Podcast Episodes: The Ideas Behind Putin's War on the West
This trilogy of podcast episodes sheds new light on Mikhail Yuriev, an architect of the Kremlin's war plans.
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Late last year we introduced our readers to Project Russia, an ambitious set of books published between 2005 and 2010 that outlined a philosophical basis for Russia's war in Ukraine and the broader assault on the West. The books describe democracy as an infantile failed experiment, and the United States as destined to fail. Russia, on the other hand, would rise as a victorious autocracy, with the adoption of religion, traditionalism, and hierarchy.
While Project Russia was published anonymously, one of the primary authors is Mikhail Yuriev, a former deputy chairman of the Russian parliament who rose to prominence within Putin's inner circle. Besides Project Russia, Yuriev authored a sci-fi novel which has proven to be remarkably predictive of Putin's moves. Published in 2006, The Third Empire: Russia As It Should Be, is set in 2054, and is narrated by a fictitious Brazilian historian who is looking back on how Vladimir, the great leader of Russia, began to reshape the world — beginning in 2025.
Dina Khapaeva, a Russia scholar who emigrated to the United States in 2009, has been sounding the alarm about The Third Empire and has been working to raise awareness among the public and policymakers. She is the Director of Russian Program and Professor of Russian at Georgia Tech, and in 2022 she published an article in The Atlantic titled "The Utopian Russian Novel That Predicted Putin's War Plan." Khapaeva asserts that Yuriev and Putin knew each other and one observer described The Third Empire as "the Kremlin's favorite book."
Unfortunately, Khapaeva's article was easy to miss; while it was picked up by colleagues Claire Berlinsky and Monique Camarra who compiled an excellent article and podcast episode about it, other media has failed to take notice.
Yuriev's novel has proven to be extremely predictive: invasion of Ukraine leads to direct confrontation with the United States which capitulates to Russian demands due to fear of nuclear annihilation. We're now well into the denouement phase.
Three Podcast Episodes
To bring together this material in a more unified way, we have prepared three special episodes of Dave Troy Presents. The first, on Project Russia, was released in December, and as an experiment, made use of Google's Notebook LM robot podcasters, due to lack of availability of other experts. Some found that episode fascinating, others found the use of AI grating. Regardless, the episode accurately outlines Project Russia and the ideas behind it, and as such was useful in getting these ideas out quickly. It's worth taking the time to absorb.
The next episode, just released, features Lucy Ash, an award-winning BBC journalist and documentarian, and her new book The Baton And The Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin. It offers a terrific overview of the Russian Orthodox Church and its full transformation into a wing of the Russian state under Putin. Russian Orthodoxy is also the kernel of Project Russia. For Yuriev and the other Project Russia authors, religion (specifically Russian orthodoxy) is the "great idea" which will enable the realization of the "Third Rome" — or "Third Empire" envisioned in Yuriev's novel.
And to bring us full circle, the third episode features Dina Khapaeva, to update us on her article from 2022, and to ask the important question: why don't Western leaders and policymakers understand the danger we are in? Listen to the episode for the full answer, but the short answer is Westerners really don't want to take the time to understand the Russian worldview, instead preferring to project their own ideas of realpolitik onto the current conflict. This is both troubling and dangerous, as you'll hear, and you'll get an in-depth overview of Yuriev's Third Empire that ties extremely well to the other two episodes.
After Putin's 2022 full invasion of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister said of Vladimir Putin, "He has three advisors: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great." Listen for that important through-line as you absorb these episodes. Also listen for mention of the oprichniki, the fearsome secret police created by Ivan the Terrible to enforce his will. Yuriev proposes bringing back the oprichniki in his new societal order — with Russia as master of the world, and Europe and America enslaved to it.
Ties to Mike Johnson and Maria Butina
While Yuriev died in 2019, that was after he moved to the United States in 2013 and helped establish a company called American Ethane, founded with Konstantin Nikolaev, a Putin crony. As previously reported, American Ethane became a major backer of current House Speaker Mike Johnson (whose lack of financial footprint has raised questions). Nikolaev also provided support for the well-known Russian spy Maria Butina. American Ethane CEO John Houghtaling also has a Russian wife who worked for Kremlin-connected Elite Model Management. More on that here.
Listen to these episodes and read the linked sources; it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are in grave danger — due to laziness, lack of knowledge, and a lack of will to engage in the difficult work of understanding the worldviews of our adversaries, however broken or bankrupt they may be.
It's likely that we will not be able to educate policymakers or the public in time to avert a catastrophe, but that doesn't relieve us of the duty to try; so please share this with your networks. It may help.