Author: Alexander Dugin

Translator: Jafe Arnold

The foreword to Ukraina: Moia Voina – Geopoliticheskii Dnevnik [Ukraine: My War – A Geopolitical Diary] (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2015). 

This book consists of texts written in the spring and summer of 2014 on the subject of the Ukrainian drama, i.e., the Maidan, the overthrow of Yanukovich, the nationalist junta’s seizure of power in Ukraine, the start of the Russian Spring, reunification with Crimea, and the battles for Donbass and Novorossiya. These texts have three levels:

1. The geopolitical and political analysis of ongoing events, i.e., an attempt at understanding and systematically outlining the meaning of the dramatic events in Ukraine. This is the level of detached, objective analysis).
2. Personal reactions to what transpired, i.e., a systematic outline of a citizen’s patriotic position. This is the level of emotional involvement and empathy in which geopolitics and its processes take place not in an abstract field, but in the context of one’s full existential involvement in the process itself.
3. The formulation of patriotic responses, projects, and programs as an imperative that is meaningful and alive on the basis of the first two levels.

The first layer of texts can serve as the basis for an impartial analysis and, as such, does not lose any value. The second layer is of interest only for those who, alongside the author, relate to the events in Ukraine as if to a personal drama, thereby empathizing, participating in, and having compassion for them. The third layer presents itself as a kind of virtual field of desires or instructions which can either coincide with reality and confirm Realpolitik or “big politics” (an appraisal of the Maidan, the reunification with Crimea, the mobilization of the militia of Novorossiya), or contradict reality (as of the current moment in autumn, 2014, no peacekeeping contingent has been deployed, the DPR and LPR’s political independence has not been recognized, and there is hesitation  in Moscow over the fate of Donbass).

The geopolitical analysis is objective, and the emotional engagement is subjective, while the spectrum of practical imperatives is a zone of intersection between what is wished for and reality.

All together, this text represents a kind of geopolitical diary, with its own characteristic features, thoughts, remarks, sharp emotions, biased definitions, convergences and divergences with the factual state of affairs, etc. This book is of precisely that genre which imposes on itself certain clear, understood limitations. Due to the fact that some of the “imperatives” have been realized, it follows that the understanding of what has happened is correct. That the others have not been realized underlines the gap between the position of the author and the resultant trajectory of Russian politics as of spring 2014, when these two different stances began to diverge considerably. The risk of this book is that it describes a process which has not been concluded. How much the author was right and how much he was mistaken, where he was ahead of events and correctly recognized their meaning, and where he hurried or factors were incorrectly correlated – all of this will become clear and depend on what the conclusion to this process will be. Therefore, this book might subsequently have a varying fate: it could turn out to have been “prophetic” or to have been merely “a set of delusions,” “subjective appraisals” and “emotional breakdowns.”

If the situation on the map was only magnificent, then the risk of this book would be ridiculous. But what the conclusion to the Ukrainian drama will be depends on much more than the scholarly authority of this book’s author alone. The Russian Spring, victory or defeat for Russia in the battle against its existential enemy (Atlanticism, the global financial oligarchy, the West), the fate of the Russian World, Greater Russia, and the fact that Russia can be either great or will not exist at all – all of this has been thrown onto the table. And, of course, in all eras people have always paid a heavy price for greatness, sometimes spilling a whole sea of blood. Our people has paid an enormous price for Novorossiya. Dozens of thousands of people have been killed defending the Russian World in Donbass. I knew many of them personally. Two of them were my friends, Boris Sysenko and Alexander Proselkov, who went to Novorossiya and died there in the name of the ideals of Eurasianism in the struggle for a Russian future. I knew many of the fallen, not all of them so closely. Some had written to me; I met some one time or another, and some went to Donbass having listened to my opinions and accepted my analysis. I recognize that I bear personal responsibility for the drama and blood of Novorossiya, for its fate, its dead, and its living. Therefore I cannot be unbiased. This is my war, and I am a participant and a soldier in it like all the rest. And this risk cannot be boiled down to reputation, but amounts to proving and upholding a life position, principles, and symbols of faith – my Russian faith and my faith in Great Russia.

This book was interrupted in mid-sentence. I continued to write texts after I had submitted those already written to the publisher. In the meanwhile, the situation changed and a number of my prognoses came true and became facts while a number were refuted. I preferred to leave everything as is, and introduced only a few corrections. Frankly speaking, I would rather change recent history rather than my own texts. Therefore, instead of appearing to be a more insightful analyst, I would prefer to remain who I am – a Russian patriot who insists on his own opinion and who goes in his own direction even when it contradicts the decisions of the authorities. Truth and principles are for me the most important successes. My mistakes in prognoses testify not so much as to incompetence as to the divergence of the Russian version of the arrangement of events with something else, the successful actions of those forces who did everything possible in order to prevent the Russian Spring, stop the Russian Awakening, and dispel the rising strength of the people or draw it away from the true enemy towards a false one. From the very beginning, I knew that the Russian Spring would encounter fierce resistance not only from without (the Kiev junta, Ukrainian Nazism and, most importantly, the West in the form of the USA with its desire to prolong global domination), but also from within, as segments of this global Western-centric network exist in Russia, are represented within the Russian elite, and make up the Sixth Column which is more camouflaged and hidden than the Fifth Column, but which is, even though more delicate, more efficient at this time. But I did not expect that it would successfully seize the initiative in Novorossiya and bring the situation to such a sad state as it is in now.

The point of the Maidan in Kiev and the overthrow of Yankovich was striking at Russia and Vladimir Putin personally. This strike was dealt and the war with Russia has reached an acute form. In some ways, we were able to deflect this strike, while in some ways we were forced to retreat. From the very onset, I oriented myself towards only one scenario, one in which war has been declared by the West (first and foremost, the USA and NATO) on us, the Russian World, Putin, and Russia, and in this situation there is only one way out: to win this war. Naturally, I assume victory to be over both the external as well as the internal enemy. I analyzed everything from the position of victory. I cannot say whether this was correct or not. The lines of victory coincide, but I did not think about defeat. Wherever we see existing differences between analysis and reality, we are dealing with defeats of the Russian World, which I did not allow for. “Well, in vain!”, some aloof analysts will say. They are probably right for their part. But what is more important for me is what Russian patriots, the people awakened by the Russian Spring, and the people of Novorossiya, both living and dead, will say. To this day, I believe in only one victory: our victory in Novorossiya and in Russia itself. It is impossible to deny the successes of our enemies, including the Sixth Column. But this is not the end. It is barely only the beginning.

This book is being released at a difficult time in the Ukrainian drama. Our offensive, in all senses, has been suspended. Perhaps the situation will change at any moment and, accordingly, so will analyses, prognoses, wishes, and guidelines. But that would be an altogether different book.

October 5, 2014 – Alexander Dugin