At 60, from a family of Russian military officers, his career is remarkable: from marginal ideologue to leader of a prominent current of thought in Russia which sees him at the heart of a “Eurasian” empire defying decadence. western. He is the spiritual founder of the term “the Russian world”.
Along the way, this strand incorporated a deep hatred of Ukraine’s identity outside of Russia.
Dugin helped revive the phrase “Novorossiya” or New Russia – which included the territories of parts of Ukraine – before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the word when stating Crimea left Russia in March this year. .
Dugin has long had a visceral distaste for Ukrainians who resist assimilation into “mother Russia”. After dozens of pro-Russian protesters were killed in clashes in Odessa in May 2014, he said: “Ukraine must either be wiped off the earth and rebuilt from scratch, or the people must I think the Ukrainians need a total revolt on all levels and in all regions An armed revolt against the junta Not only in the Southeast.
The following year, Dugin was sanctioned by the United States as “complicit in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
The birth of Eurasianism
The book that propelled Dugin to prominence was 1997’s “Foundations of Geopolitics”, in which he laid out his vision for a Eurasian empire, stretching from Dublin to Vladivostok. The book advocated sowing instability and dissent in the United States – a pre-echo of the disinformation campaign around the 2016 US election.
In one passage, he writes: “It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into American domestic activity, to encourage all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflict, to actively support all dissident movements – groups extremists, racists and bigots, thus destabilizing the internal political processes in the United States”
The book, written in the final days of Boris Yelstin’s chaotic presidency, became a bestseller in Russia.
John Dunlop, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, wrote in 2004 that no other book had had “an influence on Russian foreign policy’s military, police, and state elites comparable” to “Foundations “.
The book propelled Dugin towards an academic career – and for a time he served as chair of international relations at the sociology department of Moscow State University.
Gradually, inexorably, Dugin’s views moved from the margins of political debate in Russia to its center.
In 2011, when he was Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin started talking about a Eurasian Union. Dugin explained that Putin needed “an ideology, a reason why he has to come back” for a third term as president.
When Russia began backing separatists in Donbass in 2014, Dugin was prominent in the Eurasian Youth Union, which recruited people with military experience to fight on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
He also maintained a torrent of propaganda via the Geopolitica website, which the United States claims to control. The US Treasury said this year it was “a website that serves as a platform for Russian ultra-nationalists to spread disinformation and propaganda targeting the West and other audiences.”
Geopolitica, for example, argued this year that the United States and NATO were seeking to provoke a war with Russia, in order to “further terrorize the American people in all sorts of malicious ways.”
Not short of enemies
As one of the ideological architects of Russian expansionism, Dugin referred to two “versions” of Putin and wrote a book called “Putin vs. Putin”.
He described the “lunar” Putin, pragmatic and cautious, and the “solar” Putin, dedicated to the restoration of a Eurasian empire and confrontation with the West.
“Russia has crossed the Rubicon, which I personally am very happy about,” he said.
For Dugin, this was essential because he says the West was using Ukraine to try to bring down Russia. “They believe they have a chance of defeating Russia, not literally, because it’s impossible, but of crushing it and forcing it to surrender, excluding it from their world system.”
It was also essential, he said, to show “firm opposition to the Ukrainian junta and Nazism which are annihilating peaceful civilians” as well as a rejection of liberalism and American hegemony – language similar to that used by Putin to justify the invasion.
Dugin is certainly not short of enemies in Russia. In a 2019 interview, he said, “Everyone in power in Russia is a scum. Except Putin.”
Dugin said earlier this year that his embrace of the notion of “Eurasianism” is as strong today as it was when he wrote “Foundations.”
“Its center is the Russian people. And it is open to peoples who unite their destiny with the destiny of the Russian people.
For him, the conflict in Ukraine is part of an existential battle between the weariness of the West and a society based on tradition, hierarchy and the Orthodox Christian faith.
In the world of Dugin, the fate of Russia “will not be complete until we have united all the Eastern Slavs and all the Eurasian brothers in one big space. Everything follows from this logic of fate – and the Ukraine too”.
