Eurasianism - Andreas Umland, Hubert Smeets

Understanding the Russian war against Ukraine provokes puzzling questions. It beats our reservoir of simplistic answers and it often seems totally irrational. On the other hand: understanding this war is indispensable for putting an end to it and finding a way to a lasting peace. Seeing the war as an outgrowth of the ideology of Eurasianism sheds a light on the Russian aggression and reveals at least a certain ‘logic’ in the ’rape of Ukraine’. Eurasianism is a political movement in Russia that states that Russia is not a nation, but a civilization. This civilization is not ’European’ or ’Asian’. Instead the geopolitical concept of Eurasia is making Russia, according tot Eurasianist as Alexander Dugin, a standalone civilization. Eurasianism has its origins in the Russian émigré community in the 1920s. The Eurasianists believed that the Soviet Regime after the October Revolution could evolve into a new, non-European Orthodox Christian government. Early proponents of Eurasiani