Russia ready for 100 years of solitude says Vladimir Putin aide

A key adviser to Vladimir Putin has declared that the country is entering ‘100 years of solitude’ after a final break with the West.

Vladimir Putin speaks to Vladislav Surko, during a visit in Kurgan, Russia. Picture: RIA Novosti Kremlin via AP

A key figure behind Vladimir Putin’s two-decade rule over Russia has declared that the country is entering “100 years of solitude” after a final break with the West.

Vladislav Surkov, one of Mr Putin’s longest-serving and most influential advisers, said that the consequences of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 were only now becoming apparent. “The event is the conclusion of Russia’s epic journey towards the West, the ending of numerous fruitless attempts to become part of western civilisation, to inter-marry with the ‘good family’ of European nations,” he wrote in a sweeping essay.

His declaration of a watershed moment in history is supported by warnings from the Kremlin that relations with the US, Britain and their allies are worse now than during the Cold War.

Billions of dollars were wiped off the value of Russian stocks on international markets and the rouble slid after the US imposed sanctions on several oligarchs and businesses on Friday. Russia said yesterday it planned to retaliate. “It is a rule of the game: there should be an appropriate answer to any unfriendly step,” Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister, said.

Mikhail Gorbachev, 87, the former Soviet leader, urged Mr Putin and President Trump to meet and establish dialogue. Asked if a confrontation similar to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was close as the two sides sparred over Syria, he said: “I hope it won’t get to that point. But there is great concern.”

Mr Surkov, 53, said that Russia would not be completely cut off from the world, and the country’s fate remained in its own hands — but it had to stop lying to itself about its identity. He did not refer to the poisoning in Salisbury last month of Sergei Skripal or the latest sanctions, but appeared to hint at them by saying that the significance of events four years ago was coming into focus at a time of feverish news, with “an indefinitely long new period” of geopolitical solitude looming.

Russia should accept its fate as an “east-west, half-breed country” spanning two continents and mentalities — “charismatic, talented, beautiful and alone”, he said. “How will the solitude be that stands before us? The wretched existence of a bachelor on the sidelines? Or the happy solitude of a leader of an alpha country that has leapt forward, while other nations and states step aside and let it through? It depends on us.”

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Picture:

That was a clear reference to Mr Putin, described as an “alpha dog” in a US diplomatic cable leaked in 2010.

Mr Surkov was deputy chief of staff to Mr Putin during his first two terms and was seen as a “grey cardinal” figure. He remains influential and more recently has worked as the president’s point man on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Leaked emails suggest his staff co-ordinated attempts to foment rebellion beyond areas held by pro-Moscow rebels. He predicted in his treatise that for Russia “solitude does not mean complete isolation”.

The country “will trade, attract investment, exchange knowledge, fight, take part in collaborations, be a member of organisations, compete and co-operate, provoke fear and hatred, curiosity, sympathy and admiration. Only without false aims and self-denial.”

Russia’s hybrid identity has been the subject of intellectual discourse for centuries, with “westernisers” and “Slavophiles” disputing the primacy of common European values and a special Russian character.

Mr Putin is an admirer of the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, and in 2015 quoted his phrase “Russia is the great East-West, an entire huge world in itself” as a definition of national identity.

Mr Surkov is known as a magpie of contemporary culture who listened to the American rapper Tupac Shakur even while acting as puppet-master to the vociferously anti-western Nashi youth group. His article, published in a government-linked global affairs journal, was peppered with ironic references to Russians “co-working with the Asiatic Horde” and Europe and Russia having “different software”.

“Russia went four centuries to the east and then four to the west,” he said. “Neither here nor there did we take root. Both roads have been walked.”

In an echo of Tony Blair, he added that “ideologies of a third way, a third type of civilisation” would be needed.

He finished his article by quoting Oxxxymiron, a rapper critical of Moscow: “Around only thorns, thorns, thorns. F***, where are the stars?”

Mr Surkov added: “It will be interesting. There will be stars.”

The Times