On the eve of Moscow’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions following a series of bogus referendums orchestrated by the Kremlin there, a Russian nationalist, Alexander Dugin, has accused the West of pushing Russia to the brink of World War III.  The bearded, 60-year-old Mr. Dugin is something of a strategic spiritual adviser to President Putin and has been dubbed variously as “Putin’s brain” and a latter-day Rasputin.  

Mr. Dugin is also notorious for his rabid anti-Western views, and is blacklisted by the EU. His uncharacteristic silence since the assassination of his daughter, Darya Dugina, in a car bombing at Moscow last month will now be seen as a mere pause because in his latest screed he lays the blame for Russia’s current as well as perceived plight on the West with unusual fervor — even for a known firebrand.

Mr. Dugin calls Ukraine’s counterattacks in the Kharkiv region “a turning point” and a “direct blow from the West against Russia.”

“Everyone knows that this attack was organized, prepared, and equipped by the military command of the United States and NATO and was carried out under their direct supervision,” he wrote, adding, “This is not a minor success of Kyiv’s counter-offensive, this is the first tangible success of NATO forces’ Drang nach Osten.”

Drang nach Osten, or Drive to the East, was the name for a 19th century German plan to expand the country into the traditonally Slavic terrorities to its east, and was a precursor of the notion of lebensraum that developed under Nazi Germany. Such an evocation by Mr. Dugin feeds directly into the dangerously false narrative that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis and that the Russia’s “special military operation” is the only way to change the equation in Russians’ favor. 

In his view, Kyiv’s recent string of successes simply underline how “Russia is at war with the collective West, with NATO and its allies.” Although he believes that Turkey, Greece, France, and Italy “do not want to actively participate in the war with Russia,” for him just about everybody else does. 

He asserts that America and NATO will no longer be content with a ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Russia from what he terms “the former Ukraine.” In his view, “American military leaders” and the NATO general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, will only be satisfied with an “unconditional surrender” and “de-imperialization” of Russia. That possibility, even though it is not entirely clear what it actually means, is something that in Mr. Dugin’s estimation the Kremlin simply cannot brook. 

Russian philosophical opposition to the West is of course nothing new, but what is alarming is that Mr. Dugin views the Russian attempt to “liberate” Ukraine’s Donbass region as a done deal, and believes that it “gradually developed into a full-scale war with the West” in which President Zelensky is only playing a supporting role.

Mr. Dugin’s stunningly misplaced indignation, which is very much in tune with widely documented past streams of invective, can be seen to mirror that of Mr. Putin, and he is now wielding that perceived wound as means not  only to justify the chaotic “partial mobilization” of new Russian conscripts now clumsily under way, but as a call for more. To wit, Mr. Dugin believes that Russia itself right now needs to “turn into a military base.”

The implications of such a call are profoundly unsettling, and not only because of the Kremlin’s recent escalatory rhetoric regarding the right to use nuclear weapons. It means that even though no third world war has been declared, some in Russia are already on a global war footing. The alleged Russian sabotage of two gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea this week should be seen in this context. So, too, should Finland’s decision, announced today, to close its borders to all Russians, even those with visas. Helsinki has now joined Warsaw and the Baltic states in banning Russians. Europe’s drawbridges are going up, and the message is clear: If you are a Russian, you are now for all intents and purposes an enemy of the free West. 

Mr. Dugin also calls for the immediate abolishment of Russia’s peacetime rules — which for him are “essentially the blind copying of Western programs and entertainment strategies that do nothing but corrupt society.”

Accusing the West of “launching a war of extermination against us — World War III,” he says Russians must presently  toss any notion of comfort out the window: “War and comfort are incompatible. Comfort as a goal, as a reference point in life, must be abandoned,” he declares, adding, “Only nations prepared for hardship can win real wars.”