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U.S. President Barack Obama walks to Marine One before departing for Sweden and the G20 Summit in Russia, September 3, 2013. (Joshua Roberts / Reuters)
O
n March 11, 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department placed a new round of sanctions on 14
gures that Washington considers responsible for the conict in Ukraine. Until now,
sanctions had targeted either high-level Russian politicians or those who were part of
President Vladimir Putins inner circlehis friends and their bankers. The latest list, however,
includes mostly secessionist leaders from Donbas, a region in Eastern Ukraine that roughly covers
the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. But it also names individuals that do not belong to the
Russian ruling circles, and are connected to the Ukraine conict only by ideology.
Take for example, Alexander Dugin , an outspoken Russian thinker who is often noted in Western
media for his fascist views and his belief that Ukraine is not a sovereign state but a region that
belongs, and therefore is fated to return, to Russia. Dugin has no ocial status within the Russian
government. He is not even a member of the Public Chambera consultative institution created
by Putin to foster a regime-friendly civil societyalthough one of Dugins close associates, Valery
Korovin, was elected by an informal public vote as a member in Spring 2014. Nor is Dugin a part
of Putins inner circle. The two men might not have ever even met. (Dugin is known to take every
opportunity to publicize his personal connections with the Russian political elite, but has never
bragged about having met the Russian president.) His supposed links to the State Duma Chairman
Sergey Naryshkin are likewise unsubstantiated. Dugin has no known nancial interests that could
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
have been secured by an alleged inclusion in Putins inner circle, unlike many of the other ocials
on the sanction list. So why is Washington targeting him?
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
The story behind Dugins rise to so-called prominence begins in the early 1990s, when he was
working closely with the communist and nationalist groups opposed to former Russian President
Boris Yeltsin. Dugin tried to become a shadow advisor to the Russian authorities and achieved
some success in the second half of the 1990s by working for political gures close to the
Communist Party and to the Liberal Democratic Party of colonel and politician Vladimir
Zhirinovsky. However, both of these parties lost their inuence when Putin came to power in
2000. Given that Dugins allies at home were now few and far between, he sought for nearly a
decade to craft new ties with anti-U.S. groups abroad in Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Western
Europe through his International Eurasia Movement, which he founded in 2003. The movement
seeks to create an international coalition of countries, namely a Eurasian alliance, to counter so-
called U.S. unipolarity.
In 2008, Dugin was appointed adjunct professor at the prestigious Moscow State University
presumably thanks to his links to Vladimir Dobrenkov, then dean of the sociology department,
who had been regularly accused of corruption and plagiarism. There, Dugin sought to attach
himself to Putins pet project, the Eurasian Union, by boldly proclaiming that he could become its
de-facto theoretician and inject the project with the ideology that it lacked. He also sought to take
advantage of the Kremlins conservative turn and its new friendly relations with Western far-right
politicians. But in these endeavors, Dugin was overshadowed by more prominent gures, such as
the Eurasian Union spokesman Sergey Glazyev, historian and politician Natalia Narochnitskaya,
and Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister and former Russian ambassador to NATO.
More recently, Dugin has beneted from the renewed inuence of Alexander Prokhanov who is
famous for representing the military, especially the General Sta of the Soviet Army. Prokhanov is
also the editor of the conservative newspaper Zavtra and the founder of the nationalist think tank,
Izborsky Club. Since the start of the Ukrainian conict, the Izborsky Club has resurrected the
eighteenth century idea of Novorossiya , or New Russia, and warmly supports the self-proclaimed
government of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. The club has even oered to write Donetsks
constitution. However, in the summer of 2014 when the Kremlin took over, the apparently overly
revolutionary Donetsk elites were dismissed and replaced with more faithful gures, and the
Izborsky Club lost its media visibility . Dugin was red from the Moscow State University last
year for his calls to violently subdue the Ukrainians. And since the fall of 2014, Dugin has tried,
but failed, to regain his inuence.
So why would the United States suddenly decide to include Dugin on its sanctions list, almost one
year after his violent statements against the Ukrainians, and furthermore, as the only ideologically
motivated gure? Is Washington punishing people for their words, not deeds? Dugin of course
draws attention to himself with his fascist theories and allusions to Nazi ideology. He also
fervently believes in reconstructing the Russian empire through the use of force. But the point of
sanctions is to penalize those who are actually engaged in violent actsfor instance, those involved
in breaking the Minsk peace agreements and the ceasere. It is not Washingtons job to silence
specic ideologies or political views, however extreme or egregious, and sanctions traditionally do
not target ideologists.
Another possible reason is that Dugins youth movement, the Eurasian Union of Youth , has been
sending dozens (the real numbers are unknown) of young volunteers to ght in Donbas. However,
there are many other movements not on Washingtons sanctions list that have also sent their young
supporters to the Donbas front, and in larger numbers. Their omission may signal a certain media
bias by Washington. Because Western news outlets reported more heavily on Dugins projects than
on other movements sending recruits to eastern Ukraine, such as, it seems, the Imperial Legion ,
they remain unknown in the West.
Similarly, Dugin has beneted from an odd scenario of being more famous abroad than at home.
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
Since the mid-1990s, he has drawn the curiosity of Western scholars because of his prolic work as
a nationalist ideologist in Russia. The media caught on as well since the extreme nature of his
theories made for appealing stories and headlines. However, this xation on Dugin has gone too
far. He is now being presented by the U.S. media as Putins godfather or brain . But that isnt
how Putins regime functions: Nationalist slogans are produced a posteriori with the indirect or
direct support of the presidential administration, and the decision-making process is motivated by
strategic interests, not by ideology. Dugin certainly triedbut failedto use the Ukrainian crisis
to gain prominence and inuence the Kremlin. But he is not the one who made the decision to
start the conict in Crimea or the Donbas. In a way, the sanctions list might please Dugin. He now
has greater notoriety in the White House than in the Kremlin.
FAULTY LOGIC
The logic behind Washingtons latest sanction list is unclear. Although the rst round of sanctions
in March 2014 targeted government ocials responsible for Crimeas annexation and the civil war
in Donbas, the following rounds were directed against Putins close associates, those suspected of
enjoying a high level of state protection for covering up their nancial operations. The logic of the
sanctions thus moved from condemning the perpetrators of violence to denouncing the entire
Putin regime, perhaps in reaction to the failure of the rst round of sanctions to end the violence
in Ukraine.
Some sanctioned ocials, such as Andrei Fursenko , who was Russias science and education
minister from 2004 to 2012, had no direct involvement in the Ukrainian crisis. He seems to have
been guilty only by association since he was an old friend and former aid of Putins. If Washington
seeks to target those who have called for and instigated violence in Ukraine, then it should have
included gures like Chechnyan dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. He is currently under European, but
not U.S. sanctions. This lack of consistency is problematic because it undermines Washingtons
reasoning, and therefore credibility, for the sanctions, which is to correctly identify those who are
responsible for perpetuating violence.
If the United States plans to target ideologists like Dugin who support the Donbas insurgency, it
will have to grow the list by several dozens of names. It could include, for example, the Izborsky
Clubs director Alexander Prokhanov and many of its members, as well as Natalia Narochnitskaya,
director of the Paris-based Russian Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, who is a fervent
supporter of Russias interventionism in the Balkans and in Russias so-called near abroad. If
Washington wants to punish the dierent ultranationalist movements that have sent ghters to
Donbas, it will have to include the leaders of other movements, such as the Imperial Legion and
the National Bolshevik Party of Eduard Limonov (a longstanding opponent to Putin but who now
celebrates Crimeas return to mother Russia). This rationale would still be problematic because
research shows that volunteers often go to Ukraine by their own initiative and through personal
connections, not because of systematic recruitment eorts by organized networks.
By putting Dugin, a lunatic fringe writer, on the sanctions list, the United States is essentially
conveying that it considers the Russian decision-making process susceptible to irrational
extremism, and that it truly believes that nationalistic ideology is the dominant motivation for
Russias position on Ukraine. If that is correct, then the United States dangerously misunderstands
Putins strategy: He may use nationalistic rhetoric to justify his decision-making post hoc, but he is
not motivated by nationalism in and of itself. Moscows involvement in Ukraine is primarily
strategic. It believesrightfully or notthat Russias sovereignty is under threat and that it cannot
be guaranteed without a pro-Russian regime in Kiev.
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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730 .
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
:-)
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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You must be one of those brainless idiots who desperately belives in the
Zionist plot, alien conspiracy or whatever. When you say THEY, it stands
that WHOLE THE WORLD condemns Russia for what it is doing in
Ukraine now!! Just so you know, there are ONLY 10 countries - rogue
states mostly ruled by dictators - that had guts to back Putin officially.
Here they are one after another: Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba,
Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1237...
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
4 days ago
Russian sovereignty is not in danger. Russia will respond to any threat. Why the author
concludes that the fear of Russia sovego loss of sovereignty?
Kiev came to power supporters of Nazism and they hate Russia. Their motto was on the
Maidan - maskalyaku on Gilyaki - translated Muscovites visilitsu. Hero of the current
government in Ukraine Bandera and Shukhevych.
From the statement Yaytsenyuka - "Russia has invaded the territory of Germany and
the Ukraine during World War II." I remind the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yaytsenyuk
it.
Poroshenko - declares day of the UPA day of creation of the Ukrainian army. I remind
the UPA an army consisting of the Nazis Ukrainian nationalists. UPA participated in
the massacre of citizens of the USSR and Poland during the Second World War. UPA
killers were particularly brutal - they killed babies, children, women and the elderly.
Russia is against the Nazis in Ukraine.
. .
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see more
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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QUOTE: Some 150 representatives of far-right parties across Europe have been
meeting in Russia to co-ordinate policy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
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20
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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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Marlene Laruelle | By Targeting Alexander Dugin, Washington Put the Wrong Man on the Sanctions List | Foreign Aairs 3/30/15, 11:17 PM
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