“My extreme position boils down to the following: Russia's victory in the conflict with Ukraine is a necessary condition for the survival of the country and the ability to generate its own image of the future and its own project, at least geopolitical.
I say "at least" because this is the simplest of all possible projections.
But, alas, the necessary condition is not sufficient, as mathematicians tell us - and rightly so.
And this means that it is precisely in war conditions, when, as a rule, everyone begins to say “everything for the front, everything for victory,” we need to deliver shells, make drones, prepare daggers, and so on - it is at this time that it is very carefully necessary think about what the next world will be like.
Let me remind you of the standard definition of Liddell Harth: the goal of war is a world better than the pre-war one, if only from your personal point of view.
And here Russia has a very serious problem.
Let me emphasize that it is not so noticeable inside Russia, but it is very noticeable outside of it. And as you yourself understand, this type of conflict is fought on a huge stage, which is the world.
That is, it is not only Russia and Ukraine, not only Russia, Ukraine and the West, it is China, and India, and Indonesia, and Brazil, and Venezuela, this is a huge number of countries that look and think in which direction they themselves , ultimately, will move, that is, what image of the world, what image of the future they consider adequate.
So that's why I'm talking about Russia's problems. Russia is an Orthodox country. Orthodoxy in its very essence, including the description of God, is apophatic, that is, this description is through negation.
God is not a king, God is not a man, God is not a spirit. That is, we make our description through what is not what we are now considering.
Exactly the same is now manifested in Russian politics, and in relation to Russian images of the future.
If we carefully study what the president said at Valdai, we will again see clear apophaticism.
We are well aware and rather harshly say what we do NOT want to see in the world of the future. We don't want to see transgender people, LGBT people, the dictatorship of the West, a culture of cancellation... We don't want to see a lot of things. From the point of view of Orthodoxy, from the point of view of apophaticism, this already describes the world in many ways, but not everyone belongs to this denomination.
And many people want, in addition to answering the question “What will we not have?”, At least some answer would be given to the question “What will happen?”, That is, what image of the world we consider positive.
And this is where Russia has very serious problems all the time.
Sometimes we do not have an answer to this question, sometimes we have it, but we are ashamed of it. Sometimes we have it, and we pronounce it, but we choose to denote it such words that, in general, in all other languages, except for Russian, have no meaning inside themselves, and therefore are not perceived by anyone, or, even worse , are perceived as completely inadequate.
From this point of view, I understand very well why the president is now concerned not with the issues of two or three years and the victory in the NWO, but with the problem of the 20120s and 2050s and Russia's place in the future world.
The entire issue featuring Sergei Pereslegin can be viewed here.