A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And, of course, in a fourth, internal Russian dimension. A new period is starting here, both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but this is worth talking about separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at great cost, yes, through the tragic events of the actual civil war, because now there are still brothers shooting at each other, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies - but Ukraine as the anti-Russia will no longer exist. Russia is restoring its historical wholeness by gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its totality of Velikorosses, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we were to abandon this, if we were to allow temporary division to take hold for centuries, we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but we would be damned by our descendants - for allowing the Russian land to disintegrate.
Vladimir Putin has assumed - without any exaggeration - a historic responsibility by choosing not to leave the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to resolve it would always remain a major problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, i.e. making Ukraine an anti-Russia and an outpost for Western pressure on us, is only the second most important among them.
The first would always be the complex of a divided nation, the complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev) and then had to come to terms with the existence of two states no longer one but two peoples. That is, either to abandon its history, agreeing with the crazy versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia", or to gnash their teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we have lost Ukraine". Bringing Ukraine back, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with each decade - the recoding, derussification of Russians and the setting against Russian Little Russians-Ukrainians, would gain momentum. And if full geopolitical and military control of Ukraine by the West were consolidated, its return to Russia would become impossible - it would be at war with the Atlantic bloc.
Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be restructured, re-established and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world. Within what boundaries, in what form will the union with Russia be secured (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus)? This will be decided after the end of the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case - the period of division of the Russian people is coming to an end.
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, the three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting geopolitically as one. This relationship has entered a new phase - the West sees Russia returning to its historical borders in Europe. And it resents it loudly, though deep down it must admit to itself that it could not have it any other way.
Did anyone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That the Russians would forever be a divided people? And at the same time as Europe is uniting, when German and French elites are trying to wrest control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and reassemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe was only made possible by the unification of Germany, which was due to Russian good (albeit not very clever) will. To take a swing at the Russian lands after that is the top of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe separately, had no power to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence, let alone to take it over. One had to be a geopolitical fool not to understand that.
To be precise, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, i.e. the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia was coming back.
Now the West is trying to punish Russia for coming back, for failing to justify its plans to profit at its expense, for not allowing the expansion of the Western space to the east. In seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But that has long been the case - the world has changed, and not just the Europeans, but the Anglo-Saxons who run the West, understand that very well. No amount of Western pressure on Russia will get us anywhere. Both sides will suffer losses from the escalation of confrontation, but Russia is morally and geopolitically ready for it. But for the West itself, an increase in the degree of confrontation carries enormous costs - and the main ones are not economic at all.
Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense if Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World is maintained. Nor can it be successful, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe also needs autonomy for another reason - in case the United States moves to self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or concentrates on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting.
But the confrontation with Russia, into which the Anglo-Saxons are dragging Europe, deprives the Europeans of even a chance for autonomy - not to mention the fact that in the same way Europe is trying to impose a break with China. While the Atlanticists are now rejoicing that the "Russian threat" will unite the Western bloc, in Berlin and Paris they cannot but understand that, having lost hope of autonomy, the European project will simply collapse in the medium term. That is why independently thinking Europeans are now completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders - realising that it will turn into a pen for Europe. Whose century (half a millennium to be exact) of global leadership is in any case over - but various options for its future are still possible.
Because the construction of a new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are becoming clearer through the sprawling blanket of Anglo-Saxon globalisation. A multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is incapable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world can see and understand that this is a conflict between Russia and the West, it is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, it is Russia reclaiming its historical space and its place in the world.
China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West rules the world order, let alone sets the rules of the game. Russia has not just challenged the West, it has shown that the era of Western global dominance is fully and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilisations and centres of power, naturally, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not by its rules.
