Ukraine – Russia … not more of the last thread

[Swerd]

This morning I read an interesting column in the Washington Post by David Von Drehle. He writes on international affairs. I wanted to add it to the old Russia - Ukraine thread, only to realize it had been locked. I hope my effort here to revive the subject doesn't result in the same ignorant name-calling that shut down the previous thread.

Von Drehle's column today is about the ideas of a Russian named Alexandr Dugin:
The man known as ‘Putin’s brain’ envisions the splitting of Europe – and the fall of China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/

In his column, Von Drehle discusses a book Dugin published in 1997, "The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia". He calls Dugin the "fascist prophet of maximal Russian empire". Until now, I hadn't heard of Dugin or his ideas. I found reading about it eerily familiar and even chilling. I'll quote some excerpts:

Dugin’s intellectual influence over the Russian leader is well known to close students of the post-Soviet period, among whom Dugin, 60, is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s brain.” His work is also familiar to Europe’s “new right,” of which Dugin has been a leading figure for nearly three decades, and to America’s “alt-right.” Indeed, the Russian-born former wife of the white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin’s work into English.

But as the world watches with horror and disgust the indiscriminate bombing of Ukraine, a broader understanding is needed of Dugin’s deadly ideas. Russia has been running his playbook for the past 20 years, and it has brought us here, to the brink of another world war.

A product of late-period Soviet decline, Dugin belongs to the long, dismal line of political theorists who invent a strong and glorious past – infused with mysticism and obedience to authority – to explain a failed present. The future lies in reclaiming this past from the liberal, commercial, cosmopolitan present (often represented by the Jewish people). Such thinkers had a heyday a century ago, in the European wreckage after World War I: Julius Evola, the mad monk of Italian fascism; Charles Maurras, the reactionary French nationalist; Charles Coughlin, the American radio ranter; and even the author of a German book called “Mein Kampf.”

Dugin tells essentially the same story from a Russian point of view. Before modernity ruined everything, a spiritually motivated Russian people promised to unite Europe and Asia into one great empire, appropriately ruled by ethnic Russians. Alas, a competing sea-based empire of corrupt, money-grubbing individualists, led by the United States and Britain, thwarted Russia’s destiny and brought “Eurasia” – his term for the future Russian empire – low.

In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within.

Putin has followed that counsel to the letter, and he must have felt things were going well when he saw window-smashing rioters in the corridors of the U.S. Congress, Britain’s Brexit from the European Union and Germany’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas. With the undermining of the West going so well, Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.”

So what comes next, should Putin manage to “resolve” Russia’s “problem” in Ukraine? Dugin envisions a gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany’s resource needs. As Great Britain crumbles and Russia picks up the pieces, the empire of Eurasia will ultimately stretch, in Dugin’s words, “from Dublin to Vladisvostok.”

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

breaking the paywall for WP article:

12ft

 

[GO-NAD!]

This morning I read an interesting column in the Washington Post by David Von Drehle. He writes on international affairs. I wanted to add it to the old Russia - Ukraine thread, only to realize it had been locked. I hope my effort here to revive the subject doesn't result in the same ignorant name-calling that shut down the previous thread.

Von Drehle's column today is about the ideas of a Russian named Alexandr Dugin:
The man known as ‘Putin’s brain’ envisions the splitting of Europe – and the fall of China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/

In his column, Von Drehle discusses a book Dugin published in 1997, "The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia". He calls Dugin the "fascist prophet of maximal Russian empire". Until now, I hadn't heard of Dugin or his ideas. I found reading about it eerily familiar and even chilling. I'll quote some excerpts:

I had never heard of Dugin until now. His Wikipedia page is a rabbit hole full of rabbit holes. One could peruse all the links until doomsday.
Aleksandr Dugin - Wikipedia
If Putin is being steered by this guy, this is going to get much worse.

 

[Swerd]

I had never heard of Dugin until now. His Wikipedia page is a rabbit hole full of rabbit holes. One could peruse all the links until doomsday.
Aleksandr Dugin - Wikipedia
If Putin is being steered by this guy, this is going to get much worse.

I just read that Wikipedia link. Talk about rabbit holes, egads!!! If half of that is true, things will get much worse.

It is important for us in the West to take Dugin’s mystical megalomania seriously, simply because Putin has. However, his ideas are still full of holes. According to Von Drehle's column, Dugin can be boiled down to a single idea:

The wrong alliance won World War II. If only Hitler had not invaded Russia, Britain could have been broken. The United States would have remained at home, isolationist and divided, and Japan would have ruled the former China as Russia’s junior partner.

Of course that ignores Hitler's main reason (stated in Mein Kampf) for starting WW2. He wanted to capture the flat fertile land in southwest Russia and Ukraine, kill off all the Slavic inhabitants, and replace them with Germans. Obviously, Dugin never read Hitler's memo.

 

[Mikado463]

Obviously, Dugin never read Hitler's memo.

Agreed, yet so much reads right out of the thirties all over again......

 

[Swerd]

Interestingly, Dugin was the main organizer of the National Bolshevik Party, the National Bolshevik Front, and the Eurasia Party.

From Bolshevik … to neo-facist … a big change from Vladimir Lenin to Vladimir Putin!

 

[MaxInValrico]

I just read that Wikipedia link. Talk about rabbit holes, egads!!! If half of that is true, things will get much worse.

It is important as it is for us in the West to take Dugin’s mystical megalomania seriously, simply because Putin has. However, his ideas are still full of holes. According to Von Drehle's column, Dugin can be boiled down to a single idea:

Of course that ignores Hitler's main reason (stated in Mein Kampf) for starting WW2. He wanted to capture the flat fertile land in southwest Russia and Ukraine, kill off all the Slavic inhabitants, and replace them with Germans. Obviously, Dugin never read Hitler's memo.

It wasn't only Hitler who started WW2 with the invasion of Poland, Stalin was in on it as well so in effect, WW2 in Europe was started by Germany and Stalinist Russia.

 

[ski2xblack]

Finnish intelligence on strategic culture:

 

[shadyJ]

Here is a very interesting twitter thread on why the Russian military is performing so abysmally. A fascinating read and not a very flattering portrait of Russian military culture.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I had never heard of Dugin until now. His Wikipedia page is a rabbit hole full of rabbit holes. One could peruse all the links until doomsday.
Aleksandr Dugin - Wikipedia
If Putin is being steered by this guy, this is going to get much worse.

Good grief, no kidding. The situation in Ukraine appears to be a clash between Dugin's mythical beliefs and reality (reality being that almost no one outside of Russia believes in the Dugin mythology).

It does seem to explain a lot of what is going on in Ukraine. In the past I've read many articles to the effect that Putin is primarily focused on tactical, short-term disruption of the West (i.e. efforts to create smaller inroads/opportunities), not a strategic grand vision. However, if he is following Dugin, this view of Putin seems to be wrong. What has appeared to be smaller tactical moves could be driven by a larger vision.

If Putin is following Dugin, it will be exceptionally difficult for him to compromise or admit defeat in Ukraine because this would be a repudiation of Dugin's grand mythical vision (I realize that, at least in theory, Putin could view it as temporary setback and cling to the Dugin myth, but this would require some fairly serious mental gymnastics).

What a mess.

 

[SithZedi]

Thanks for posting that article on Dugin. His views capture what many Russians deeply believe of themselves on the world stage and in "Western" history. On a religious and cultural basis, they believe Russia is the Third Rome. That's why even if Putin is overthrown, the problem will eventually come back and haunt Europe.

 

[Swerd]

@shadyJ

Thanks for posting that. What Kamil Galeev says not only rings true, it makes sense if you consider Putin's background. He was KGB, state security. He had no military background. Since becoming President-for-life, he's also become Thief-in-Chief of Russia. Criminals dominated Russia ever since the 1990s economic chaos after the USSR collapsed. Putin gets a cut (said to be as much as 50%) from all the mafia and wealthy oligarchs.

 

[Swerd]

Good grief, no kidding. The situation in Ukraine appears to be a clash between Dugin's mythical beliefs and reality (reality being that almost no one outside of Russia believes in the Dugin mythology).

I'm glad you said "almost no one outside of Russia believes in the Dugin mythology". There are those in Western Europe and the USA who seem like they bought into at least some of Dugin's ideas.

The Wikipedia article said this:

Relationships with radical groups in other countries
Dugin made contact with the French far-right thinker Alain de Benoist in 1990. Around the same time he also met the Belgian Jean-François Thiriart and Yves Lacoste. In 1992 he invited some of the European far-right figures he had met into Russia. He has also has brought members of Jobbik and Golden Dawn to Russia in order to strengthen their ties to the country. According to the book War for Eternity by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, Dugin met Steve Bannon in Rome in 2018 to discuss Russia's geopolitical relationships with the United States and China, as well as Traditionalist philosophy. Dugin also developed links with far-right and far-left political parties in the European Union, including Syriza in Greece, Ataka in Bulgaria, the Freedom Party of Austria, and Front National in France, to influence EU policy on Ukraine and Russia. Dugin is also closely aligned with Israeli journalist Avigdor Eskin, who previously served on the board of Dugin's Eurasia Party.

"Dugin [is said to have] met Steve Bannon in Rome in 2018"! It makes me wonder who else associated with Trump's administration also dug Dugin? Michael Flynn?

 

[highfigh]

Hard to consider the possibility, but what if Putin's successor is worse?

And why has Russia been allowed to have the largest stash of nuclear weapons on the planet?

Here's a plan- get rid of ALL nuclear weapons and make sure NK, Iran, China and any other country that might seek world/regional domination have none.

I'm sick of this shyte.

 

[SithZedi]

It would have been in Putin's interest to have a finger in any pie and political party and movements in all countries that could be of use to Mother Russia.

Take the Energy field. Russia's has plenty of fossil fuel but few realize that they have a great supply and control of Uranium. Putin formed ROSATOM in 2007, which was tasked with coordinating Russia's Uranium assets. Outside of Russia, one of their first deals was to acquire Uranium One in Canada. That company mined Uranium all over the world, mainly in — Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Its assets in the US: Wyoming, Utah, and other states constituted approximately 20% of U.S. uranium capacity. Won't get into the politics of that deal, but the fact is, it was approved by the US government.

There is plenty of information(some smoke) online detailing Putin's funding of the anti fracking movement in Europe and the US ten years ago. The UN accused him of doing it. That's textbook KGB tactics, fund and manipulate Green movements and anti-nuclear fuel policies and get the West to buy Russian energy at now high prices.

Putin Is Funding Green Groups to Discredit Fracking

Russia's Gazprom stands to benefit from reduced natural gas production in the U.S.

www.newsweek.com

That's not saying Green is bad but we should examine how we do it. The West has to ask itself if Putin can manipulate our debates to Russia's benefit than more questions need to be asked. The West needs to have a strategy. Why are we so dependent on batteries and solar panels from China, Putin's main ally? Is Chinese money influencing our policies too?

The rabbit hole runs deep.

 

[Trell]

@Swerd, if I may ask, what's up with the Nazi symbol flag or some kind of flag patch on the Ukraine soldiers uniforms, that's supposed to represent Nazism? Is that fake news? Just asking.

Do you always uncritically swallow Russian disinformation? Just asking.

 

[Trell]

It appears that the Russians are taking a beating, I'm happy to see.

>>>
Roughly 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of fighting in Ukraine, a senior NATO military official told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under NATO ground rules, said the estimate was based on several factors, including information from Ukrainian officials, what the Russian side has released and open sources.

For comparison, the entire 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan resulted in 2,461 American fatalities, according to Pentagon figures. Russia lost about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to the Associated Press, making Moscow’s potential losses in Ukraine n just one month far more costly.

NATO estimates that, in total, 30,000 to 40,000 Russian troops have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner in Ukraine [bold added]— an estimate based on the assumption that for every soldier killed, three are wounded, the official added.

Death tolls have been hard for independent observers to verify during the conflict, with the fog of war making solid information difficult to obtain and the ferocity of the conflict impeding efforts to count the dead. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 1,300 members of the Ukrainian forces have been killed, but The Washington Post has been unable to verify that figure. Russia has not updated its official figure of 498 dead and 1,597 wounded since announcing it one week into the invasion.
...
<<<

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/russia-troops-casualties-nato-ukraine/

 

[Mr._Clark]

Here's an article about the purges that appear to be occurring in Putin's inner circle. What's interesting is that the person being interviewed for the article states that Sergey (Sergei) Shoigu is one of only 3-4 people that Putin trusts, but there has been a lot of speculation about his status as of late (second link below).

>>>There have been a lot of reports in the Western press that Putin is isolated now, whether this is because he’s been in power so long or because he doesn’t meet with many people owing to the pandemic. Do you have a sense of whether those types of reports are accurate? And do you have a sense of who Putin does talk to and what type of inner circle he has now? It feels like maybe people had a better idea of who was in his circle ten years ago.

Yeah. That’s true, and there is a reason for that. Ten years ago, Putin listened to at least several dozen different kinds of people. It might have been a very strange collection of characters: at one point, it was a film director with crazy ideas about the Russian imperial past. And, at another point, it was a journalist who was a big fan of Pinochet. There were some priests. So it was a multitude of people, but now it looks like, starting in 2016, 2017, this circle has been getting smaller and smaller. And what I’m getting from my sources is that, these days, Putin listens to only three or four people. There is Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu, whom he trusts, and that is why Shoigu has played the main role in this invasion. There is Nikolai Patrushev, his head of the Security Council, and one of his oldest friends, who’s still close to him and was his successor as the director of the F.S.B. And probably one or two other friends from St. Petersburg, but that’s about it.<<<

The Purges in Putin’s Shrinking Inner Circle

The frustrated Russian leader has punished officials for misjudging the invasion of Ukraine. But ordinary citizens remain in the dark.

www.newyorker.com

Sergei Shoigu Reappears After Missing Russian Minister Prompts Speculation

Video of the Russian defense minister, who had not been seen in public since March 11, has been released by the Kremlin.

www.newsweek.com

 

[MaxInValrico]

Hard to consider the possibility, but what if Putin's successor is worse?

And why has Russia been allowed to have the largest stash of nuclear weapons on the planet?

Here's a plan- get rid of ALL nuclear weapons and make sure NK, Iran, China and any other country that might seek world/regional domination have none.

I'm sick of this shyte.

When Putin elected himself to office for life, this type of stuff should have been expected.

 

[Swerd]

@Swerd, if I may ask, what's up with the Nazi symbol flag or some kind of flag patch on the Ukraine soldiers uniforms, that's supposed to represent Nazism? Is that fake news? Just asking.

Considering the atrocities Ukraine suffered from the Nazis during WW2, and that people in Ukraine remember it all too well, my first response to your question would be, "That's probably fake news." And I would next ask, "Where did you see that photo?" Is the source reliable? Newsweek is no longer a reliable source.

@Replicant 7 and @Trell
Your previous posts on this thread can easily become the start of another ugly name-calling contest. Don't let it go there.