1. How does the Russian population support the current special military operation? Is there a wide consensus on the theme or that is somewhat controversial inside the country?

One of the most popular constructive criticisms of President Putin since 2014, even among those who very passionately support him, is that he didn’t do enough to protect the indigenous Russian people of Donbass from the fascist US-backed post-coup Ukrainian authorities. The general sentiment is that people are relieved that not only did he finally take decisive action to avert an even worse humanitarian catastrophe that already prompted a large-scale refugee exodus into Russia over the past week, but the he also stood up to the existential threat that the US and NATO’s plans in Ukraine pose to Russia.

Those who’ve publicly spoken out against the campaign are mostly members of the pro-Western liberal elite and those who aspire to reach such a social status. That’s not to delegitimize their opinions since everyone has the right to believe whatever it is that they want, but just to point out that they’re not representative of the majority of the population. It’s also important to mention that former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who’s been banned from Russia since 2016 for deliberately destroying bilateral relations, is encouraging Russians to condemn their country’s special operation.

2. What are Putin’s next steps from this point onwards? I mean, what happens after the special military operation is over in terms of military strategy for Russia?

The official aims as explained by President Putin in his address to the nation early Thursday morning are to demilitarize Ukraine, denazify it, and bring to justice those who’ve committed crimes against civilians. This also implies neutralizing imminent and hot threats to Russia’s national security red line that are emanating from that country. In his address to the nation Monday evening when he announced Russia’s recognition of the Donbass Republics, President Putin explained that NATO has already created plenty of military infrastructure in Ukraine that can be used to attack Russia one day soon.

In particular, and building upon what he revealed during his expanded meeting with the Defense Ministry Board on 21 December, the deployment of “anti-missile systems” and strike weapons near Russia’s borders essentially risks neutralizing its nuclear second-strike capabilities and therefore potentially placing his country in a perpetual position of nuclear blackmail vis-à-vis the US. He also warned that the US might soon deploy such armaments, including one day hypersonic ones, to Ukraine where they can reach Moscow in around five minute’s time. All of this has to be urgently dealt with.

Only upon that happening can the ongoing special operation end, though it would also unofficially be ideal if a new administrative-political arrangement was agreed to by Ukrainians after the conflict ends for sustainably ensuring the rights of their many minorities, especially indigenous Russians as well as Hungarians, Poles, and Romanians, among others. This could potentially be achieved through devolving the state into a federation of regions that grants minorities cultural, linguistic, and political rights. Ukraine should also remove the goal of joining NATO from its constitution, too.

3. In Brazil, between 2013 and 2018, the US backed a coup d’etat to destabilize our democracy and remove the Workers Party from power, which led us to the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Do you evaluate that those same methods were used in Ukraine? How did that aggravate the situation to the point it has reached today?

Brazil and Ukraine were both victimized by US-directed Hybrid Wars aimed at strengthening the US’ unipolar hegemony, albeit waged in different ways. The South American giant’s focused primarily on so-called “lawfare”, or the manipulation of legal instruments, in order to remove its democratically elected and legitimate multipolar-focused government while the former Soviet Republic’s relied on the spree of far-right urban terrorism popularly known nowadays as the “EuroMaidan” Color Revolution.

The US’ coup in Ukraine brought those same far-right forces to power, after which they threatened the indigenous Russian minority due to the new authorities’ fascist ideology that glorifies those who collaborated with Nazi Germany. That prompted the Crimeans to democratically reunite with Russia and for the Donbass Republics to declare their independence. Ukraine’s puppet government then refused to implement the UNSC-backed Minsk Accords, which provoked the latest round of violence.

4. How is Russia expecting to deal with the sanctions that are going to be put in place by the West?

The Russian government has spent years preparing for more sanctions from the West, which have continually been imposed against it under various pretexts that President Putin recently said are simply invented out of thin air in order to try to hold back his country’s economic development. Moscow has considerable foreign reserves and derives plenty of such currency from its international trade in resources. It’s also stockpiled a lot of gold in recent years too to bolster its National Wealth Fund’s assets. Altogether, these should help to cushion the effect of more sanctions, though they’ll likely still have an impact on the economy. Russia can also likely depend on China for assistance if it needs it too.

5. In an opinion article you just shared, you said, I here quote: “President Putin earlier assured everyone that his plans ‘don’t include occupation of Ukrainian territory’ so ‘no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to defeat and dire consequences for any potential aggressor.’ This should be interpreted as a warning to the West that Russia will defend itself from any unprovoked aggression from third parties with all means possible.” Does that include nuclear power? Do you feel Russia is willing to take that step in case the West keeps pushing?

Yes, absolutely, his statement should rightly be interpreted as implying that Russia will defend itself with nuclear weapons if need be in response to any attack against its forces by any third party such as the US or other NATO members. It will definitely take such a step if pressed to do so, but only because President Putin quite literally regards this preemptive special operation as averting a much larger and more deadly conflict sometime in the coming future. In his speech Thursday morning, he said that “If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment.”

He also said that “For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.” These declarations should leave no doubt that Russia will utilize all means at its disposal to defend itself since it regards this as an existential crisis. Had Moscow not acted when it did, time would have run out. President Putin said, “Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year.”

6. How do you analyze the Russia / China relations in the face of the current special military operation underway? In case of an aggressive response from the West, is Beijing standing with Russia?

Russia and China agreed to a 5,300-word reaffirmed strategic partnership declaration earlier this month during President Putin’s trip to Beijing “On International Relations In The New Era And Sustainable Global Development”. It amounts to the synchronization of their multipolar grand strategies but shouldn’t be misinterpreted as a military alliance. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying even confirmed on Thursday during a press conference that “Russia is a great power with might. It does not need the support of China or other countries.”

In the unthinkable event of a US/NATO attack on Russia, the world will likely end for the vast majority of its inhabitants since President Putin’s very clearly implied nuclear retaliation would prompt a secondary strike from America that would level North America, Europe, and the Asian part of Russia. The resultant nuclear fallout would also eventually kill many millions more across the world with time. There wouldn’t be any need for China to militarily respond since it would be too concerned protecting its population from the consequences of that nuclear war scenario.

7. Somehow, there is a new global order emerging, right? How do you analyze this tension in Ukraine between Russia and The West is related to that?

The world has been in the midst of an ongoing global systemic transition towards multipolarity since at least 2008 according to most accounts but it had hitherto arguably entered into a period of what Indian thinker Sanjaya Baru described as “bi-multipolarity” prior to the latest conflict. That concept refers to what he describes as the relationship between the American and Chinese superpowers as well as that between them and a number of rising Great Powers like Russia, Brazil, India, Japan, the EU, etc., to say nothing of the relationships those selfsame Great Powers themselves. Smaller- and medium-sized countries would be caught between these two layers of states, the superpowers and Great Powers.

The international community’s uncoordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic (“World War C”) accelerated these full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes, especially in the economic and tech spheres. The current state of affairs is such that Sergey Karaganov, the honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, published a thought-provoking piece at RT titled “Russia’s New Foreign Policy, The Putin Doctrine” that can be interpreted as his country’s 21^st-century version of Kennan’s “Long Telegram” in the sense that it meticulously explains how Russia should seek to sustainably contain Western-emanating threats over the long term.

These three conceptual models – Sanjaya Baru’s “bi-multipolarity”, “World War C”, and Sergey Karaganov’s “Putin Doctrine” – will most likely continue to shape the grand strategic contours of the emerging world order. Observers should urgently familiarize themselves with all of them, and those who are intrepid enough to do so should also consider expanding upon these concepts by providing their own analyses and suggestions. The geostrategic situation for South America is somewhat different than for Eurasia so local thinkers must figure out how to most optimally operate within these paradigms in order to enhance their countries’ chances of success across the coming years.

Some excerpts from this interview were included in Cesar Calejon’s article titled “Manobras dos EUA levaram à guerra Rússia-Ucrânia, diz analista em Moscou”.