Ukraine war gives Alexander Dugin’s Eurasianist ideology new force
While the world was busy discussing Will Smith’s Oscars slap and the mayor of Mariupul pleaded for his destroyed city to be evacuated, Russian Duma deputies came up with new legislation. It did not make headlines outside of Russia, even though it could potentially affect tens of millions of people around the world.
The bill, which is currently only a draft (link in Russian), proposes for all global native Russians speakers to be considered compatriots. This is a terrifying thing to hear for anyone living in Russia’s backyard, where Moscow has long used the notion of belonging as an excuse to invade.
“This is why I don’t teach Russian to my kids,” a Georgian friend told me when she heard the news. “I don’t want them to be protected.”
Russia’s early military campaign in Ukraine in 2014 was built around the idea of defending not only ethnic Russians, but also Russian-speaking Ukrainians from new laws that gave priority to the Ukrainian language.