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Together with his extravagant beard and wild rhetoric, Alexander Dugin has discovered it straightforward to draw consideration. Some have even labelled the far-right thinker “Putin’s mind” or “Rasputin”. Different commentators, nevertheless, have dismissed the concept that Dugin is taken significantly critically within the Kremlin, pointing to the truth that he misplaced his job at Moscow State College in 2014.
Nonetheless, any person clearly took Dugin very critically certainly. Final weekend, his daughter Daria Dugina, a nationalist journalist, was murdered by a automobile bomb outdoors Moscow. It’s broadly assumed that Dugin himself was the actual goal.
Regardless of the private relationship between Putin and Dugin, the Russian chief’s choice to invade Ukraine dropped at fruition concepts that Dugin has been pushing for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties. In his 1997 guide, Foundations of Geopolitics, which was assigned studying on the Russian army’s common employees academy, Dugin argued that “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical which means”.
Requested about his affect on Putin at a 2018 lecture at Fudan College in Shanghai, Dugin was coy — however identified that he was arguing for the Russian annexation of Crimea within the Nineteen Nineties, “lengthy earlier than Putin”.
Dugin’s presence in China was important. He has capitalised on his supposed proximity to Putin — and his linguistic abilities (he speaks fluent English and French) — to construct himself a substantial worldwide function.
In China, Iran and Turkey, Dugin has turn into a spokesman and co-ordinator for many who are searching for to destroy America’s international hegemony. In the meantime in Europe and the US, he has liaised with far-right forces, positioning himself as an ally within the battle towards “globalism”.
In his lecture collection at Fudan, Dugin argued that Russia and China should collectively construct a “multipolar world order”, ending US dominance. At a gathering in April the Russian and Chinese language overseas ministers embraced this concept, with Sergei Lavrov assuring Wang Yi that the 2 nations would “collectively . . . transfer in direction of a multipolar, simply, democratic world order”.
In Dugin’s worldview, the continental international locations of the Eurasian landmass, centred on Russia, are naturally against the maritime world led by the US and, earlier than that, by the British. Dugin has praised the Nazi thinker Carl Schmitt for his “clear understanding of the ‘enemy’ dealing with Europe, Russia and Asia that’s america together with its . . . island ally, England”.
These anti-western and intolerant concepts have additionally discovered a prepared viewers in Iran. Dugin has been a frequent visitor and is especially in style with the hardline components within the regime. In 2015, he flattered his Iranian hosts by telling them that Iran is “the primary base of the warfare towards modernity” (an excellent factor, apparently). Dugin has additionally recurrently visited Turkey, generally as a visitor of the ruling AKP, and has made frequent trigger with anti-American forces within the authorities.
In Europe, in the meantime, Dugin and his sponsor, the Russian banker Konstantin Malofeev, have cultivated ties with hard-right events resembling Austria’s Freedom Celebration, Italy’s League and France’s Nationwide Rally — sustaining hyperlinks via conferences, lectures and conferences in Russia and western Europe.
Within the US, Dugin’s pure bedfellows are on the far proper. Early within the Trump presidency, Dugin gave an interview to the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, expressing his hopes for “Mr Trump, who I help with all my coronary heart”. He advised Jones that pro-Trump and pro-Putin forces ought to unite towards “our frequent enemy, the globalists”.
Richard Spencer, the American far-right determine, who was filmed shortly after Trump’s victory shouting “Hail Trump” and giving a stiff-armed salute, can be related to the Russian nationalist. Spencer’s spouse has translated Dugin’s work into English.
In a current look with Chinese language and Pakistani lecturers, Dugin assured his viewers that Russia would use nuclear weapons slightly than settle for defeat in Ukraine. One query now could be whether or not final weekend’s automobile bombing will lead the Kremlin into much more aggressive insurance policies within the warfare and in home politics.
If Putin and his acolytes blame home enemies for the assault, then the stage might be set for an intensification of inside repression — a lot because the 1934 homicide of Sergei Kirov, a Soviet politician, led to the primary of Stalin’s nice purges. If the Kremlin blames western intelligence companies, then Russia’s marketing campaign of worldwide assassinations is perhaps intensified.
The obvious culprits for the Kremlin accountable, nevertheless, could be the Ukrainians. The killing got here after per week when Ukraine had repeatedly demonstrated its potential to strike behind Russian strains. The Ukrainian authorities has been swift to disclaim any connection to the bombing. But when the Kremlin concludes that Kyiv was behind the assault — or finds it handy to say that — then additional brutal escalation of the battle is probably going.
Dugin specialises in violent and incendiary rhetoric — delivered in lecture halls and tv studios, a secure distance from any precise combating. However final weekend the entrance line got here to Moscow. After enduring a lot struggling, few Ukrainians will shed tears for Dugin, a person who in 2014 referred to as for Russians to “kill, kill, kill” Ukrainians. Others, farther from the battle, could discover it tougher to imagine that anybody deserves to see their youngster blown up in entrance of them.