Thread by @SamRamani2

Kremlin advisor Sergei Karaganov's two latest interviews provide an insightful window into how the Kremlin views the Ukraine war and Russia's future

I will unpack his main conclusions in this thread /1

Karaganov justifies invading Ukraine as a pre-emptive war on two grounds

The first is that Ukraine has become like Nazi Germany in 1936-37

The second is that Ukraine was a "spearhead of NATO" /2

To explain why Russia invaded Ukraine even though NATO membership was unlikely, Karaganov strips all ethics way from Western foreign policy

He quips that if Russia and China were democracies, and the West was a monarchy, the West would attack "godless liberalism" /3

Karaganov develops this point further by saying that the West regretted not destroying Russia in the 1990s and was compensating now

He claims that Western isolation of Russia has created Russophobia unseen since Hitler's time /4

Karaganov compares Russophobia to historical European anti-Semitism

He argues that the COVID-19 pandemic distracted the West from its obsession with hating Russia, and that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the West to start a war in Ukraine. The West is the aggressor /5

Karaganov then calls the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets "a bandit act directed at a nuclear superpower"

He predicts that the Russia-West conflict will move to a "whole new level" and says the lack of strategic vision and Western irresponsibility caused this /6

Karaganov makes it clear that the current crisis is much more dangerous than the Cold War

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Karaganov says the West had responsible politicians, which don't exist now /7

Karaganov argues that Russia is better positioned geopolitically now than in the Cold War as it has no Warsaw Pact satellites or a rival in China

Russia has close ties with both China and India, he predicts that the West will be the loser from the war in Ukraine /8

On Ukraine, Karaganov defends the use of the phrase "denazification"

He argues that Nazism isn't just about killing Jews, but its about supremacy and humiliation. Karaganov argues the U.S. is humiliating Russia by pushing Ukraine towards the West, hence Ukraine is Nazi /9

Karaganov says that Russia has fought Ukraine with one hand tied behind its back, its avoided civilian targets and has only used 30-35% of the weapons available to it

He does caution against what he sees as the West's attempt to "Afghanize" Ukraine /10

Karaganov foresees a scenario in which several Ukraines are created, so a partition where the east falls into Russia's hands and people's republics are created

He says annexing all of Ukraine is counter-productive and does not rule out Zelensky staying in power /10

Karaganov envisions the "denazification" of Ukraine could follow the trajectory of Germany after 1945 or Chechnya after the early 2000s

Ukraine will be friendlier than Russia after the war. Seems like a contradiction of his earlier denial of a complete takeover /11

Nevertheless, Karaganov argues that economics could pare back Russia's campaign in Ukraine

He says that Ukraine is impoverished and investments in Siberia or the Russian Far East are better. So expect no nation-building or reconstruction aid /12

Karaganov attributes Russia's isolation from Western information networks to its embrace of traditional values, including a rejection of homosexuality

Very much in line with the views of the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin's conservatism /13

Karaganov warns of a "horizontal and vertical escalation" with the West

So a disturbingly high likelihood of "terrible weapons" being used (WMDs presumably), he believes NATO isn't serious about Article 5 and predicts the war will spill over beyond Ukraine /14

Overall, Karaganov seems less maximalist on territory in Ukraine than most in the Kremlin, but his views on other issues align with the consensus

On domestic politics, he is a fierce critic of democracy and champion of Russia as authoritarian, which fits the current view /END

A bit of context on Karaganov: he has previously described himself as "informal advisor," but his foreign policy thinking is consistently close to the pulse in the Kremlin. He was also close to the late Yevgeny Primakov, whose ideas still resonate today.
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