Putin’s Brain: Aleksandr Dugin Endorses Trump in Recent CNN Interview

On 1 April 2025, The Con­ver­sa­tion report­ed that Russ­ian ultra-nation­al­ist ide­o­logue Alek­san­dr Dug­in has pub­licly endorsed Don­ald Trump’s poli­cies in a recent CNN inter­view. The arti­cle begins:

Alek­san­dr Dug­in, some­times referred to as “Putin’s brain” because of his ide­o­log­i­cal influ­ence on Russ­ian pol­i­tics, endorsed the poli­cies of Don­ald Trump in a CNN inter­view aired on March 30. Dug­in said Trump’s Amer­i­ca has a lot more in com­mon with Putin’s Rus­sia than most peo­ple think, adding: “Trump­ists and the fol­low­ers of Trump will under­stand much bet­ter what Rus­sia is, who Putin is and the moti­va­tions of our pol­i­tics.” Dug­in made his name by espous­ing Russ­ian nation­al­ist and tra­di­tion­al­ist – includ­ing anti­se­mit­ic – themes, and pub­lish­ing exten­sive­ly on the cen­tral­i­ty of Rus­sia in world civil­i­sa­tion. So, this endorse­ment should be a warn­ing of the dis­rup­tive nature of the Trump White House. It implies that Dug­in believes Trump’s poli­cies sup­port Russ­ian inter­ests. Dug­in began his career as an anti-com­mu­nist activist in the 1980s. This was less because of an ide­o­log­i­cal antipa­thy for com­mu­nism than his rejec­tion of the inter­na­tion­al­ism that the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of the Sovi­et Union espoused…

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Key Points:

• Dug­in claims Trump sup­port­ers will bet­ter under­stand Rus­sia and Putin, sug­gest­ing align­ment between Trump’s poli­cies and Russ­ian interests.
• Known as “Putin’s brain,” Dug­in pro­motes a “fourth polit­i­cal the­o­ry” com­bin­ing ele­ments from Marx­ism, fas­cism, and lib­er­al­ism while empha­siz­ing tra­di­tion­al values.
• The Krem­lin lever­ages Dug­in to pro­mote Russ­ian nation­al­ism abroad and sup­port divi­sive polit­i­cal move­ments in West­ern countries.
• Dug­in’s CNN inter­view endorse­ment like­ly received Krem­lin autho­riza­tion as part of Rus­si­a’s strat­e­gy to empha­size polit­i­cal divi­sions in adver­sary nations.

Alexan­der Dug­in is a Russ­ian polit­i­cal philoso­pher, strate­gist, and ide­o­logue known for his influ­en­tial role in shap­ing ultra­na­tion­al­ist and Eurasian­ist thought in post-Sovi­et Rus­sia. The GIOR report­ed exten­sive­ly on Dug­in through­out 2022:

• In March 2022, GIOR report­ed that the US Trea­sury had sanc­tioned Dug­in and the Unit­ed World Inter­na­tion­al (UWI) for being asso­ci­at­ed with Rus­si­a’s glob­al dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign on Ukraine. Darya Dug­i­na, the daugh­ter of Alexan­der Dug­in and UWI edi­tor, was also includ­ed in those sanc­tions. A sub­se­quent GIOR inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that UWI appears to be con­trolled by a pro-Russ­ian Turk­ish polit­i­cal party.
• In July 2022, GIOR report­ed that the UK had also sanc­tioned Dug­i­na and UWI, describ­ing the UWI as an enti­ty that “is or has been involved sup­port­ing, or pro­mot­ing poli­cies or actions which desta­bilis­es Ukraine or under­mines or threat­ens the ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty, sov­er­eign­ty or inde­pen­dence of Ukraine.”
• In August 2022, GIOR report­ed on fur­ther details about the UWI where Darya Dug­i­na was chief edi­tor until she was killed by a car bomb ear­li­er in the month.

Dis­claimer: The GIOR uti­lizes AI to gen­er­ate sum­maries of news items, includ­ing the intro­duc­tion and the key points that fol­low. Any text fol­low­ing the key points is con­text added by GIOR edi­tors. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion before using. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are meant to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned but should not be under­stood as “real-world” photography.