It has now been nearly three-and-a-half years since the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin launched its "special military operation" against neighboring Ukraine, with the twin goals of "demilitarizing" and "denazifying" — that is, removing the democratic government in Kyiv. That effort persists, despite truly immense Russian losses of blood and treasure, with nearly a million casualties and an estimated $1.3 trillion in squandered economic growth by 2026.
Despite these losses, the Kremlin's core objectives have not changed. Earlier this month, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's powerful Security Council, made clear on social media that the Kremlin remains dedicated to the "complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime" in Ukraine.
That, however, is just part of the story. In reality, Russia's strategic plans extend far beyond Ukraine.
Just how much was on display in early June in Russia's capital, at the "Forum of the Future." The two-day conference, held at Moscow State University on June 9 and 10, was organized by the Tsargrad Institute, a far-right "think tank" bankrolled by ultra-nationalist media mogul Konstantin Malofeyev and run by Russia's most notorious public intellectual, Aleksandr Dugin.
Both figures are deeply controversial. Malofeyev has been under US sanctions for over a decade for his role in promoting separatism in eastern Ukraine and helping the Kremlin's takeover of Crimea. In recent years, he has used his media empire and vast social media following to advocate for imperial revival, as well as to spread Russian war propaganda and champion maximalist goals in Ukraine.
He's also used it for another purpose: to whip up backing for oligarchs useful to the Kremlin. That list includes now-imprisoned Russian-Armenian billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, who has been connected to a vast financial network that laundered billions for Putin's inner circle between 2006 and 2013. Vardanyan, in particular, has become something of a cause célèbre for Malofeyev's media empire — perhaps because he has helped promote the Kremlin's expansionist foreign policy goals in the South Caucasus, becoming a separatist leader in the process.
Dugin, meanwhile, has risen from relative obscurity to become the most prominent contemporary proponent of Eurasianism, the early twentieth-century doctrine that posits Russia's destiny as an empire, and the corresponding inevitability of conflict with the West. He has been billed as "Putin's Brain" for his outsized role in shaping the Russian president's thinking about the need to absorb Ukraine as part of an expandedNovorossiya (New Russia). However, Dugin's ambitions extend far beyond the territories of the former Soviet Union. In his view, Moscow is destined to rule everything "from Vladivostok to Dublin."
In keeping with these questionable backgrounds, the conference brought together a diverse group of fringe thinkers to strategize about Russia's future place in the world. The guest list included disgraced British politician George Galloway and American media agitators Jackson Hinkle and Alex Jones. Errol Musk, the father of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, was also a featured speaker, presumably because of his ability to influence the policies and investments of the world's richest man.
Controversial speakers aside, the event was significant for another reason as well: it served as a showcase for Tsargrad's latest report. This sweeping manifesto styles Russia as the natural leader of a new, "anti-liberal" world order. This new epoch, it argues, will see the next quarter-century dominated by "right-wing populist ideas" and "autocracy as the basic principle for organizing and exercising political power." To dominate this era, it contends, Russia "must reject liberal ideology" in its institutions and national ethos.
All this makes clear that the Kremlin's war of choice in Ukraine isn't a defensive operation in response to Western encroachment, as Russian officials have long claimed. Instead, it is the opening salvo in an ideological war intended to reshape the world order. "By launching the Special Military Operation and openly challenging the hegemony of the West, Russia has entered the struggle not only for its sovereignty, but also for the right of every country to its own development, culture and religion," the report helpfully explains.
It would be easy to dismiss the Tsargrad report as a marginal document, and the forum that launched it as simply a collection of far-right cranks. That, however, would be a potentially costly mistake, because the radical, revisionist ideology encapsulated in the Tsargrad study is hardly a fringe view. To the contrary, these views are increasingly prevalent in the corridors of power within the Kremlin.
The impulse has taken on different forms in recent years. Dugin's Eurasianism is one such ideological strain. Another is the idea of the "greater Slavic state." This concept, propounded by luminaries such as the late Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and perennial Kremlin insider Dmitry Rogozin, argues that Russia has a right — indeed, a duty — to expand into territories where Slavic peoples reside and subsume them.
A third is the concept of the "Russian world." Earlier this year, the idea's originator, one-time Putin confidante Vladislav Surkov, gave a rare interview to France's L'Express newspaper in which he made clear what it means. "The Russian world has no borders," he insisted. "The Russian world is everywhere there is Russian influence, in one form or another: cultural, informational, military, economic, ideological, or humanitarian... So we will spread out in all directions, as far as God wills and as strong as we are."
The particulars of these ideologies may vary. But the throughline — a resurgent imperial Russia at permanent war with the modern West — is constant. That makes the Tsargrad report much more than a passing flight of right-wing fancy. It is tantamount to a statement of intent.
Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.