In a Telegram post, ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugin, known as “Putin’s Mastermind”, called the Russian president an autocrat with absolute power in war as he accused him of “surrendering” the city on November 12. He said the retreat undermines Russian ideology by failing to defend “Russian cities”. On September 30, President Putin officially annexed four Ukrainian provinces, including the southern Kherson region, to Russia. The pro-war Dugin, whose daughter was killed in a car explosion in Moscow earlier this year, said an autocrat has a responsibility to save his nation alone or face the fate of the “rain king”, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The US think tank said the quote was a reference to Sir James Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’, where a king was killed because he could not bring rain in the midst of a drought. ISW added: “Dugin also noted that the autocrat cannot repair this departure from ideology with public appearances alone, noting that ‘the authorities in Russia cannot deliver anything else’ and that ‘the limit has been reached.’ Dugin then referred to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. According to ISW: “He (Dugin) suggested, however, that Russia should commit to the Russian idea rather than pursue the ‘stupid’ use of nuclear weapons.” Russian political philosopher and ideologue Alexander Dugin appears during a memorial service for his daughter Daria Dugina on August 23, 2022 in Moscow, Russia. Dugin shared a veiled warning to Vladimir Putin. Getty The loss of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, adds to the list of mounting setbacks suffered by Russia, which has lost more than 77,000 troops since the start of the war, according to Ukrainian estimates. Russia rarely published its own figures, and its estimates were much lower than Ukraine’s. Both items have been viewed as inaccurate by outside observers. Dugin has been joined by other outspoken national figures who have expressed their dismay at Kherson’s retreat. Russian state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov, who is nicknamed “the voice of Putin” because of his support for the president, expressed his dismay at Moscow’s forces blowing up bridges as they retreated from Kherson. On Saturday, Solovyov, appearing on the Vesti FM radio show “Full Contact”, claimed that Russia had withdrawn its troops from some areas of Ukraine as a “gesture of goodwill”. But he soon became increasingly animated and suggested that the Russian military should have attacked Ukrainian infrastructure earlier as he discussed reports that troops had blown up bridges over the Dnipro River during their retreat. He said: “I have been screaming out loud since February that we have to hit the bridges, destroy the infrastructure, the delivery entrances. [Russian military] he said, “You don’t understand anything, they’re going to bring their equipment into the same area and we’re going to break it!” “So you broke it? You don’t understand, it’s a brother nation, we’ll have to restore these bridges, we’ll go in by them.” He added: “Where? Where will we enter? When they were leaving [Kherson], they blew up the bridges. Where will we enter?’ Newsweek has contacted the UK Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin for comment.
