THEO VAN GOGH ANALYSIS RUSSIA / UKRAINE – MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10679
Renowned Russian Academic Karaganov: ‘We Are Shaking Off The Western Yoke’
On May 28, 2023, the Russian media outlet Business-gazeta.ru published an interview, titled “We Are Shaking Off The Western Yoke,” with renowned Russian academic Sergei Karaganov, who is honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
Concerning the war in Ukraine, Karaganov said that peace will be achieved by breaking the “West’s will to expand and continue the confrontation” and by “fully demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine, that is, a completely different country than the one it is now.”
He also stressed: “The West suppressed the whole world, robbed, killed, and destroyed.
We can talk for hours about the horrors that marked the last 500 years of Western rule. Finally, it started two world wars. Let me remind you that Nazism – a totally misanthropic ideology – was born in the West, and they are nourishing it again. Communism was also born there. I do not equate it to Nazism, because outwardly it is a much more humane ideology. Besides, communism was advocated by the Soviet Union, which won, and Nazism lost. Liberalism is something like these two ‘isms,’ and I do hope that it will also recede into the deep shadows of history. Countries that expound it or bow to it are quickly moving towards totalitarianism, fascism, and cancel culture. The only thing that makes Russophobia better than anti-Semitism is that Russia has the resources to defend itself, but the Jews did not have such an opportunity.”
Sergey Karaganov (Source: Business-gazeta.ru)
Following is the interview:
China Has Turned Into “A Great Foreign Policy Power”
Q: “The special military operation [in Ukraine] has been going on for more than a year. During this period, in your opinion, have any dramatic changes occurred in Russia and the world?”
Karaganov: “A lot of changes have occurred over the past year, and they are snowballing. The special military operation is only a small, albeit very important, part of these rapid changes for us. We just stop noticing them because the whirlpool of events doesn’t give us a chance to think them over. Meanwhile, just a year ago the world was a different place. For example, during this time, China has turned from a great economic power into a great foreign policy power, having achieved tremendous success in this field. Europe, on the other hand, has gone even farther towards its downfall.
“During this year, a lot has changed in our country as well. First of all, Russia’s Western voyage has come to a close. Now Russia is looking for its own self. Let us hope that it will regain itself as soon as possible. The nationalization of the elite has accelerated, and we have largely done away with the part of the economic elite that worked for the West. In political science parlance, it is called the Comprador elite.”
“Russia And Europe Differ In Terms Of Values”
Q: “In our previous interview in November 2020, you said: ‘Today, Russia and Europe, despite all the disagreements, have a huge number of economic and cultural ties. But we are moving away from each other on the main issues.’ What is the situation like now? Has everything been broken completely and have we moved away from each other down to the limit, or is our confrontation not as serious and deep as many think, and is it still possible to reverse things?”
Karaganov: “Our disagreements are profound for several reasons. The European elites, under whose feet the earth is burning, decided to try to salvage their positions by throwing a foreign policy, propaganda, economic and partly even military challenge to Russia, bringing relations to their worst.
“But perhaps the most important thing is that Russia and Europe (not the whole of it, of course, because Europe is not uniform) differ in terms of values, and this process is unfolding fast. We are becoming old Europeans, while they are turning into post-Europeans and even moving towards post-human values. When the EU finally crumbles, agreements with individual countries will be quite likely. But this is a distant prospect.”