Russian thinker and philosopher Alexander Dugin has argued that the West will not allow Russia to bring the conflict in Ukraine to an end.
According to remarks attributed to Dugin by the Anti-Fascist website from a podcast appearance, the war between Russia and Ukraine is only the beginning of a “terrible” global conflict that will end either with the destruction of humanity or the destruction of Russia.
A Nation’s Fate at Stake
Dugin, who is often described as “Putin’s brain”, called on Russia’s ruling elites to recognise this reality and understand the importance of achieving victory over the West.
“The West does not merely need to save itself, but to inflict a strategic defeat on us. They are leaving us no other choice,” he said.
Dugin argued that the West considers it necessary to “return the slave to his former status as a slave”. Only on that basis, he said, would the conflict be brought to an end, either peacefully if the slave accepts his status, or by other means.
He added that Russia had initiated this military operation, or war, and could not stop it through a ceasefire with Ukraine, nor through any measure taken by US President Donald Trump or the European Union.
According to Dugin, Russia must defeat Western hegemony and establish its right to sovereignty, to exist as one of the world’s poles and to be recognised as a civilisational state.
“For the West, this is a matter of global hegemony, and Russia has challenged it. If they give us an opportunity to end this war while preserving our sovereignty to some degree, that would amount to a complete defeat for them,” he said.
The Age of Hegemony
Dugin maintained that the West would never grant Russia such an opportunity. As a result, he said, there would be no lasting truce with any party, whether with Trump or any other alternative, because the West has been pursuing unilateral global domination for centuries.
He argued that the form of this hegemony changes, but its will and direction remain the same.
Dugin described this as the Anglo-Saxon concept of global rule, as well as an American idea inherited from the British Empire, which he characterised as the domination of a maritime civilisation.
He warned that unless Russia defeats the West as a whole, it will cease to exist.
In his view, the issue is not merely that victory is uncertain. He argued that even thinking seriously about victory represents half the battle and reflects political realism.
Dugin called on Russia’s elites to understand that “we are at the beginning of a terrible war that may end with the destruction of humanity or the destruction of Russia”.
A Major War as a Matter of Time
Writer Ruslan Pankratov, meanwhile, argued that a simultaneous rotation carried out by NATO’s Allied Air Command on the alliance’s eastern flank, involving the deployment of aircraft to Lithuania, Estonia and Romania, was not simply a routine replacement of forces.
In his view, it reflected a shift in NATO’s military doctrine.
Writing for Moskovsky Komsomolets, Pankratov linked the deployments to the outcome of a NATO summit in Ankara, where allies reportedly agreed on a new model allowing aircraft to destroy targets deemed to pose an “imminent threat”.
Who Determines the Level of Threat?
The article claimed that the allocation of helicopters to counter unmanned aerial systems was not accidental, and that the West was preparing to use drones to carry out raids inside Russian territory.
Pankratov argued that the strategic context was clear.
Kaliningrad Oblast, he wrote, had come within the range of NATO firepower, while plans were being prepared for a blockade of the Russian exclave.
He added that Leningrad Oblast was now within the potential strike range of F-16 and Typhoon aircraft deployed in Estonia and Latvia, placing St Petersburg only 10 to 15 minutes away.
The writer also pointed to what he described as rapidly escalating pressure on Belarus, Russia’s ally.
He argued that the migration crisis affecting the country, together with drone incidents and border provocations, were all warning signs of hybrid warfare.
According to the article, Ukraine remains an active front where Western and Ukrainian forces have not achieved success and, in Pankratov’s view, will not do so in the future.
He claimed that the West was therefore looking beyond Ukraine, and that the Baltic states could become the next potential theatre of military operations.
Implications for Russian National Security
Pankratov described the Baltic states as a strategic vulnerability in Russia’s defence system.
He argued that they could serve as a launching platform for strikes against Kaliningrad, St Petersburg, Pskov and targets deeper inside Russian territory.
According to his assessment, the possible escalation scenarios had become increasingly clear and could unfold across three stages.
The first stage, between 2026 and 2027, could involve an intensification of hybrid provocations, including drone activity, cyberattacks, “accidental” shelling and migration-related pressure on members of Russian communities.
The second stage, between 2027 and 2028, could involve an incident causing casualties among NATO forces or civilians, which would then be used as a pretext to activate Article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty.
The third stage, from 2028 onwards, could involve a strike against Kaliningrad from Lithuanian and Polish territory under NATO protection, according to the writer.
The article also stated that NATO was constructing new military bases, airfields, ammunition depots, barracks, aircraft hangars and training grounds at an extremely rapid pace.
Pankratov argued that what he called the “Baltic elites” were entrenching an aggressive geopolitical agenda against Russia across every available international forum, using the alleged “Russian threat” to expand and justify NATO’s military presence.
From the perspective of Russian national security, he described the Baltic states as an area of direct military threat and a major centre of tension.
Pankratov predicted that any future war would not begin with a formal declaration, but with an “accidental incident”, followed by a 24-hour decision-making window in the Pentagon.
Determining who would ignite the conflict first, he concluded, had become a matter of time.
