Kurt Mills

And that they are not going to work with the Europeans who they think are basically histrionic and outdated in their thinking.

They will work with the Americans.

The Americans, I think, and this is also something we've also discussed, is because there's no real love lost between them and the Chinese.

They will work with the Chinese.

They are more in line with the Chinese now.

But they don't trust them.

Russia has a massive border with China, not with the U.S.

And so there's an opportunity, and people can say it's sort of pie in the sky.

I think it's unclear.

The person you cited, Dugin, is not just some rando.

I think his relationships with Putin are probably slightly overstated, but they know that he has a massive profile and that he's pumping out all this philosophical conjecture all the time.

And to an extent, I think he represents the vanguard of the Russian state and the Russian project.

I think that's an interesting comparison you made with World War I. In a lot of ways, the situation has reversed because

I was in meetings in Brussels in June, and to hear some of these, and these are not low ranking people that I was talking to, hear some of these Europeans, they were just one more armed shipment away from taking out Putin in Moscow.

That's the cast of mind in Europe.

And versus the Russians think that this war is going just fine.

To an extent, parts of Russia, Russian society fears demobilization, fears the end of the war.

So these sides are very far apart.

As to Russia's orientation to the rest of the world, I mean, A, they have a lot of strong relations within the global south.

But in general, I would say geopolitically, they are a lone wolf.