The Influence (Unsung in the West) of Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the Geopolitical Vision of Putin’s Russia.

The one who predicted the collapse of Ukraine has influenced the geopolitical vision of Russian politicians and greatly contributed to the souring of relations between Russia and the West.

While the war in Ukraine was raging and 50 people were killed by a missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station in the east of the country, on April 8, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin accompanied by the entire political class gathered in front of his coffin in the Hall of Columns of the House of Trade Unions in Moscow, at the same place where, on March 6, 1953, the country had said goodbye to Stalin.

Zhirinovsky was buried with military honors in the prestigious Novodevichy cemetery, after a funeral mass celebrated by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

Zhirinovsky had long prophesied the end of Ukraine

In December 2021, Zhirinovsky told the Duma that 2022 would not be a year of peace. “It will be the year when Russia will become a great power,” he was careful to announce. He suggested, on this occasion, to wait for the date of February 22, 2022, condemning in passing the hostile attitude of the West and suggesting that in the absence of support of the Russian people to the new direction of the foreign policy of Russia, the Western countries "would crush the Russians first in the Donbas, then in the West of Russia."

Regarding his vision for Ukraine, he stated in 2018 in an interview with Deutsche Welle: “One way or another, Ukraine will collapse: Poland will take the Western part; Hungary, the Carpathians; Romania, Bukovina and Bessarabia and we will take the whole of Novorossiya.”

As a reminder, this region - New Russia - located along the Black Sea and including the Sea of Azov, extended, in the empire of the tsars, in the eighteenth century, to the current border of Moldova. It corresponded to the current regions of Mykolaïv, Odesa, Kherson, and Kirovograd, to which was added a part of the current Donetsk oblast.

“Ukraine has no future,” Zhirinovsky continued, and nothing could, in his view, improve relations with Russia at this point, because “anti-Russian, pro-Western, and anti-constitutional forces were in power in that country.” In 2015, he advocated holding referendums in the Baltic states on the issue of returning these states to the fold of Russia.

Paradoxically, he ostensibly welcomed the perceived “beneficial” effect of sanctions against Russia, adding, “It's better when the West perceives us as an enemy and hinders us with sanctions and more sanctions because that's how we will strengthen ourselves!”

Brzezinsky or Zhirinovsky?

Born in 1946 in Kazakhstan, Vladimir Wolfovitch Zhirinovsky was a seemingly brutal and truculent character, known for his verbal provocations that regularly aroused the indignation of Westerners. In reality, he was an eminent specialist in Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, and the Arab world.

Zhirinovsky was fluent in five languages. He was the son of Wolf Edelstein, a Jewish businessman from a region in eastern Poland that is now in Ukraine. He had been deported by the Soviets to Kazakhstan and eventually emigrated to Israel. Vladimir Zhirinovsky was a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Languages, a lawyer, and a doctor of philosophy from the prestigious Moscow State University.

Zhirinovsky held the rank of colonel and his membership in the KGB was revealed in 1994 by Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of St. Petersburg. He was a deputy in the Duma since 1991. He had run six times for the presidential elections in Russia and had been a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

His geopolitical doctrine was presented in 1993 in a book entitled “The Last Leap to the South” (Poslednyi Brosok Na Ioug) published by his party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). Regrettably, this doctrine exists only in Russia, but it has been criticized in the Western world for its broad outlines.

Given the geostrategic developments in Russia over the last three decades, Zhirinovsky's work can be compared - in terms of influence and scope - to that of Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives”, published in the United States in 1997, in which Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor advocated the maintenance of American hegemony in the world.

The doctrine developed by Zhirinovsky has, indeed, since its publication, influenced many political and military figures in post-Soviet Russia. Very concerned about the evolution of the Muslim world, he was in favor of a longitudinal division of the world between the great powers of the Northern hemisphere. He proposed to establish “Russian peace” in the southern confines of Russia (Arab world, Persia, Turkey, up to Afghanistan) and perhaps beyond.

The pacification of the South was both his obsession: “It is a necessary medicine for Russia” and his dream: “I dream of seeing Russian soldiers washing their boots in the warm water of the Indian Ocean and exchanging their clothes for summer clothes forever.” Zhirinovsky also advocated the return of Alaska to Russia.

In the Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovsky was criticized for supporting the candidacy of controversial figures seeking parliamentary immunity. This is the case of Andrei Lougovoï, who was approached to succeed him as head of the LDPR after his death. Lougovoï made a career in the Russian intelligence services. Suspected of having used polonium to poison former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, he is on the British police's wanted list. His partner in this criminal case, Dimitri Kovtun (1965-2022), died on June 4, 2022.

The chairman of the Duma Committee on CIS issues, Leonid Slutsky, a deputy of the Duma, became the chairman of the LDPR. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, he was part of the Russian delegation in charge of the peace negotiations with Ukraine. Given Zhirinovsky's position on Ukraine, it is unlikely that this participation will lead to peace between Ukraine and Russia.

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