As the leading Kremlin ideologue, Alexander Dugin’s influence on Putin is great. But his rise to the top of the Kremlin is mainly due to the death of his daughter.
The ultra-conservative philosopher Alexander Dugin is rightly dubbed “Putin’s brain”: while his anti-Western ideologies have been ridiculed in the past, he has now risen to become the leading Kremlin ideologue. His rise to fame can primarily be attributed to the murder of his daughter Daria Dugina.
Two Kremlin insiders report to the Russian online newspaper “Meduza” how Dugin became the Kremlin’s chief ideologue after the death of his daughter.
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Ultra-conservative thinkers frequently visit the Kremlin for private meetings with key officials, the report said. The two Kremlin insiders report that Russian ideology is also at stake.
At these meetings with the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, specific arguments for speeches and speeches that Putin himself will record will also be developed. The influence of philosophical thinkers is correspondingly large.
One of them is the political philosopher Alexander Dugin. A proponent of the so-called “Russian World” ideology. Dugin’s ideology initially referred only to the solidarity of Russians living abroad with their homeland. Later this changed. Now he completely rejects the supposedly “threatening” values of the West, writes “Meduza”.
Dugin has been promoting the idea of a “Eurasian Union” since 2000: he proposes forming a geopolitical entity with the former USSR.
So not far from what the Russian army is aiming for, according to Putin’s statement – the conquest of Ukraine as the first step towards the Russian empire. But Dugin’s influence at the beginning of the Russian war of aggression was not nearly as great as assumed, Kremlin insiders report.
Until 2010, Dugin maintained regular contact with the Kremlin, but after that it fell asleep: The presidential office only perceived the philosophical thinker as a public figure with an ultra-conservative fringe audience, reports “Meduza”, citing insiders.
That view has now changed, as one of the Kremlin insiders put it: “Today, Dugin’s vocabulary is on Putin’s lips.” That means his philosophy is becoming more and more popular with the Kremlin boss.
Dugin’s rapid rise is mainly linked to the murder of his daughter, Daria Dugina. The 29-year-old daughter of the right-wing ideologist died in a car bomb attack in Moscow on August 20 this year. To this day, it is not clear who was behind the attack.
After the murder, Kremlin boss Putin showed increased interest in Dugin: He sent him a message of condolences and has since promoted contacts between the administration and the philosopher, reports “Meduza”.
A month later, Putin used one of Dugin’s favorite insults, the term “Anglo-Saxons,” for the first time. He wants to aim at the idea of a supposedly ruling Anglo-American hegemony in the West. According to one of the two Kremlin insiders, the death of Dugin’s daughter has further strengthened Putin’s enemy image of the West, which attacks traditional Russian values.
Even if not all Kremlin employees would like Dugin’s ideology, Putin needs people around him who share his ideology. The Kremlin has little choice but to join forces with the likes of Dugin.
“They have experts, they have artists. But they don’t have any moderate ideologues, especially not in the right pitch – and that’s why they work with right-wing conservatives, and that’s what they have. Hard times need hard people,” the Kremlin insider told Meduza.
