Dugin Is Starting To Slip Up

• 29.08.2026, 21:37

This is worth noting.

Russian oracle and ventriloquist Alexander Dugin said the following in recent “exclusive” interviews: Ukraine must be abolished, the West must be defeated, liberals are evil, and happiness lies in the family. But that’s what he always says. This time, however, there was something even more eccentric: we must depopulate megacities so as not to create easy targets and to increase the Russian birth rate.

But the most interesting thing is that Dugin, like his masters, is beginning to slip up in his interviews (one after another). This is worth paying attention to.

Alexander Dugin is known for his conspiracies and incantations. The unsinkable dreadnought of the aggressor nation’s ideological fleet is diligently working as a philosopher. That is, he pretends to live in a different dimension from everyone else—even the most patriotic and pro-war fellow citizens.

He captivates “good, simple Russian people” (not to be confused with “good Russians”) with his calculated otherworldliness. Of course, not in the same way that foreigners at the end of the last century bewitched the naive citizens of the USSR with chewing gum and flashy clothes. Dugin looks over the heads of his contemporaries into the future and sees conquered peaks there.

Such a cozy little corner

Anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of Dugin’s views and tactics knows where they came from. At a young age, he became close with members of the underground “Yuzhinsky Circle,” founded by the writer and thinker Yuri Mamleev in a room in a barracks that, until 1968, was located on Yuzhinsky Lane (renamed Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane again in 1993).

Dugin was also well acquainted with Mamleev and his gloomy “metaphysical” prose, as well as with the mystical poet close to him, scholar, and translator Evgeny Golovin, who had founded the “Black SS Order” back in 1974, was known as a guru in Moscow rock ’n’ roll circles, and wrote songs and philological works. It was he who introduced Dugin to the ideas of the French conservative philosopher René Guénon, who cursed progress and liberal values, calling for enlightenment from the irrational East and “eternal wisdom,” which the vain West had betrayed, and whose days were therefore numbered.

In 1988, together with another member of the circle, the philosopher and dissident Geydar Dzhemal, the 24-year-old Dugin joined the “Memory” society, but they were expelled rather quickly for “ties to the émigré community,” which anti-Semitic patriots feared. But in terms of his affinity for tradition, hatred of the West, and notions of the occult foundation of the universe, Dugin remains close to any worldview based on resentment toward outsiders, often imagined successes, a thirst for revenge, and a maniacal intolerance toward the Other.

The Other is, in general, anything that is not you and not your pain, not your traumas. By insisting that the West has taken over everything, shares nothing, and has abolished the multipolar world, Dugin does nothing but threaten to destroy all multipolarity and, indeed, any signs of diversity. The principle of autonomous existence, based on free will and the pursuit of freedom of choice, is the worst enemy of the order he has been trying to bring about ever since 1997, when—with the support of the General Staff of the Russian Army—the pilot edition of his *Fundamentals of Geopolitics* was published in 1997 with the support of the Russian Army’s General Staff. It is an openly fascist book that outlines the Russian Federation’s future military activities.

At the time, such views seemed completely marginal.

They were treated in the same way as the National Bolshevik Party founded by the writer Eduard Limonov. Alexander Dugin and Yegor Letov bolstered it with their participation, not to mention the strange—and for many, purely provocative—rapprochement with it by Sergei Kurekhin: the avant-garde musician received party membership card number 418—a mystical number in the teachings of Aleister Crowley, in which Dugin was deeply interested. Despite all its pretensions, the NBP was often referred to as an art project—if people weren’t simply mocking it. It was believed that “money would triumph over evil.”

But evil simply took all the money for itself.

Vampiric Vitality

The founders of the NBP have now passed away—only Dugin remains alive and glows like an insect from “Deniskin’s Stories” by Viktor Dragunsky. Interestingly, Dugin’s mystical teachers led a distinctly bohemian lifestyle, to put it very mildly. But they lived long lives—contrary to the idea that a healthy spirit necessarily resides in a healthy body. Mamleev, a heavy drinker despite his kidney disease, died at 83, while Golovin died at 72, looking like a drug-withered Edgar Burroughs.

There are no patterns here. The point is that everyone chooses their own path, thereby refuting in practice the traditionalists’ delusions about humanity’s need for a single, correct doctrine that establishes the Kingdom of God on earth.

There is only one characteristic of Dugin worth noting. He is completely unflappable, and this is a sign, if not of a man of strong spirit, then at least of a skilled actor. He is level-headed and cold—at least on the surface—in complete control of himself, and even his nonsense—for he says nothing else of substance—is presented with thoroughness.

Dugin, like a character from Stephen King’s “The Langoliers,” devours and processes not only the simplistic yet alluring occultism ranging from Roerich to Hitler, but also the energy—and sometimes even the very flesh—of those around him, including his own family. His daughter Daria, blown up in his car in 2022, became nothing more than a sacred sacrifice. The explosion was apparently intended for Dugin himself—and the symbolic context of the tragedy was immediately and ruthlessly put to use, just as Daria Dugina herself had been co-opted into her father’s propaganda efforts while still a teenager.

The ability to brush off whatever happens, demonstrating loyalty to himself and to those who ensure his good fortune, helps Dugin function effectively as he spouts nonsense with a smug look on his face. Patriots, as a rule, aren’t exactly the brightest, and the philosopher-occultist successfully takes advantage of this. From there, he can spend a long time building his reputation—whether through fluent speech in foreign languages or by juggling all sorts of esoteric nonsense that no one will understand, because life is short. This, too, is a very valuable asset.

As a master of tactics, Dugin knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s not some fringe figure muttering his revelations under his breath. In 2023, the leader of the band “Vopli Vidoplyasova” Oleg Skrypka told me how, back in the last century, during an intermission at their concert at the Moscow club “16 Tons,” shouts of “Khohls, go home!” began to ring out from right beneath the stage. According to Oleg, it was “Alexander Dugin, who was unknown to anyone at the time.” However, it should be noted that the aforementioned book on geopolitics had already been published by that time, meaning that students at the General Staff Academy were already internalizing Russia’s role in the Eurasian space. Everything that followed was merely a continuation of the shouts from below the stage.

“Someone Like Dugin”

In an interview with the pro-government channel “Metametrica,” which dashingly portrays itself as sharp and uncensored, Dugin casually demonstrates one foolproof technique. Explaining, no more and no less, what a philosopher’s purpose is, Alexander Gelevich reminds us that he couldn’t care less about this world, including the need for fame and glory. At this point, even the host has no choice but to interrupt Dugin and obsequiously explain that the guest has all of this in abundance. To which Dugin responds with the neutral benevolence characteristic of a true philosopher.

In modern Russia, Dugin has attained precisely this position—he can say whatever he wants within the universe he himself has constructed and of which he has become a symbol. This is precisely why he increasingly lets slip unplanned remarks. In the interview with news.ru mentioned at the beginning, Dugin discusses his involvement in preparing a report on scenarios for Russia’s development and emphasizes that the worst-case scenario for Russia is always the result of someone’s scheming. And that to avoid this worst-case scenario, there’s no need to concern oneself with ideology—things are already going just fine in that regard in Russia. Efforts are needed in literally every other area.

It’s hard to argue with the philosopher on this point. Demographics, the level of technological development, security, social policy—all of these are already on the brink of catastrophe in today’s Russia, despite any margin of safety. Propaganda—which is not the same as ideology—also seems to be holding its own for now, but that doesn’t mean it’s as effective as it claims to be.

By proclaiming that everything is fine with ideology in the country, Dugin is openly shirking his responsibilities. After all, he has already done everything within his power. He underwent an initiation rite with occultists, was a member of the “Memory” society and the NBP, edited René Guénon’s teachings by deftly substituting Russia for Asia, appropriated the ideas of the Eurasianists and led their movement, and finally, he charted a course for the cream of the Russian officer corps, outlining the immediate tasks of the Russian Federation’s army. It’s time to call it a day.

However, Dugin is convinced that philosophers will soon have more work to do. And this is linked to the spread of artificial intelligence. Only a philosopher (spoiler: one like Dugin) will be able to communicate with this crap on equal terms and prevent it from ultimately dominating all spheres of life. And Russia, if Dugin is to be believed, is once again lagging behind Silicon Valley, where, as he has read, programmers are being laid off so that philosophers can take their places. Russia has no choice but to catch up, but it will do so. After all, it’s a matter of survival. Just like in that old joke about the “pineapple.”

Dugin’s argument regarding the management of demographic processes is no less indisputable. First, urgent measures are needed. Second, new people must take charge of this—the old ones are completely unfit. Then, of course, the usual delirium sets in—"commissar-style" measures to eradicate urbanism, a ban on divorce, and eventually on individuals themselves due to their liberal-Western origins. But since Dugin is now a top-level official who lends credibility to his ravings through his connections to the state, he needs to somehow bolster his proposals. And so, even though the timid interviewer didn’t say anything of the sort, he sternly declares: “No, no, no, this isn’t Manilovism!”

Well, there you have it: the Achilles’ heel has been accidentally exposed—by Achilles himself. Despite the fact that, according to Dugin, his concept of the “civilization-state” (borrowed from the classic of Eurasianism Pyotr Savitsky) has become official in the Russian Federation and is supposedly used by the “supreme commander-in-chief,” there has never been—and still isn’t—any direct confirmation of Alexander Gelievich’s necessity at the very top. This is because those who make use of his eclectic calls act according to his very methods—though not in the realm of belles-lettres, but by spilling tanks of blood and disposing of the bodies of the bearers.

Dugin is still terrified that he might have let slip something he shouldn’t have. He certainly didn’t mean to. But those in power are undoubtedly unconcerned with the philosopher’s emotions.

Yan Levchenko, The Moscow Times