‘War in Ukraine Will Separate Sheep From Goats’ – Vladislav Surkov

In his first major interview since he was sacked by the Kremlin in 2020 and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, the “backroom ideologist” credited with many of President Vladimir Putin’s political ideas and the concept of “Novorossiya,” gave his take on Moscow’s war against Ukraine to the French media outlet L’Express.

Surkov said Russia’s strategic objectives remain unchanged. It seeks the “military… and diplomatic crushing of Ukraine” and the “division of this artificial quasi-state into its natural fragments.

Asked if he thought that contrary to that aim the war with Russia had strengthened the Ukrainian state and reinforced an “anti-Russian” outlook even among Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Surkov maintained his view that Ukraine was an artificial entity that had pushed at least three very different ethnic groups together and was destined to fail.

He added that “the war in Ukraine will separate Russians from those who are anti-Russian or, to paraphrase the Bible, the sheep from the goats.”

He added that while perhaps one day Ukraine will become a real nation state it would be one that is much smaller and “confined within its historical territory” and that the Russian soil it previously occupied – presumably referring to the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia – will return to Mother Russia.

Other Topics of Interest

Russian Court Sentences 23 Ukrainian Captives to Long Prison Terms

The convictions targeted members and former members of Ukraine’s Azov brigade, a unit Russia declared a “terrorist and extremist” organization in August 2022.

The March 22 ISW report commented that the Kremlin has used the pretext of “Russkiy Mir” [Russian World] – the protection of Russian speaking minorities – to justify its aggression in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Surkov reinforced this view by saying that bringing Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence was a key objective for Moscow.

Asked whether this view would spread to other areas Surkov said that the “Russian World has no borders,” and would exist “wherever there is Russian influence,” whether cultural, military, economic, ideological, or humanitarian. He added that Russia “will spread out in all directions.”

This sort of rhetoric would be of particular concern for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which all have sizable ethnic Russian citizens.

Seemingly dismissive of the efforts of US President Donald Trump’s to secure a peaceful resolution to the war he said that Russian victory in Ukraine would eventually be achieved even if it meant agreeing to “maneuvers, slowdowns, and pauses along the way.”

He went on to suggest, as have many critics of the position taken during the early days of Trump’s second presidency, that much of what the new US regime espoused was very similar to “the principles of sovereign democracy,” which Surkov says he “formulated in the early 2000s, and which have become the conceptual basis of Putinism.”

He then said “Coincidence? Who knows? Whatever the case, it is clear that ideologically Trump is closer to Putin than to Macron.”

Asked whether the US under Trump could become Russia’s ally, Surkov said, “Trump doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to make allies.”

He was then asked if the system of “democracy” developed in Russia that relies on the ideas of one man is inherently vulnerable to which Surkov said:

“There is no such thing as an ideal political system... Our model, like all others, has its own risks [but] it is simply the most effective model for our country. It took me ten years to build it and look at it: it works. We need a tsar.

“Periods without a tsar always end in disaster for us. Multipolarity is good for foreign policy, not domestic policy.”

Asked if the Russia of today is the one he imagined in 1999, Sourkov replied: “Yes, 99.9%.”