PUTIN’S GEOPOLITICS PLAYBOOK

Written in 1997 by Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin

Next comes the Ukrainian question. The sovereignty of Ukraine is such a negative phenomenon for Russian geopolitics that, in principle, it can easily provoke an armed conflict. Without the Black Sea coast from Izmail to Kerch, Russia gets such an extended coastal strip, really controlled by someone unknown, that its very existence as a normal and independent state is called into question. The Black Sea does not replace access to the “warm seas” and its geopolitical significance drops sharply due to the stable Atlanticist control over the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, but at least it makes it possible to secure the central regions from the potential expansion of Turkish influence, being extremely convenient, reliable and an inexpensive border.

Ukraine as an independent state with some kind of territorial ambitions, poses a huge danger to the whole of Eurasia, and without a solution to the Ukrainian problem, it is pointless to talk about continental geopolitics at all.  This does not mean that the cultural, linguistic or economic autonomy of Ukraine should be limited and that it should become a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state (as, to some extent, was the case in the tsarist empire or under the USSR). But strategically, Ukraine should be strictly a projection  of Moscow in the south and west). The absolute imperative of Russian geopolitics on the Black Sea coast is the total and unlimited control of Moscow along its entire length from Ukrainian to Abkhazian territories. It is possible to divide this entire zone on an ethno-cultural basis as much as you like, granting ethnic and confessional autonomy to the Crimean Little Russians, Tatars, Cossacks, Abkhasians, Georgians etc., but all this only with absolute control of Moscow over the military and political situation. These sectors must be radically divorced from the thalassocratic influence coming from the west and from Turkey (or even Greece). The northern coast of the Black Sea should be exclusively Eurasian and centrally subordinate to Moscow.

1. Crimea was the first chunck to be bitten off,
2. Now it’s Donestsk, Zaporhizia and Kherzon Oblasts
3. After that Odessa
4. Moldova appears to have been placed within the Moscow-dominated Eurasian sphere of influence
5. Then Romania
6. Then Bulgaria

Ukraine is the keystone. Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because “ Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for the all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics. Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent unless it is cordon sanitaire which would be inadmissible.