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Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right Russian academic and spinner of bizarre ideological treatises, has endorsed Donald Trump.
Dugin's endorsement appeared on the Russian website Katehon a few weeks ago but received wider attention in the US only today, when the Weekly Standard picked it up.
"Trump is a leader," Dugin wrote. "We want to put trust in Donald Trump. Vote for Trump and see what will happen."
Dugin's writings and his far-right neo-imperialist ideology of "Eurasianism" were considered core to Vladimir Putin's worldview and his agenda. A March 2014 Foreign Affairs piece called Dugin "Putin's brain."
Here is a quick and dirty summary of Dugin's philosophy: Russia should lead a grand Eurasian empire based on ultra-Orthodox Christianity and conservative communitarian values.
This empire must defend against, and will necessarily come into conflict with, decadent Western civilization.
In 2014, when Putin's Russia twice invaded Ukraine — first annexing Crimea and then fomenting a rebellion in eastern Ukraine — it looked like Putin's provocations were animated by Dugin's neo-imperialism. Putin used language reminiscent of Duginism, speaking of a need to protect all Russian speakers, of Ukrainians as part of Russia, and even name-checking the neo-imperialist buzzword "Novorossiya," which refers to a region of Ukraine once part of the Russian empire.
The ideological connection between Dugin and Putin looked even more likely as, throughout 2014, the Kremlin whipped up support among far-right nationalists and neo-imperialists, tacitly encouraging many to go fight in eastern Ukraine.
Even more than that, since taking his third term in 2012, Putin had pursued limits on individual freedoms and conservative Orthodox social values, all of which also lined up with Dugin's worldview.
This is why the Weekly Standard, in writing up Dugin's Trump endorsement, calls the Russian writer "a key theorist of the ideological underpinnings of Putinism." The Weekly Standard article suggests Dugin is acting in his role of "organizing Eurasianist fifth columns supporting the Putin regime in western countries."
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142048/dugin-russia-trump-endorse