«Give us Ukraine and we will not escalate»: Dugin’s ultimatum as an exposure of the Kremlin’s imperial logic

A short phrase by the «philosopher» Alexander Dugin, one of the ideologists of the mythical «Russian world», published on the social network X, at first glance may seem like another provocative remark by a perverted Russian imperial revisionist bent on destroying the statehood of Ukraine: «If you want us not to escalate give us Ukraine and we won’t» – «If you want us not to escalate give us Ukraine and we won’t».

However, in a political sense, this message deserves much more attention than an ordinary post on a social network. It demonstrates in an extremely concentrated way the system of coordinates in which part of the Russian political and intellectual establishment considers the war against Ukraine, relations with the West and Ukraine’s very right to exist as an independent state.

That is why Dugin’s words should be read not so much as a propaganda slogan, but as a formula for political blackmail and at the same time as an exposure of the imperial logic that underlies Russia’s perverted claims to Ukraine.

It is important, however, to immediately draw a principled line: Dugin is not an official representative of the Russian Federation and his post cannot be automatically interpreted as a direct statement of the Kremlin. And his Eurasian concept is only one of the trends in Russian nationalist thought, and the degree of his direct influence on the Russian president remains a subject of debate.

At the same time, his statements are important as an indicator of a radical segment of Russian strategic thinking that seeks to explain the war not simply as a struggle for foreign territories, but as a civilizational confrontation between Russia and the West.

In this sense, the formula «give us Ukraine» is much more frank than the numerous diplomatic euphemisms with which Moscow has described its claims for years. It does not even formally recognize Ukraine as a subject of international politics.

Ukraine appears not as a state that has the right to independently determine its own foreign policy, but as the subject of an agreement between Russia and the West. The very word «give» is fundamental here. It implies that the United States and European states supposedly own Ukraine and can transfer it to another state as a geopolitical asset. This is not the language of international law. This is the language of spheres of influence, imperial politics, and bargaining between large powers over the fates of smaller nations.

Even more important is the second part of the formula: «and we will not escalate». That is, Russia is actually offering the West not peace, but an agreement not to take certain actions in exchange for Ukraine’s surrender. The «logic» here is fundamentally different from classical diplomacy, where the parties are trying to find a mutually acceptable compromise.

We have before us the model of «concessions in exchange for postponement of the threat». Moscow, in this reading, does not refuse to use force; it only offers the West a way to temporarily avoid its further use – to agree to Russian control over Ukraine.

That is why this statement should not be perceived as a compromise proposal. A compromise implies mutual concessions. In the construction proposed by Dugin, Russia gets Ukraine, while the West gets a promise from Russia not to do something else.

Moreover, the boundaries of this «yet» remain undefined. And this is fundamentally important. If the very transfer of Ukraine to Russia is presented as a condition for refusing further escalation, an obvious question arises: what will be the next demand after Ukraine? The logic of political blackmail almost never ends with the first concession if the concession itself is perceived not as a compromise, but as proof of the opponent’s weakness.

This aspect is especially important for understanding the Russian concept of the so-called «Russian world». In its radical interpretation, it is not just about the cultural space of the Russian language or the «protection» of Russian-speaking citizens.

The concept has gradually turned into a political doctrine that assumes Moscow’s special right to influence the post-Soviet space. And after 2014, the concept of the «Russian world» became more and more closely associated with the Russian nationalist narrative of the restoration of great-power status and revenge in the post-Soviet space.

Ukraine occupies a special place in this construction. It is Ukrainian independence that is a fundamental challenge to the Russian concept of a «single people» and the historical exceptionalism of Russia.

If Ukraine is a full-fledged political nation that has its own historical memory, its own state, and the right to independently choose its civilizational and geopolitical course, then the very idea of ​​«natural» Russian hegemony in the post-Soviet space collapses. Therefore, the denial of Ukrainian subjectivity is not an accidental element of Russian propaganda, but an important component of a broader political construction.

And this problem cannot be understood only through the prism of the personal views of Putin or Dugin. It has deeper historical roots. For centuries, Russian elites have viewed Ukrainian lands through the concept of a «triune Russian people», where Ukrainians were treated as part of a broader Russian national community. Modern Russian political rhetoric largely reproduces this historical model, although it adapts it to the conditions of the 21st century.

This is where the «philosopher» Dugin is interesting as a political symptom. His significance lies not in the fact that he personally defines the Kremlin’s policy, but in the fact that he formulates its most radical ideological version without diplomatic restrictions. Where official Russian diplomacy speaks of «security», «historical interests», «neutral status», or «Russia’s legitimate demands», Dugin says more simply: give us Ukraine. This is a kind of translation of Moscow’s geopolitical language into the language of imperial desire.

And that is why his phrase should be interesting to Western politicians. It shows that the problem that Russia is trying to solve through war is much broader than the issue of individual territories, the front line, or the future status of certain regions of Ukraine.

This is a fundamental question: does Russia have the right to determine the geopolitical choices of neighboring states? If the West’s answer is positive, at least with regard to Ukraine, it will mean a de facto return to the classical policy of spheres of influence, where the sovereignty of small and medium-sized states depends on the will of large states.

This is where the main boundary between two possible models of European order passes. The first is based on the principle that borders, sovereignty, and foreign policy choices of states cannot be the subject of a forced agreement between stronger neighbors.

The second proceeds from the fact that large states have the right to establish their own «security zones» and determine which states can be independent only to the extent that this does not contradict the interests of the regional hegemon. Dugin’s statement is actually a manifesto of the second model.

Despite the fact that such rhetoric does not mean the inevitability of a Russian attack on NATO countries, and that there is a fundamental difference between an ideological statement, political intention and real military capability, its ideological component cannot be ignored either. After all, Moscow increasingly views the conflict not only as a struggle for Ukraine, but as a long-term systemic confrontation with the Euro-Atlantic West.

Therefore, Dugin’s phrase can be seen as a kind of test for Western strategy. The Russian message is formulated as simply as possible: if you want to avoid escalation, agree to our main demand.

But the problem is that concession under the threat of force does not eliminate the blackmail mechanism – it rewards it. If a state receives significant political reward from the threat of escalation, in the future such behavior will become its basic strategy for achieving geopolitical goals.

In this context, it is especially important not to confuse peace with the absence of active hostilities. Peace is a state in which states have reason to believe that their sovereignty and security do not depend on the goodwill of a stronger neighbor.

If Ukraine is forced to agree to a model in which its foreign policy is determined by Moscow, this may temporarily reduce the intensity of the war, but at the same time it will create a fundamentally unstable security system. After all, Russia will receive not only territorial or political gains, but also confirmation of the effectiveness of forceful revisionism.

However, there is another paradox. Dugin, demanding to «give» Ukraine to Russia, actually demonstrates how far from reality the idea in Moscow about the possibility of Ukraine returning to the former sphere of Russian influence without a deep transformation of the Ukrainian political nation itself is.

During the years of war, Ukrainian identity did not weaken, but, on the contrary, was largely consolidated around the idea of ​​a separate statehood. And the war strengthened the perception of Russia in Ukraine precisely as an aggressive imperial power.

Therefore, the chauvinistic formula «give us Ukraine» has another weakness: it is based on the assumption that Ukraine can be «given away» at all. But Ukraine is not a territory belonging to Russia, the United States, or the European Union. It is a sovereign state, and Ukrainians are a nation that determines its own future.

There is no mechanism in international law by which one state can legitimately hand over another state to a third party. Therefore, the very way the question is posed already contains a complete denial of the basic principle of the modern international system.

For now, the real value of Dugin’s post for political analysis is that it demonstrates, without embellishment, the logic by which in Russia Ukrainian sovereignty is viewed as a bargaining chip, and the Russian threat as an instrument of coercion by the West. There is no offer of an equal peace in this formula. There is a demand for surrender, backed up by a promise not to worsen the situation even further.

That is why the West should read such statements not only literally, but also strategically. If the threat of escalation is met by handing over the state to the blackmailer’s sphere of influence, this does not create a new security system – it creates a precedent.

And then the main question becomes not whether Russia is capable of «escalating», but whether the West considers the principle of sovereignty to be a bargaining chip. Actually, this is the true meaning of Dugin’s «give us Ukraine». This is not so much a demand for a specific country as a test of the limits to which the West is ready to retreat in the face of brute force.

And the answer to this test will determine not only the future of Ukraine. It will largely determine what the European security system will be like after the current war: a system of rules in which states have the right to independently determine their own future, or a system of spheres of influence where the fate of some countries is decided by stronger states behind their backs.

That is why one short phrase by Dugin turned out to be much more telling than its author might have wanted. It effectively formulated the Russian demand in its simplest form: not to convince Ukraine, not to negotiate with Ukraine, but to get Ukraine. And this is the essence of the problem that the international community must solve.