Alexander Dugin explains how Iran has emerged victorious in its war against Israel and the United States, and why this dramatic shift creates a unique window of opportunity for Russia to launch a decisive offensive and finally win in Ukraine.
Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.
Host: In the first part of the program, I’d like to discuss what are commonly called “strikes of retribution” on military targets in Kiev. The Defense Ministry has published a list of the targets that were hit. As has often been the case lately, there is also a significant amount of photo and video evidence of these strikes: what was hit, where, how, and the results. There has already been an international reaction. The most important thing now is to highlight what stands out, what deserves attention, and whether these strikes are already what a significant portion of people are writing about, demanding, wanting, and hoping for. How should we view all of this?
Alexander Dugin: In my view, these are very positive shifts and welcome changes.
The fact is that from the very beginning of the special military operation, attentive people — and a very large part of our people, who, to be honest, are far wiser than is commonly believed, understand world processes much more deeply, and have a more nuanced grasp of both international and domestic politics… I want to say that our people are intelligent. They have their own distinctive way of expressing how they see the world, but on all essential matters, the Russian person understands very well.
Dostoevsky expressed this nicely in The Gambler: there are peoples who, if you flick them on the nose, become terribly offended, yet fail to notice a deeper, spiritual injury. Russians are the opposite. You can flick them on the nose and they won’t pay much attention, but when it comes to conscience, truth, depth, and reality, the Russian person understands it profoundly.
That’s why, when the special military operation began, our people — not just individual experts, but the nation itself — understood that this was serious. This was war. It was a war with the West, a war of civilizations, a war for Russia’s very existence. And that’s why people went to fight. They went to the front lines first and foremost because they realized this, felt it with their deep Russian consciousness, and understood in their hearts that the matter was grave. This wasn’t some technical event or operation that could be left entirely to the state; people needed to get involved. It was a people’s war, a serious war.
And that’s essentially how the people have thought about it for more than four years now — as a war, not as some technical cleanup operation against certain terrorist formations (which is what modern Ukraine is), but as something far more substantial and vital to our entire historical destiny. That’s why, for a long time, the people’s will for a serious response has been steadily growing. With this will, and with this bewilderment if you will, the people initially waited in silence, calmly.
The late Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed by terrorists, used to say: “I have a feeling that we’re about to really let them have it.” For a long time, that feeling remained just an expectation. Vladlen is no longer with us, but the Russian people’s sense that we will finally start fighting properly, that we will deliver a real response — it has only grown stronger.
The authorities, for their own very deep reasons (I won’t presume to judge them here), up to a certain point made it clear that we hadn’t really started yet, that we were still just warming up.
A great deal of time has passed. Naturally, we have suffered many losses and a great deal of suffering; we have endured and borne much. So many families, so many cities, so many loved ones we have lost. And yet the feeling remained that, on the whole, there had been no proper response. In society, a deep inner discontent began to grow: when will we finally start fighting in earnest?
I think that with this delay, this postponement, these hopes placed in Trump, in a ceasefire, or in the idea that the enemy would simply get tired and collapse on its own, we have reached a critical point. We can no longer drag this out any further. It seems to me that we are beginning to realize that we can no longer postpone full-scale action. We cannot simply respond to the enemy’s latest terrorist provocation with symmetrical strikes. We must act on a large scale, methodically, every day — destroying the enemy’s main centers of resistance and striking everywhere we can reach, against strategically important and symbolic targets.
This is what our society demands: do not stop the process, do not negotiate on unfavorable terms, do not fall for false ceasefires. We need to act with full force. Are we beginning to do so? I think yes. The authorities understand that further delay on decisive steps is impossible, or it will lead to negative consequences for us. It is clear that we are strong, that we are a vast country with many trump cards, but it is time to play them. Otherwise, the model of terrorist warfare against us will continue to give the enemy new opportunities. They manage to achieve some things, even though they are weaker and more immoral. But they do achieve them! And something must be done about that.
The enemy must not be allowed to achieve anything. There must be no remaining capabilities or structures capable of issuing orders for new attacks on Russian territory, including Novorossiya. Their communications must not work, their transport must not function, nothing that sustains their war machine must operate. This is what serious, deep, genuine action looks like — and it seems to me that we are obliged to pursue it. This decisive phase is, in essence, only just beginning to unfold.
But are our more resolute attacks on the enemy the start of this process? God willing. It’s possible. However, if we think that demonstrations with the “Oreshnik” missile without a special warhead, or a few hypersonic missiles that the enemy’s air defenses truly cannot intercept, are enough, then we are mistaken.
There is a military term — “intimidation” — which means instilling in the opponent the firm conviction that we so overwhelmingly surpass him in strength and power that any resistance is utterly futile. This is not mere intimidation; it is the deliberate destruction of the enemy’s will to fight through the demonstration of overwhelming might. We must begin to engage in this kind of intimidation systematically.
And most importantly, our actions must cease to be reactive. When we constantly say “this is for that” and “this is for the other thing,” it only causes bewilderment among our own people. It is time to stop making excuses. This approach shows a misunderstanding of the psychology of both our own people and our enemy. The opponent doesn’t care about our explanations, and in the West the entire narrative is built on the idea that Russia is absolute evil. Since that’s what they believe, our task is to win — and we can explain our reasons later.
What matters now is not what they did, but what we will do to completely deprive the opponent of the potential to resist and to inflict damage on him that is incommensurate with his continued military-political existence. And that, after all, was the original goal of the special military operation. If those goals could not be achieved through the previous technical methods, then the approach itself must change — we must raise the status of our actions to the full conduct of war. War in the literal sense of the word against the collective West on Ukrainian territory.
All attempts to postpone this issue, all expectations that the situation in the world would somehow change on its own and automatically put us in the position of victors, have not been justified. There is nothing left to wait for. I hope that we are cautiously beginning this turn. We must support the army and participate in this process with all our strength, because this war is our common cause. It is being fought everywhere: at the front, in the economy, in politics, in culture, and in education. We must engage in this struggle at all levels.
Host: Allow me a small clarification — or rather, not so much a clarification as a suggestion, something to throw into the discussion.
Russia has been living under very serious social and informational pressure for quite a long time now. And practically any thesis that resonates emotionally with the people — whether in kitchens or on the internet (and these are different spheres where one can work with this) — becomes a lever of pressure, a tool for potential influence on society and the country as a whole. To provoke in people an outburst of discontent or the desire to “finally start” — isn’t this, in essence, an attempt to drive a wedge between what a person is repeating in his head and the actual plans of Russia’s military and political leadership? Isn’t it dangerous to view everything solely from the standpoint that the majority has finally decided, that the majority has matured and made up its mind?
Alexander Dugin: The majority matured long ago and made its decision long ago. We have no other option except victory. We wanted to win wearing white gloves, with surgical, pinpoint strikes, trying not to cause any collateral damage — we failed at that. And therefore the majority understands that victory must now be achieved by different means.
Of course, there is a certain discontent in the country with the indecisiveness in the conduct of hostilities on the part of the authorities. That is a fact. And naturally, Western technologies, social engineering, and attempts to manipulate this discontent and radicalize the process are being layered onto this objectively rising wave of misunderstanding. This must certainly be taken into account, and allowance must be made for the special psychological operations the enemy is conducting against our society.
But when we say that a wave is rising from the people, who are dissatisfied with the lack of clear signs of victory, and that this is being manipulated, we forget about the other side. Is the enemy not exerting the same kind of psychological, networked influence on our military-political leadership? Is he not whispering to them: “It’s okay, we’ll come to an agreement now, a ceasefire is coming,” thereby restraining them from the decisive actions they must take?
At the same time, the absence of these decisive actions is being used with the other hand to split society and to pit the growing discontent in the country against the slow pace of certain steps. It is an attack from both sides.
When we blame everything on war correspondents, on the people’s fatigue, or on the “turbo-patriots,” there is some truth to it, because the enemy skillfully manipulates these sentiments. But we are missing the second side of the process. The enemy is exerting influence not only on our society and ordinary people — the enemy is also exerting influence on our ruling elite, on the very top. And there the methodology and the arguments are completely different — the exact opposite. They are sending false signals that Western emissaries will arrive and everything will end, that Trump supposedly intends to resolve this conflict on acceptable terms. There is some basis for this; it is not pure theater. But in any case, the West is restraining the elite from decisive action, while simultaneously inflating popular discontent over the absence of these decisive actions. This is a classic operation, a classic network war — and we have been living under these conditions for more than a decade.
We lost our country because of the success, unfortunately, of forces hostile to us that stole our statehood and stole the Warsaw Pact from us — also through color revolutions and social manipulation. The technologies change, but the essence remains the same.
Therefore, in my view, what is needed now is unity between society and the state. We cannot say that the state is waging the war however it wants and however it pleases. We are all waging this war; we are all paying for it — including with our lives. The state does not have a mandate to do whatever it likes: to start a war, to end it whenever the mood strikes, after shedding so much blood beforehand. No.
Victory is a demand. It is a demand of history, a demand of the people, a demand of society, a demand of both the living and the dead. Our state is obliged to win this war. This is a matter of principle. We cannot reason in this way: if I want to, I will achieve victory; if I want to, I will conclude a ceasefire; if I want to, I will simply withdraw unilaterally. The political leadership has no such powers or such a right.
Now, while the war is going on, we know how lost or unfinished wars end. They end with this top leadership simply disappearing. This is very serious. But with it, to our great regret, the state itself and the people disappear as well. We must not go down this path; we must not make the same mistake again. The people and the authorities must now conclude a pact of victory between themselves. This is necessary. We must take the steps required to save the Fatherland and to achieve victory over this terrible enemy. Any delay, any postponement — even if justified by tactical or strategic calculations — in some cases is less important than the need to take society’s position into account. The voice of society is becoming more important than these calculations.
I do not want to cite sad examples, but they exist in our history. When the people and the authorities are united, we win. When the war becomes a people’s war, when our entire society gets involved, then we achieve victory over any opponent, even one superior to us.
But when there is no unity between the authorities and the people, we can lose even conflicts and wars that seem relatively easy to resolve. In ancient times, people believed that war was the judgment of the gods. The Hellenes believed that the outcome of a war depended on the inner state of society, and that the gods grant victory to those who are purer, more resolute, more courageous, more self-sacrificing, and more right in the highest sense. And it is this inner righteousness — not only technical preparedness, but precisely this inner righteousness — that is the core which unites the people and the authorities and constitutes the true path to victory.
We have many loose ends that have not been cleaned up. We are carrying colossal layers of alienation and hostility from the elites from our recent past, along with the penetration into our society of alien, hostile networks that are either already activated or will be activated. There are quite a few unresolved problems and issues in our society. We cannot paper them over, postpone them, or claim that everything is wonderful — even in the conditions of war. Because this war is also about that: about the purification and transformation of our people and our state.
