29.03.2023, Moscow.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin, when he began the special military operation in Ukraine, permanently abandoned the idea of Russia’s integration into the West, but so far he does not want to change the reality that was built based on this idea, said political scientist, philosopher and the leader of the Essence of Time movement Sergey Kurginyan in an interview to Vyacheslav Manucharov published on March 13 on the YouTube channel of the Manuchi’s Empathy program.
Kurginyan explained that Putin was initially convinced that Russia should follow the Western path of development.
“The spirit of Petersburg is always deeply Westernized, and Putin is a Westernizer. He wanted to build a strong normal Russia as a part of a strong normal West. This is what he wanted,” the political scientist believes.
He stressed that, nevertheless, all the attempts to integrate into Europe faced the West’s reluctance to take a large and strong Russia in. At the same time, the president did not want to destroy the country again and to integrate by parts. The political scientist expressed confidence that at certain moment Putin realized that any attempts to integrate into the West as a whole were in vain.
“He suddenly realized – not at once, I think, after approximately eight years at power – that this was a dead end, and that it was either part by part, i.e. death, or this solitude with orientation to Asia. This was really painful for him,” Kurginyan said.
The political scientist noted that the Russian president and the ruling elite today are trying to maintain the reality they built in the country and to win in Ukraine without making any major changes to the previous lifestyle,
“I can see that president’s speech before the Federal Assembly had one brief denominator: ‘The reality that we built will not change, and I am the guarantor,’” the philosopher said.
“[Putin’s] associates apparently want for his election campaign to go under slogan ‘We do not change the reality, we add certain things to it, and this is how we will win,’” Kurginyan explained.
However, he is confident that the Russian president is capable of making the changes that the country needs if he wants to.
“Putin is an unpredictable person, he can do much as we can see. Indeed, he has destroyed with the SMO the reality that he was building and that he loved. And further on he can do much: he has a potential to surprise,” Kurginyan said.
The political scientist has repeatedly stressed that for Russia to win in the very long-term confrontation with the West that it has started it has to gradually and non-destructively change its entire life: to change its ideology, to change its army, to change its industry, education, and all the other institutions and aspects of life.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
