in their country, that it was half of them, and there was a kind of revolt of Russian part, pro-eastern part of Ukraine against that.
We have supported that, we have made unification with Crimea, and we have helped Donbas to the eastern Ukraine to establish their more or less independent rule against...
And try to solve the situation.
We tried in Minsk.
We tried to return to the situation of this neutrality, of this balance.
But Western leaders, Merkel and the other, they have betrayed our confidence and they pushed.
Ukraine, Kyiv to be more and more aggressive.
And finally, Putin has said, we have the red line, you should not appeal to be a member of NATO.
And they have responded, we will be the NATO, we will fight you, we will re-establish our control over Eastern part and Crimea.
And they have almost formally declared...
The war.
And Putin reacted.
That was maybe some trap, not only for him, made by a globalist, some trap not only for Putin, but I think as well for this conservative turn in the United States itself.
Was Kyiv attacking violently the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine?
Yes, absolutely.
They made a huge, huge ethnical cleansing.
They killed the people there.
They started from Odessa.
When they killed anti-Maidan groups in the house...
You say anti-Maidan.
Maidan was the name of the events that occurred in 2014, fomented by Mrs. Newland and the Americans.
Exactly, exactly.
And those who protested in Odessa, they tried peacefully.
To say no to that.
And they were brutally killed and burned alive.
And that was the beginning of popular resistance in Ukraine against that, in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Does the Russian government feel betrayed by the Americans who promised...
When the Soviet Union ended, NATO would not move one inch eastward.
Absolutely. And when I have spoken with Mr. Brzezinski in Washington, I have asked him the same question.
But you have declared, you have promised to us not to expand NATO eastward.
And guess what?
He has answered, we have tricked you.
So that was tricked you, cheated you.
So that was at least sincere.
Recently, Western European leaders met in London with Vladimir Zelensky.
He cannot be called the president of Ukraine.
He's no longer the president of it.
He claims to be.
And at the end of that meeting, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, threatened to put British troops on the ground and planes in the air over Ukraine.
How futile would that be?
That can be serious because it is declaration of the war against nuclear power that Russia is.
So I think...
Biden wanted to do something.
He has led the situation on the border of nuclear conflicts, but he hesitated, including Biden didn't make such terrible steps because that is the beginning of the nuclear war.
And I think if Great Britain will...
What was the reaction in the Kremlin when President Biden authorized Kyiv?
We expected elections.
We expected American elections.
We didn't respond only because we knew, we saw clearly that the rule of globalists and the United States is coming to the end and we shouldn't start the proper response,
proper nuclear war before Try to avoid that with new administration.
And I think that Trump was turning point in this war, not just Cold War, much hotter than that.
President Biden famously refused to speak to President Putin.
The former Secretary of State Antony Blinken refused to speak to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, your good friend, with whom I'll be privileged to meet in a few days.
How absurd was that, that there was no communication between them for three years?
I think that was...
They tried to totally isolate Russia, to demonize Russia, to put Russia in a radical isolation.
And cut all the relations in order to destroy us.
They seriously thought and expected that we would fall apart.
But that was totally wrong.
All this strategy was totally wrong.
Time for another class.
Beautiful music.
So they were totally wrong because Russia was returned to explore its own potential, its own resources.
We relied too much before on the Western technologies, resources.
We were embedded in the global system and we depended from that.
During these three years of total isolation without no relations to American president or someone or state secretary, so we have acquired the capacity to develop.
To stay strong, to develop our economy without any exterior help.
And that made a huge positive impact on our economy, on our industry, on our social system.
We are much more confident now with ourselves.
We could stand against such huge blow.
And we're still strong.
You could not remark any difference between situation, for example, in markets, in the shops, before the war and after the war.
Everything is...
Exactly like it was, but this time without any external relations.
So we have proven our greatness, our real greatness, the capacity to stand alone without the context.
But that was too dangerous, I think, to continue this escalation, because it would lead directly to the mutual...
Annihilation led directly to nuclear apocalypsis.
You have been described as, and coming from me this is a compliment, as Putin's brain.
Do you speak with President Putin?
Do you advise him?
Does he read your works?
Have you influenced his thinking?
Dear Judge, I prefer don't respond to this question because my influence is on one hand absolutely overestimated.
I am not his advisor, but at the same time it is a bit underestimated when they say that there is strictly zero relations.
But you understand him.
Yes, that's the other thing.
I support him.
I understand him.
We are in tune.
He is on his level.
I am on my level.
When he meets with President Trump, which we hope will happen soon, perhaps on May 9th, you can tell us the significance of May 9th in a moment to the Russian people.
What do you think President Putin will say to him?
It's about time?
Something like that.
Finally. I think the first word he would say to him, maybe I'm wrong.
Finally, Donald, finally.
Because I think that we follow what is going on in the United States now.
It is the miracle.
It is the miracle.
It's so fast.
It's so good.
It's in so right direction.
It is not about...
That is the end of the war.
Trump has declared, almost, almost, we have started proxy war against you, now we consider to stop it.
So that is exactly how Putin considers situation.
They started you.
The United States with previous administration started this proxy war, provoked us.
That was very terrible and is still because the war continues.
But the decisiveness and the will of Donald Trump to stop it, that is precisely the sign we expected.
Because nobody except the United States that started this war could really end it in peaceful terms.
Otherwise, the end will be terrible.
What is President Putin looking for from President Trump in order to end the war?
These details I could not guess because I think, first of all, I think that Putin...
We have many things to discuss with Donald Trump except Ukraine.
So maybe, for sure, they will speak about Ukraine, but in my opinion, it is not the...
First-level question.
They need to discuss the world order, because before there was a globalist world order, so-called rules-based world order.
There's no rules and so on, but that was called like that, rules-based world order.
That really meant American rules.
Yes, but which America?
Now we see globalist America.
So that was not American America.
That was...
America was somehow hijacked by the globalist elite, in my opinion.
So I think that Putin, first of all, with Trump, they would discuss how they consider this post-globalist.
And they will try maybe after that with China, with India, with other great powers to define the real rules, not so-called rules.
Do you think that the post neocon American government will come to a concept of realism?
The recognition of the legitimate sovereignty of other countries and their legitimate security needs, as opposed to, we're better than you and we're going to tell you how to live.
Exactly. I agree with that.
I think the situation exactly.
I consider Trump to be not impulsive, some emotionally unstable person.
As some consider him to be, I rather think he's a very consequent politician with ideology and he is a realist.
He is an American realist, he is a patriot, he believes in sovereignty, in sovereignty of his country, in sovereignty of other countries.
And I think that...
With such leader and with such America, with such United States of America, we have almost no contradictions.
If everybody stays in its own zone, maybe making deals, competition in other spheres, but that is rational, absolutely rational, because Putin is a realist.
He is a realist in international relations, classical.
In two months, Russia will celebrate May 9th.
What is the significance of May 9th this year, 2025?
It is 80 years after the victory in the Second World War.
We call that patriotic.
Great Patriotic War.
And this celebration of our victory, it is the great holiday, the great moment.
Of our sovereignty.
For us, that is remembrance not only of the sufferings that we endured during Second World War, but as well that is our proud, that is the...
The moment when we have, in the war, we have defended the right to be Russian, to be Russians, to be independent.
That was very, and not about the past.
It is something about eternal Russian spirit and will to stay independent, to stay strong, and if Trump, by the chance.
It will be a monumental event of President Trump.
Of global history, because that will mean the decisive end of the war that is now.
We are in war with the United States now, and that will be the end of our Our victory and both of us will be victorious, not only Russia.
Because the United States is using Ukraine in this proxy war, Russia considers itself to be at war with the United States.
Yes. As we speak.
Yes. The bells again.
Professor Alexander Dugan, a brilliant, brilliant scholar, a wonderful philosopher, fearless and courageous person.
Thank you very much for allowing me the privilege.
to spend this time with you and to interview you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I don't deserve your kind words.
Oh, you're very kind.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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