Aleksandr Dugin, the ultra-nationalist Russian philosopher and erstwhile organiser of the National Bolshevik Party, has been referred to as ‘Putin’s brain’. Professor Marlene Laruelle, the world’s leading expert on Dugin, says his influence is no longer direct. Dugin’s stated mission is to preserve the “Russian soul” and expand the Eurasian empire in defiance of the West. Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increasingly isolated global position feels like some of these visions have become a dark reality.
Freddie Sayers sat down with Laruelle to seek a deeper understanding of the oft-quoted concept of the “Russian soul”, what Dugin wants and how Putin might be able to help him get it.
Given the images coming out of Mariupol and Kharkiv, Dugin’s philosophy of violence now makes for disturbing reading. He has long agitated on behalf of the separatist regions in Donetsk and Lugansk, where Putin first sent troops as a preamble to full-scale invasion in Ukraine. His only complaint about today’s events, Laruelle predicts, would be that the Kremlin took so long to act.