Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, considered one of the most fervent supporters of the Ukraine offensive, said he remained loyal to President Vladimir Putin despite Moscow’s defeat in the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
“The West … started spreading false news that Russian patriots and I were moving away from Putin after Kherson’s surrender and allegedly demanding his departure,” Dugin said on Telegram on Saturday night. ).
“Griefing the loss of Kherson is one thing. But our relationship with the commander in chief is different. We are loyal to Putin and will support the military operation (in Ukraine) and Russia until the end,” he added.
On Friday, however, the ideologue had published a different message, in which he appeared to criticize the Kremlin after the loss of Kherson. In it, he stated that Russian power “cannot give up anything anymore” and that “the limit has been reached”.
After these statements, the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimated that the withdrawal caused “an ideological fracture between pro-war personalities and Vladimir Putin”.
Dugin, a 60-year-old ultranationalist intellectual and writer, is a theorist of neo-Eurasianism, a Russian-led alliance between Europe and Asia.
Sometimes called “Putin’s brain”, or “Putin’s Rasputin”, he is a figure who has for years advocated the unification of Russian-speaking territories and fully supported the military operation launched by Moscow in Ukraine in February this year.
In late August, his daughter, Daria Duguina, died in a bombing near Moscow, an attack Moscow blamed on Ukrainian services.
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