Alexander Dugin argues that the Special Military Operation is Russia’s long-overdue surgery on its own civilizational malformation, Westernism, whose purest expression is the current Ukrainian regime.
Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.
Host: Let’s start with a new development—or at least a relatively new one: the collapse of infrastructure in southern Ukraine, of logistics (including maritime logistics and more), which is taking place with the active involvement of Russia’s Aerospace Forces. The view is being expressed—not only by our specialists but by Western ones as well—that this could cost Ukraine the loss of Odessa Oblast. Let’s try to work out exactly how that could happen, given that land logistics between the northern regions and Odessa Oblast formally still exist. Still, I’m very interested to hear your view.
Alexander Dugin: First of all, I wouldn’t rush to claim that Ukraine is losing Odessa Oblast right this minute. But what is happening—objectively and regardless of whose analysis it is: ours, Western, or even Ukrainian—is Ukraine’s undoubted loss of access to the sea. That is of fundamental importance, because despite all the technological and digital changes, maritime logistics, the development of drones, and sea communications remain key factors. Essentially, depriving Ukraine of access to the sea—shutting down the Port of Odessa and stopping the circulation of any goods, services, weapons, and materials through it—is a colossal step. Ukraine ceases to have an outlet to the open ocean, from which it has constantly been receiving infrastructural support.
Of course it is obvious that this should have been done long ago, from the very beginning. But let’s forbid ourselves from using that argument, because Russia is always late in everything. Absolutely everything, and always. And yet in the end things somehow turn out the way we need them to, because truth is on our side. Yes, we make mistakes—it has already become a well-worn observation that we should never have entered any grain deal, should never have negotiated in Istanbul, should never have indulged the “spirit of Anchorage”… But we make yet another mistake, and then we correct it…
Host: Sorry to interrupt. So Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] shouldn’t have spoken to Trump at all?
Alexander Dugin: No, he should have—talking to Trump was necessary. What was not necessary was whipping up exaggerated expectations of an imminent ceasefire around it. Going to talk with Trump in Anchorage or anywhere else was absolutely the right thing to do. The president does everything correctly, but his correct steps are immediately placed in the wrong context, and that is fatal. Whatever he does, his words and actions are instantly given a distorted interpretation among the elites. Hence we end up with the correct Anchorage—and the incorrect “spirit of Anchorage.” The very attempt to resolve a direct nuclear conflict between two superpowers through dialogue with Trump is absolutely right. What was built on top of that is absolutely wrong.
The same applies to many other issues. The argument that “we told you so, once again everything was done late, it should have been started four years ago, in 2014, in 1991” needs, in my view, to be crossed out once and for all. Everything is completely correct: the Soviet Union should not have been destroyed in 1991, Ukraine should have been properly dealt with throughout those 26 years, and the special military operation should have been started in 2014, or even earlier. All of that needed to be done, but we didn’t do it. The Port of Odessa should have been destroyed from the very start of the SMO, when we still controlled Snake Island—a strategic point in the western Black Sea.
Nevertheless, let’s accept once and for all as a given that Russia is always late in everything. We simply don’t know how to do it any other way. That means we will do everything with a lag, and this is probably already beyond fixing. Since we cannot change this habit of acting late, let’s simply accept it as a fact. We will persistently and consistently be late in everything—well, perhaps by the finale we will still arrive on time. That has happened in our history.
All these reproaches are fair, but they change nothing. We like to say that the Ukrainians keep stepping on the same rake—yes, they do so constantly; that is their fate and their curse. But perhaps we have something analogous. So let’s stop using this argument and put a full stop to it.
What do we mean right now? We are doing something of the utmost importance: turning Ukraine into a purely landlocked country, cutting off any contact it has with the sea. That is fundamental. In fact, Ukraine’s entire maritime activity needs to be paralyzed and suppressed completely. How the next stage of the operation will unfold—time will tell. Will there be a landing? Will we enter from the sea or from land? Will we wipe Odessa off the face of the earth with air strikes and missiles, starting with military and infrastructure targets? I think we have not yet moved to that phase, but right now we have rather consistently taken on the task of cutting Odessa and all of Ukraine off from the sea.
This is a fundamental geopolitical step that will make Ukraine dependent exclusively on land contacts with Europe. And from a geopolitical point of view, before speaking of liberating Odessa Oblast itself, it is vitally important to destroy all the port infrastructure with the means we have. At the next stage—having separated Ukraine from the sea—it will be necessary to separate it from the land as well, because there too there are only a few arteries; they are not infinite in number.
If we picture the geographical landscape of Ukraine’s western borders, it becomes obvious that the number of transport corridors through which real systemic military and energy assistance can be provided is limited. And by and large we have all the resources to destroy them. Here one can act both consistently and correctly.
This morning I read a very interesting article on a new approach to programming artificial intelligence—so-called graph management. A very subtle thing. The main idea is that one can substantially and many times over—by factors, or even by orders of magnitude—increase the efficiency of working with AI by delegating different functions to agents (or, applying this to the state, to various agencies and structures) in parallel: without waiting for one agent to finish its task before passing the baton to the next.
Of course, in a number of cases a strict sequence is logically necessary—these are the so-called edges (directed arrows), when the next resource is engaged only after the previous stage is completed. But in many cases there is no such temporal dependence, although by inertia we still act linearly: first one thing, then another, then a third.
Graph management clearly shows where this sequence is truly needed and where it can be avoided. Applying this principle to military strategy, perhaps we should not wait until we have completely cut Ukraine off from the sea; in parallel with that we can focus on cutting Ukraine off from the land. We need to act according to the principle of the sack: put Ukraine in a tight sack, closing all borders—both maritime and land—without waiting for the completion of each separate step.
In graph programming for AI there is the concept of the “diamond” or “rhombus”: first we disperse, distribute functions in parallel, and then bring the results obtained together, instead of pulling everything along manually. If we transfer this “diamond” principle to military strategy, we will get an extraordinary result.
Right now everyone is beginning to acknowledge that the initiative is gradually passing to us. Just two or three months ago, when hopes were pinned on those forty-day attacks by Zelensky on Russia’s internal territories, people thought they would turn the situation in Kiev’s favour. That did not produce a strategic effect—yes, it brought us pain and serious losses, but it did not change the situation. On the contrary, it is we who are now making this turning point.
How do we consolidate this turning point that is not yet fully decisive? Precisely by means of the principle of distributing functions. Doing one thing in one direction, in parallel with other forces—in another, a third, a fourth. We need absolute synchronicity, victory through a multitude of efforts synergistically directed toward a common goal, where nothing is unimportant—including in the information sphere.
Look at domestic politics: removing the traitorous, relocant, foreign-agent “Yabloko” from elections, restricting the screening of repulsive Western films, suppressing hostile network structures inside Russia, all in combination with the most powerful strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Previously we did not act so intensively; we spared objects in the hope that we ourselves would later have to restore all of this. Now we are freeing ourselves from these internal blinkers, from the hypnosis of strategies that do not work.
Our Russian stubbornness is a double-edged thing. If you look at the Ukrainians, their stubbornness is destructive in character, yet it gives them a certain resilience. We have it too: if something does not work, we try to break through the wall to the end—as was the case with that same “spirit of Anchorage,” which people believed in until it finally evaporated. But one must understand: the West, whether Trump or anyone else, will reckon only with the strong, only with the victors.
It will not be possible to preserve the infrastructure of Ukrainian society in this monstrous war. Everything will have to be rebuilt from scratch, and it will have to be done exclusively by us—there is no one left to hope for. Accordingly, we need to win by any means, acting very actively and simultaneously in all directions according to the principle of managing artificial intelligence through graphs: we distribute efforts, deliver a crushing blow from all sides, look at the result—and then we will rebuild.
Host: But you know, it’s like in cinema: scenes are not necessarily shot chronologically—they can shoot the finale first, then the beginning, then the middle, as is convenient for the director, as he sees it. But that’s not even the point. What do you make of this suggestion: that in reality all these talks about the “spirit of Anchorage” are a special cunning ploy by our authorities so that we would not be forced to sign any disadvantageous documents? That is, thanks to this very “spirit of Anchorage” we simply continue to do what we must—advance along the front line and solve the tasks, in particular those you have just spoken about. Isn’t that so? Ukraine fulfils nothing and wants nothing, while we calmly continue our business, discussing Anchorage along the way. Or no—did we really believe in all of this?
Alexander Dugin: The essence is that the president, as is completely obvious, always understands everything and keeps the situation under control. But the problem is that around this “spirit of Anchorage” we created unhealthy, false expectations in a certain part of our society. People sincerely believed that any moment now the leadership would reach an agreement, the war would end, and everything would return to the pre-war positions. But that will never happen. The war is far from its final stage; ahead still lie extraordinary efforts that must be made, and such illusions simply demoralize people and create an absolutely incorrect message in society and at the front. The harm from this topic was far greater than the benefit.
Of course, sending such signals through closed diplomatic channels via sherpas is perfectly fine. But our society should not have known about it. Military cunning is cunning precisely because it is directed at the enemy. With us it turned out the other way round: the enemy does not believe in it and figured everything out long ago, while we continue to “jam” our own citizens with this empty and failed topic.
This, of course, does credit to our consistency—if we have started something, we try to see it through to the end. But at some point a reality check, an understanding of whether we are even going in the right direction and doing the right thing, must still take place in society. It is clear that the people often resemble a cat watching television, wagging its tail, yet not fully grasping what is going on.
One would like our informational moves actually to mislead those whom we plan to deceive, and not our own people, and still less ourselves. That is the main question.
Host: And a very important point that from the very beginning of the SMO pleasantly surprised me—our society demonstrated, if not one-hundred-percent, then to a significant degree, unity. That is, I thought there might be some wavering and various not very good phenomena here. And now, from your point of view, after these years, is our society united? And what processes, perhaps, inside it hinder or help this?
Alexander Dugin: It is interesting that from the very beginning of the special military operation it was most radically rejected not by representatives of the people, but by representatives of the elite. Among the relocants and foreign agents, ordinary people can be counted on the fingers of one hand; maybe someone simply ran along with the crowd on the principle of “everyone’s running, so I’ll run too.” But mainly it was the elite.
In reality the main betrayal occurred not among the people, but at the top. Those people who in their time destroyed the Soviet Union, applauded the criminal reforms of the 1990s and formed a significant part of our former elite—it was precisely these people who rejected the turn toward the full-fledged sovereignty of our country set by the president. So we are not talking about society. It was they who created the illusion of protest movements and some kind of liberal-democratic dissatisfaction with the course of our president.
Host: Elites are also part of society, right? Or not?
Alexander Dugin: It is a special part of society. It is a minority. In good cases the elite represents the best of the people, but that is not always so—sometimes an enormous amount of slag penetrates into it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened at the end of the Soviet period and in the 1990s. Our elite is a problem. It is not a mirror of the people, but a distorted one. It was precisely there that opposition sentiments were concentrated, not in society.
And when these relocants left Russia, what remained—both society and the remaining part of the elite—turned out to be much healthier. You ask how people today react to the special military operation. I think they are tired not of the SMO itself, but of the uncertainty, of the delays and the indecisiveness.
In society one can distinguish two main positions. The first consists of people who fully grasp the moment and say: let’s win, let’s wage war properly. This is a large part of our society, and they are dissatisfied with how slowly everything is unfolding; they want more decisive action. The second part consists of more naïve people who understand less deeply the acuteness of the historical moment; they simply want everything to end as soon as possible, though they have no clear answer to the question of what sacrifices and efforts are required for that.
Yet at the same time there is an absolute consensus in society today. First, everyone understands the justification for the special military operation and supports the president. Everyone recognizes the seriousness of the civilizational challenge we have issued to the collective West. This is a common, universal understanding. Nevertheless, questions toward the state are gradually accumulating among people. These questions could be removed if we accelerated a little and came into line with the real expectations of the people.
Host: Finishing the topic we have already touched on, you said that the elites who did not accept the SMO are very few in number, and moreover many of them have left the country altogether. This, by the way, is also a positive outcome of the SMO—the cleansing of Russian society, as it seems to me. But at the same time you write that a certain disconnect can arise between different parts of our society, that they can develop and function separately from one another, which in the end can lead to disintegration, and you even use the corresponding term. How great is this danger at present, and how would you assess it?
Alexander Dugin: Here, I believe, we are dealing with what in medicine is called a malformation. A malformation is the faulty development of the organs in the human embryo, leading to various forms of deformity when the organs are not in their proper places. That is, when the original design, the image of the human being, and its passage through all the stages of development from conception to birth goes awry. The goal of the birth and upbringing of a child is the creation of an integral personality in which everything is in its place: in the organism, in the soul, and in the consciousness. That is the norm.
But sometimes the process of maturation of the human embryo does not go according to plan. A failure occurs in that colossal work in the course of which all the organs must arrange themselves in the correct order. Integrity is lost, and certain parts begin to develop according to a completely autonomous logic. In medicine this pathology is called a malformation.
If we apply this to our historical experience, to Russia, then something similar was noted by Spengler, by many external observers, and by our Slavophiles in the nineteenth century. They said: a process is taking place in Russia that can be called a pseudomorphosis or, as I prefer, archeomodern. What does this mean? Into the maturation of our society, into the most complex balance between the people and the authorities—which has never been simple, has constantly been constructed, reconstructed and distorted—Westernism intervened. The experience of an entirely different organism, a different civilization, led to a profound distortion of the internal processes.
In the nineteenth century our Slavophiles, and especially vividly Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, saw in this a disease. The Westernism of Russian society is a pathology, a malformation. It is when, in the place where a healthy organism should have a head, some other organ appears, and instead of an arm—a leg. The product of this pathological social being is reflected by Dostoevsky in Demons, in The Brothers Karamazov, and in other novels. Society is sick with Westernism, and Dostoevsky gives it an exact diagnosis.
In the person of Smerdyakov from The Brothers Karamazov, he created the pure image of the Westernizer. Smerdyakov, while formally a Russian man, is completely devoted to the West; he openly wishes Russia to lose and the “educated French nation” to defeat the “uneducated and backward Russian” one. The old servant Grigory, a kind and loyal man, speaks of him as a dragon, as some kind of “bathhouse slime” in which a mixing of natures has occurred, and even asks that Smerdyakov not be baptized. He understands that we are recognizing the status of a normal human being in a degenerate, a pathological creature who will yet remind us of everything. And indeed Smerdyakov becomes a murderer, although in the end it is Mitya who is put on trial. Smerdyakov is the illegitimate bastard of the same Karamazov.
And so our liberal elite, Russian Westernism, which is the carrier of this malformation (including its political structures such as the recently barred-from-elections “Yabloko”)—this is the internal deformity and dysfunction of our society. They hinder the healthy, even if difficult and dramatic, becoming of Russian history. This is a rupture, a destruction of integrity. And it is with this liberal, essentially Russophobic elite—where this malformation has finally triumphed—that we are fighting today in Ukraine.
Ukraine is our own reflection, our repulsive, distorted, inverted, yet extremely sharp and concentrated image of ourselves in this perverted, “Smerdyakovite” aspect. That is precisely why this is such a serious matter.
The malformation, archeomodern or pseudomorphosis of our society—it sounds complex, these are scholarly terms, but it is precisely this task that we are called upon to solve in the course of the special military operation. We must emerge into the open space of our historical being under incredibly difficult conditions and under the colossal, continuing pressure of the West. For the West penetrates us not only physically, trying to conquer and seize us by force—as it did under Napoleon, Hitler, or under the current policy of Biden. It penetrates from within: through its technologies, operations, images, cultural patterns and soft power. The West deliberately imposes on us the model of movement through history that is advantageous to it, so that we weaken and disintegrate. Exactly as during the Opium Wars in China, when the West under threat of force forcibly opened markets in order to corrupt and destroy Chinese society.
It is with this internal Western influence that we have collided. That is precisely why we lost our bearings in the 1990s, surrendered our state, reached out toward our chief enemy and committed an enormous number of mistakes and crimes—concentrated crimes characteristic of malformation.
But now, in my view, we have reached the moment of great healing. Our society must come into agreement with its traditional values—that is why presidential decrees on traditional values and historical enlightenment are being signed. We must clearly understand who we are, where we come from, what our nature and civilizational identity are, what it means to be Russian. This war forces us to give the deepest answers to questions that in comfortable peacetime we were simply incapable of posing. In peacetime we fall apart over trifles, sink into everyday life and individualism, not noticing how destructive poisons penetrate the consciousness of our society and render us defenceless.
Today we have come face to face with the externalized image of our own illness, for the present Ukrainian regime is precisely our disease. Recall: it was we ourselves who rushed toward the West, toward Europe, toward NATO, who dreamed of visa-free travel and Schengen. It was our elite in the 1990s that despised and hated the Russian people, labelling supporters of social justice and the patriotic idea “red-browns.” Russophobia reigned here, in Russia itself, and it was on this that those elites grew who, after the start of the special military operation, broke away and fled. You are absolutely right: what is at stake is the healing of our society and our elite. We are paying a colossal price for this, but the process of healing is under way.
It is very important to grasp the scale of the problem. This is not some technical malfunction. The special military operation and what it will lead to—and in the near future it will only scale up—is the greatest trial for our people. But it is at the same time the greatest chance, a unique opportunity for our spiritual awakening and for our affirmation on our genuine historical and spiritual paths.
Host: But it is a blessing that the war is being waged in every sphere. I am not even speaking of air, land and sea—it is being waged in minds and souls, in the economy and, of course, on the battlefield. And here, thank God, the United States of America is forced to disperse its forces, because points of resistance have appeared: China in a certain sense, Iran of course, and so on. That is, we are not alone, and Iran by its resistance is helping us. Nevertheless, Donald Trump has already announced the crushing defeat [of the Iranian side] and declared that the Strait of Hormuz will become part of the USA, passing under the jurisdiction of the United States. How do things stand on this front from your point of view?
Alexander Dugin: Here, as everywhere, it seems to me one should avoid overly light statements. It is completely obvious that Trump is simply presenting wishful thinking as reality. There is no victory and no control over the Strait of Hormuz on the part of the USA, not even close. At present this strait is controlled simultaneously by Iran and by the Americans: those whom the Iranians let through are stopped by the Americans, while those who have not reached an agreement with Iran are stopped, turned back or sunk by the Iranians themselves. In essence a double blockade is in place, through which almost no one gets through. And in order to obtain full control over the Strait of Hormuz the USA would need to crush Iran completely, which in the remote perspective is still very far off.
This does not mean that such a development of events is excluded—America and NATO possess enormous strength. But Iran is opposing them with exceptional success and is fighting magnificently. Having received the first blow, they have reassembled and are ready for a long war with the entire West. They have found the most painful points—I think they will sooner or later begin one by one to cut the undersea cables carrying information sensitive for the world economy that run along the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has a whole arsenal of possibilities for making the West and America hurt so badly that they will howl in pain.
Of course it is still too early to speak of a complete victory for Iran, although morally it has already stood firm and won. But strategic victory is still far off for it, while for the West it is even farther, and it is by no means certain that it is in store for them at all. A quick operation by Israel and the USA in Iran did not work out—unlike, for example, in Venezuela. Everything has stalled, and the further development of the situation is completely unpredictable. Iran is fighting heroically for its sovereignty, delivering a grand slap in the face to all the other Islamic countries that fawn before Israel and the USA. Iran’s authority in the Islamic world and in all humanity is today higher than ever.
You are absolutely right: strategically this helps us a great deal, because the West is forced to fight on two fronts, and with the opening of the Taiwan direction—already on three. And that is where everything is heading. This is a struggle for a multipolar world in which we, China, Iran and North Korea embody radical multipolarity. Other large civilization-states—India, the rest of the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America—are for the time being acting as neutral players capable of leaning either toward multipolarity or toward unipolarity. If they were given the chance they would of course choose multipolarity, but they are not yet ready to fight as fiercely as we or the Iranians.
The main point is that this world war is already under way right now. On its outcome depends what the world order will be—multipolar or unipolar. Can we say that we have won? Honestly speaking, no: neither we, nor the Iranians, nor the Chinese have yet achieved victory. But can the West say that it has won? Most certainly not! On the contrary, it is beginning to demonstrate its weakest sides. Yet if we do not come to our senses, if we do not realize that everything most important—both for us, and for the Iranians, and for the West—still lies ahead… For if we do indeed defeat the West, it will collapse like the Tower of Babel with such a roar across the whole earth that it is still unknown whether they will try to drag all of humanity down with them. And even the Chinese miracle, thanks to which China has become a gigantic world power, will under these conditions also be subjected to the greatest trial.
We now see China as the undisputed leader, and that is true: it has broken out from secondary positions into first place in history, in artificial intelligence, in the economy and finance, showing magnificent results. But by and large all of this took place thanks to a very subtle game. As soon as the West decides to stop playing by these rules on its side, China too will have to sit an examination in historical maturity, and Taiwan will become the very touchstone with which they have yet to collide.
Right now it is very important to realize the full seriousness of what is happening for us, for Iran, to understand that the Iranians are our people, that North Korea is ours, and China is also ours. In this war of the multipolar world against unipolar hegemony one must look at everything globally: try to make other civilization-states ours and at the same time seek allies on the West itself. For the liberal, globalist or already openly neo-Nazi Trumpian West is by no means a matter of consensus in Western societies. There a colossal resistance is growing both on the right and on the left—both in relation to the European Union and in relation to the American bipartisan neoconservative system.
A real powder keg today is Israel, which has declared war on the entire Islamic world and is taking extremely dangerous, aggressive steps while continuing the genocide in Gaza. This is pure playing with fire, all the more so because they practically no longer reckon with anyone or anything, even trying to break over the knee those politicians in American society who disagree with the leadership’s line. Right now everything is at stake. We are at a unique point in the global distribution of forces: the scales have frozen in a fifty-fifty position, and literally a speck of dust or a feather can tip the situation. The West is undoubtedly losing its hegemony, but it is desperately fighting to prolong it, and for that it will go very far.
On the other hand, victory for neither side can be taken for granted. This is a unique state of military-conflict equilibrium: one more step—whether our effective strikes, decisive actions by the Iranians or a new conflict in the Pacific region—can change everything instantaneously. The main thing here is to stand firm to the end. In the Gospel and in our tradition there are great words: “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” He who stands firm to the end shall be saved. And that is precisely why a hard, resolute mindset is so important.
That is why all talk of an imminent ceasefire, of the need to end the war more quickly and to reach some agreement with someone—about which we began—is so dangerous and demoralizing. At the moment when it is necessary to make the decisive effort, to gather one’s spirit, thought, will and organizational capacities in order to deliver the ultimate, fatal blow in this heaviest and most tragic battle of humanity, we begin to be told that everything is about to end of its own accord. But until we win, nothing will end.
Iran is in exactly the same position. And the USA, by the way, is too. You are right: once you’ve swung, you have to follow through. Trump has swung, and now he is responding exclusively with his posts on social media, and they are becoming less and less coherent. Even his convinced adherents are already openly speaking of signs of cognitive disorder, and his behaviour is increasingly reminiscent of a medical diagnosis. Well, those are their internal affairs; we will not interfere, but in principle this does not cancel their hegemony. In the final analysis they can pursue their line even with such a representative. Trump, after all, went to the elections under splendid slogans, promising to change everything, but all of that has collapsed—no one remembers any more either about the Epstein files or about the peace initiatives. There is simply no longer any difference between Democrats and Republicans within the framework of this neoconservative course.
One must clearly understand: the West is absolutely independent of the outcome of presidential elections either in America or in Europe. This question has already been settled once and for all. This is a force with which we are in a state of direct war—a war with the West and with Westernism. And in this war we have only one path—to win.
(Translated from the Russian)
