Vladimir Putin has rehired a former adviser who had previously called on Russia to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Europe to “test NATO’s resolve”.
Professor Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist hired by the Kremlin to study how to “deter the West,” has said in the past that such an attack on Europe would be the best way to save the world from a full-blown war.
In addition to Putin, the 71-year-old was also a presidential adviser to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and is considered a hugely influential expert on Russian foreign policy.
It is linked to several pervasive ideas in Russian foreign policy, such as the so-called Karaganov doctrine (on the rights of ethnic Russians living abroad) and the Putin doctrine (supporting authoritarian regimes while undermining democracies).
He has also been a strong supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine from the beginning, and helped formulate several of the key ideas that led to it in 2022.
What’s more, he has also promoted the idea of a “Greater Eurasia” and advocated closer ties with China, while maintaining that the era of Western dominance is over.
Putin, he has argued, is right to free the world from the “Western yoke.”
Professor Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist hired by the Kremlin to study how to “deter the West,” has said in the past that such an attack on Europe would be the best way to save the world from a full-blown war.
Despite this, in an essay last year for a Russian foreign policy website, Karaganov called for the use of nuclear weapons to crush “the will of the West.”
He made the extraordinary claim that the use of such weapons against the West can “save humanity” from the radioactive ruins of large-scale atomic Armageddon.
He expressed skepticism that the United States would come to Europe’s defense in such a case, saying that only a “madman” in the White House would sacrifice Boston for Poznan, Poland’s fifth-largest city. “Both the United States and Europe understand this perfectly, although they prefer not to think about it,” he wrote.
To “awaken the instinct for self-preservation that the West has lost,” he argued, Russia “will have to once again make nuclear deterrence a compelling argument, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set at an unacceptably high level, and quickly but rapidly ascend prudently on the deterrence-escalation scale.’
Furthermore, he has said that a Russian victory in Ukraine can only be achieved if the West is forced to “strategically withdraw, or even surrender.”
He warned that China’s leaders would be unlikely to support a pre-emptive strike against Europe, but said Beijing would “deeply rejoice that a powerful blow has been dealt to the reputation and standing of the United States.”
‘Morally, this is a terrible choice as we will use God’s weapon, thereby condemning ourselves to grave spiritual losses. But if we do not do this, not only Russia may die, but most likely the entire human civilization will cease to exist,” he stated.
Now Karaganov, a senior academic at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, is understood to have once again been hired by the Kremlin.
He will carry out further investigations into foreign policing for Moscow’s rulers, and an investigation by the Russian opposition news site Meduza found that Putin’s office and the government had commissioned eight studies from him.
While the cost to the Russian taxpayer is unclear, a source within the university told Meduza it was “no less than ten million rubles” (around £850,000).
Meduza reported that the topics it has been commissioned to investigate include: ‘the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence under current conditions in relation to Russian politics’ and ‘a dialogue on the development of a new concept of nuclear deterrence in the quadrilateral Russia-China-India’. -Pakistan format’.
A source told the Russian publication that the professor would not manage the projects alone and speculated that the work could be symbolic.
“At the university there is a feeling that they care about certain people being ‘well fed’.” the source told Meduza.
In an essay last year for a Russian foreign policy website, Karaganov called for the use of nuclear weapons to crush “the will of the West.” Pictured: A file photo shows a Sarmat ICBM launched by Russia in April 2022.
Karaganov has said in the past that he wants Putin’s regime to increase its nuclear rhetoric, which has already sent shivers through many in the West.
However, if this does not deter the West from supplying weapons to Ukraine, nuclear strikes should be unleashed, he wrote in his essay last year.
People should be warned about “the need to leave their places of residence near objects that could become targets of nuclear attacks in countries that provide direct support to the Kiev regime.”
“The enemy must know that we are ready to launch a pre-emptive retaliatory strike for all its current and past aggressions in order to avoid a slide into a global thermonuclear war,” he wrote, stating that the West has lost the “fear” of war. Cold. of hell” or “Armageddon” that exists in a large-scale nuclear war.
It advocates the use of presumably tactical nuclear weapons, initially on a limited scale, to force Western populations to demand their leaders step back in support of Ukraine, scaring the world by using such weapons to annihilate the planet.
‘Fear of nuclear escalation must be restored. Otherwise, humanity is doomed,” said the professor, who is also honorary president of the Russian Presidium of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council.
‘But what happens if they don’t back down? [and if the West has] Have you completely lost your sense of self-preservation?
‘So [Russia] We will have to achieve a set of objectives in several countries to make those who have lost their minds return to normal.
‘This is a morally terrible choice: we use the weapons of God, condemning ourselves to grave spiritual losses.
“But if this is not done, not only Russia may perish, but, most likely, the entire human civilization. We will have to make this decision.”
Russian military vehicles, including Yars ICBM launchers, roll across Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024.
On the other hand, he wrote in an article for Profile magazine: “In the end, the winners are not judged. And the saviors are thanked.’
Karaganov admits in his chilling analysis that Putin’s bloody war has so far failed to unite kyiv and is costing untold lives of Russians and Ukrainians.
“We can fight for one, two or three more years, sacrificing thousands and thousands of our best men and crushing tens and hundreds of thousands of people who fell into a tragic historical trap of the inhabitants of the territory now called Ukraine,” he claimed. he wrote she.
‘This military operation cannot end with a decisive victory without imposing a strategic withdrawal or even capitulation to the West. We must force the West to stop trying to turn back history, to abandon its attempts to dominate the world and force it to take care of itself, digesting its current multi-level crisis.’
His analysis reflects the rantings of pro-Putin television propagandists.
However, he is considered a Moscow academic giant close to the dictator and a key cartographer of Russian foreign strategy, and who now has Putin’s direct ear.
Karaganov is one of the founders of the Kremlin President’s beloved Valdai Club and also holds the position of Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the Russian Higher School of Economics.
Ignoring that Putin started the war in Ukraine, he said: “By breaking the West’s will to aggression, we will not only save ourselves, we will finally free the world from the Western yoke that has lasted for five centuries, but we will also save all humanity.” .’
He is an architect of the strategy that led Putin to invade Ukraine.
He once insisted: “Russia is genetically an authoritarian power.
“Russia’s authoritarianism was not imposed from above, but is the result of our history, which has formed our genetic code.”
Fear of Russian nuclear weapons has increased since the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the Victory Day military parade on Red Square in central Moscow on May 9, 2024.
Moscow has the largest arsenal of this type of weapons in the world – an arsenal estimated at 5,580 warheads – even more than the United States.
To remind the West of this, Putin conducted a test flight on a refurbished Tu-160M nuclear-capable strategic bomber earlier this year, which he described as “excellent.”
What’s more, a Financial Times investigation found that Russia’s threshold for using nuclear weapons is lower than it publicly states.
Scenarios where I would consider using devastating weapons include the entry of enemy troops into Russian territory or the defeat of Russian border troops.
