Claims for annexation of Ukraine’s Krum Peninsula in the 1990s
Building an anti-US front in partnership with the world’s far-right forces
Known as Putin’s ideological teacher
It has been revealed that Aleksandr Dugin, 60, who recently lost his daughter in a car bomb attack, was the organizer of the Ukrainian war. It is said that he was called the ‘ideological teacher’ of Russian President Vladimir Putin and devised Russia’s expansionism.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on the 22nd (local time) that Dugin, a far-right thinker, laid the foundation for what is now Russia’s expansionism. Dugin is regarded as Putin’s ideological teacher and is called ‘Putin’s Rasputin’.
Dugin is known to have had a great influence on Putin’s thought. He has advocated an invasion of Ukraine, saying that Russia must regain hegemony. According to the FT, he recently appeared on a Russian TV show with professors from China and Pakistan, saying, “Russian forces are likely to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war.” “Russia will never accept defeat.”
It is interpreted that he became a target of attack due to his extreme right orientation. The FT reported that Dugin was also the target of a recent car bomb attack. Dugin’s daughter, Darya Duginah, was hit by a bomb attack on a vehicle in Moscow, Russia, on the 20th.
According to Russian news agency TASS, it was reported that Dugina was driving her father Dugin’s sports utility vehicle (SUV) with her car. She is believed to have been the victim of an attack aimed at Dugin.
Dugin’s ideas are the basis of the Ukrainian War. Dugin made a name for himself with his 1997 book, Foundations of Geopolitics, which laid out the future for a Eurasian Empire stretching from Dublin, Ireland to Vladivostok, Russia. He was even designated as a must-read by the Russian military academy. At the time, he asserted, “From a geopolitical point of view, Ukraine has no justification for continuing as an independent state.”
The argument is that Ukraine should be annexed to Russia. He has been emphasizing the annexation of the Krem Peninsula since the early 1990s. In a lecture at Fudan University in China in 2018, Dugin said, “He advocated for the annexation of the Krem Peninsula long before Putin did.”
Dugin was initially an anti-communist dissident. He advocated ‘Eurasiaism’ that Russia should be the center of the world once morest Western countries in the 1990s when the USSR was disbanding. The far-right nationalist ideology he proposed has emerged as a mainstream ideology in Russia over the past few years.
This is why Dugin is called Putin’s philosopher and Putin’s brain. Critics believe that Dugin’s philosophy was reflected in the declaration of war issued by President Putin on February 24, “We will liberate Ukraine, which has been leaning toward the US-led West.”
Russian politics and other parts of the world sympathized with his ideas. Dugin is known to have served as a bridge between anti-American forces such as China, Iran and Turkey. Dugin, in charge of the lecture series at Fudan University in China, emphasized that Russia and China should join hands to establish a ‘multipolar system’ and break down the US-centered ‘unipolar system’. His thoughts were reflected in the meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia and China in April.
His ideas also spread to Europe and America. Mostly far-right politicians have partnered with Dugin. Fluent in French and English, Dugin advocated ‘globalism’. It is argued that Russia, Asia, and Europe must establish a continental power centered on the Eurasian continent in order to counter the maritime powers led by Britain and the United States. The popular opinion is that the motif was derived from the thoughts of the German philosopher Karl Schmidt, who defended Nazi ideology.
FT said, “Dugin has maintained close relations with Austria’s ‘Liberal Party’, Italy’s far-right party ‘Alliance’, and France’s ‘National Front’ through the support of Russian wealthy Konstantin Maloffif.
Reporter Oh Hyun-woo ohw@hankyung.com
