The roots of Putinism

In debates about the underlying reasons for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is easy to lose ourselves in conjecture. The three texts presented in this dossier give us a clearer picture of what lies behind this aggression. The first, written by the historian Françoise Thom in the aftermath of the 2008 war in Georgia, sets out the genesis and development of a solidly constructed ideology that the West did not take seriously. The collapse of the USSR generated a thirst for revenge among the KGB and influential intellectuals, founded on the need to restore the Russian nation and empire. Thom presents us with direct quotations from the little-known writings of the ideologues who have consolidated Putin’s way of thinking. The Russian president has taken it upon himself to create the “fifth empire.” The ambition of the new great Russia projected in this vision is to check American hegemony and to establish—including in Western Europe—a counter-power that can effectively oppose the supposed nonsense of the globalizing liberalism propagated by the West. Taking advantage of a “limp and lifeless” NATO, Russia will, according to this vision, be able to reclaim the Russian territories that have been taken away from it. A divided Europe led by weak and corruptible politicians will become dependent on Russian gas and will not have the means to respond.
In the second article, two political scientists shine a spotlight on the ideologue Aleksandr Dugin, who has been close to Putin since his accession to power in 2000. Dugin is strongly influenced by the Slavophile ideas of the Russian Orthodox Church, according to which Moscow is the “Third Rome,” and he leads the “International Eurasianist Movement,” which he created in 2003. He is an official advisor to the Duma and head of the Center for Conservative Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University…