Russia’s demands for Ukraine go beyond peace deals or territorial compromises, with “full control over Ukraine” being a non-negotiable goal for Moscow, according to Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin. Dugin is known as “Putin’s brain” and has described the West as the “source of absolute evil,” claiming that Trump “underestimates” Russian ambitions while admitting that Moscow had failed to accurately explain to the U.S. “what we really wanted.”
In an interview on the New Rules podcast, Russian ultranationalist and political philosopher Alexander Dugin revealed Russia’s uncompromising stance on the Ukraine conflict, asserting that any negotiations must begin with full Russian control over all Ukrainian territory.
“Nobody in Russia [has] yet to clearly explain to your [U.S.] administration what we really want of Ukraine, but we really want the full and total control over Ukraine as part of our space,” he admitted.
Dugin dismissed current Western-backed peace proposals, such as ending the conflict or delaying NATO membership for Ukraine, as entirely unacceptable.
“We start speaking about the freezing of the conflict after we have guarantees that all territory of Ukraine will be under [Russia’s] control,” he demanded, adding that “the only way for us to start peace talks is to get full control over all the territory of Ukraine.”
Dugin further elaborated that Russia considers Ukraine’s existence, in any form, incompatible with Russia’s own survival, arguing it is an existential necessity in Moscow’s geopolitical calculus. Acknowledging that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection could shift dynamics, the nationalist Russian philosopher warned that Trump “underestimates” the strategic importance of Ukraine to Russia.
“[The] existence of Russia is incompatible with the existence of any form of Ukraine, and maybe that could seem to Trump a bit exaggerated, but that is a very realistic approach,” he stated, insisting that the incoming U.S. leader “understand that it is not an exaggerated claim but rather an existential necessity of Russian geopolitical being.”
While Trump may view the conflict as an “annoying” inconvenience inherited from his predecessors, Dugin emphasized that for Moscow, Ukraine represents an “existential ontological priority” that outweighs all other concerns.
“I think that the problem is he doesn’t understand the real importance of Ukraine for Russia. He may be misjudging the situation thinking that it is just about some new acquisitions of our earths, of territories, and not recognizing it as an existential threat to Russia,” Dugin said, stressing that any future U.S.-Russia negotiations must start with the West acknowledging Russia’s unyielding demand for the entirety of Ukraine to be part of its sphere of influence.
Threatening the unleashing of Russia’s ability to “cause pain” to both the West and Trump in particular, including the complete destruction of the world, Dugin noted that the issue of Ukraine is “not the only thing” that stands between Russia and the West.
“There are many other issues, and in these issues, we could behave ourselves much more aggressively than we did before,” he warned, adding that the U.S. should calculate its gains if Russia would ultimately “start nuclear conflicts” and “destroy humanity in response to the extremist globalists position in Ukraine.”
Dugin, whose Foundations of Geopolitics helped reshape the views of Russia’s political and military elite in the late 1990s and gave a new form to old prejudices against the Western nations by means of the “Eurasianist” ideology, has described the West as “the source of absolute evil” that “uses artificial intelligence to destroy the family, sex, and the nature of human beings.”
“I believe that the Muslims understand me well because I believe that the West is the Antichrist,” he said. “Putin does not think so at all — he sees the West as a partner who behaves very aggressively for whatever reason.”
Last year, he warned that a nuclear-armed Russia “cannot lose” the current war, and any ceding of territory would lead to a civil war.
Often described as the main driving intellectual force behind Russian expansionist ideology, Dugin has previously insisted Russia’s fight in Ukraine is aimed at America and “global liberal elites,” while warning that a Russian defeat would spell the end of the world.
His recent warning to the incoming U.S. administration that any peace efforts that fail to meet Russia’s demands may provoke broader, destabilizing actions in other regions, including the Middle East, appear to support such claims.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.