By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police are checking whether or not President Vladimir Putin’s former chief strategist has broken the law by authoring an article which suggested that Russia and the West might become aligned one day, after the war in Ukraine.
Vladislav Surkov, once dubbed Kremlin’s “puppet master” by friends and foes alike, helped Putin forge his tightly controlled political system. He left the Kremlin in 2020.
In an article published on Sept. 27 entitled the “Birth of the North”, Surkov suggested that no major powers would get what they wanted out of the Ukraine war and that Russia, the United States and Europe would draw closer together in the future.
“There will be a Great North – Russia, the USA and Europe forming a common socio-cultural space,” Surkov said, adding that the term “Global South” indicated there had to be a north too.
Two Russian state news agencies, TASS and RIA, reported that Russian police were looking into the article after a complaint. The Baza Telegram channel was first to report the complaint. Surkov could not immediately be reached for comment.
His article contradicts the current Kremlin line that the West is a declining and arrogant force for evil which is intent on cleaving Russia apart to grab its vast natural resources.
But many in the broader Russian elite are troubled by the Kremlin’s pivot to China, which Putin is visiting this week, and say Russia is culturally and historically rooted in Europe, despite the current confrontation with the West over Ukraine.
Surkov said in his article that the world’s major civilisations would face turmoil in the coming years and that, while a Russian alignment with the West might seem far fetched, so had a united Russia in the 13th century.
He said the chance to forge an alignment was missed when the West laughed off Putin’s suggestion in the 2000s that Russia might join the NATO military alliance.
Sergei Markov, a political scientist who is close to the Kremlin, cast the police investigation as foolish.
“Surkov should not be trolled,” Markov said. “Surkov is a very talented and experienced person.”
“Pushing such talented bright people like Surkov into opposition is a political mistake. Give Surkov a job.”
Surkov worked as first deputy chief of the Kremlin administration from 1999 to 2011, then worked in the government and later in the Kremlin as a presidential adviser.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones)
