The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

This was about much more than Crimea, much more than Ukraine, and Putin's speech made that clear. Dugin had spent years waiting for Russia to claim its place as the leader of the anti-modern world. The idea, like Dugin's other ideas, had been gaining traction, and Dugin had been accumulating powerful allies. When the protests in Ukraine created an opportunity to be heard, one of these allies, a billionaire who had been supporting ultraconservative groups, delivered a memorandum to the Kremlin. It proposed using the chaos in Ukraine to launch the process of annexing Crimea and southeastern Ukraine. Written before Ukrainian president Yanukovych was deposed, the memo predicted his demise. It also attributed the Maidan to Polish and British Secret Services and proposed that Russia beat the West at its own game: organize unrest on the ground in southeastern Ukraine to justify its intervention. Many of the words and ideas in the memo belonged to Dugin.²²

In late February, Putin's administration started organizing and financing anti-Kiev, pro-Moscow protests in cities in south and eastern Ukraine. By design, once people could be roused to storm and occupy government buildings, and while there to adopt resolutions asking for Moscow's help, Russian intervention would begin.²³ Top- level Kremlin officials gave orders and doled out money to local organizers; Dugin stayed in contact with activists, advised on strategy, and issued reassurances. Russia would not stop at Crimea, he told his contacts: it would help southeastern Ukraine fight against Kiev. Sitting in a tall black leather chair in his home office, with hundreds of books for his backdrop, he would conduct long Skype sessions with Ukrainian activists. "This is only the beginning," he would say. "Those who think that it all ended with Crimea are very wrong."²⁴

In early April, the protesters in Donetsk and Luhansk, two regional centers in eastern Ukraine, began taking over government buildings. Some of them were armed with weapons looted from a local armory.²⁵ On April 7, protesters convened a government of what they called the People's Republic of Donetsk and passed a resolution asking Russia to intervene. Fighting began with isolated battles in some other eastern cities—Ukrainian government forces were able to prevent the takeover of more government buildings—and then it became war.²⁶ The United States, which had imposed sanctions on Russia after the occupation of Crimea—including visa and business bans on several businessmen and officials—threatened further

sanctions. Europe hesitated.²⁷

Russia failed to rouse large enough uprisings in the south, but Ukrainian forces failed to restore Kiev's authority in the east.²⁸

On April 17, Putin held his annual televised hotline. Before he entered the studio, one of the two hosts set the stage:

If things were different, I might have said that this will be yet another conversation, but on this day we have a different country listening to us. Russia is now united with Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.* We have been waiting for this moment for twenty- three long years, ever since the Soviet Union fell apart. For this reason every question today will be either directly related to Crimea

or will have a subtext colored by Crimea.²⁹

The show lasted nearly four hours. A lot was said. The annexation of Crimea was placed in line with Russia's great Second World War victory. Russians who opposed the annexation were condemned as traitors. One such opponent came to the show to make amends. It was Irina Khakamada, who back in 1999 had been one of only two Union of Right Forces founders to oppose Putin's candidacy for president—Nemtsov had been the other. A month before this show, she had also opposed the annexation. But now she said to Putin:

I have come to say the following. Crimea has always needed to have

a Russian identity. I have often been to Crimea They always

wanted to be a part of Russia. It happened the way it did, so be it. You are the victor. You really did pull off that operation without firing a single shot.

The opposition—the barely perceptible 1 percent—was surrendering. Only one member of parliament—Masha's former boss Ilya Ponomarev—had voted against ratifying the Russian-Crimean union treaty. He had since been forced to leave the country.³⁰ Now Nemtsov remained the only person with any name recognition who opposed the annexation.