Andrei Martyanov doesn’t mince his words.
In our latest conversation he delivered one of the bluntest assessments of the current geopolitical rupture I have heard: the West has finally achieved what it always claimed to want — the permanent exclusion of Russia from “Western civilisation.”
The twist is that Russian society has now fully reciprocated. The old Soviet-era mixture of admiration and envy toward the West is gone. In its place sits a cold, high-intensity hostility.
Ordinary Europeans who move to Russia are still welcomed. But European governments, media and political classes are regarded as existential enemies.
Martyanov argues this shift is irreversible. Daily elite Russophobia, open Western celebration of Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi elements, and calls to “kill more Russians” have destroyed any remaining illusions.
Russians no longer believe a normal relationship is possible. When the fighting eventually ends, there will be no return to the pre-2022 status quo.
“Never again,” he says, will Russian blood or Russian soldiers be spent stabilising or defending Europe.
Europe itself, in his view, is already finished as a coherent civilisation. France is demographically transforming beyond recognition and will not survive as a unified state in its current form. Germany was never properly denazified after 1945 — the Western allies deliberately preserved Wehrmacht and SS expertise for the coming confrontation with the Soviet Union — and today’s leadership continues that lineage.
The continent is de-industrialising, energy-poor, and ruled by what Martyanov calls credentialed idiots and political prostitutes. Its mainstream media (BBC, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist) are not news organisations but propaganda outlets complicit in war crimes.
Meanwhile Russia has completed a strategic reorientation toward Asia. Energy, trade and long-term partnership now flow east. The European market is no longer the prize it once was.
Ordinary Russians, Martyanov notes, are in many material respects living better than their European counterparts — higher real wages in manufacturing, widespread car ownership, and a tangible sense of national purpose. The mythology of Western superiority has collapsed.
The conversation also covered the moral and institutional decay of Western political systems, the transformation of the US Congress into what he calls “Knesset 2.0,” and the military reality that Russia cannot be defeated on the battlefield.
His forthcoming book Obsolete will expand on the West’s comprehensive loss of the arms race.
There was little optimism about near-term reconciliation. The divorce, in Martyanov’s judgement, is final. Europe chose this path. Russia has simply stopped pretending otherwise.You can watch the full interview here:
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Wherever you are in the world, whatever your nationality and religion, I wish you much peace.
"European governments, media and political classes are regarded as existential enemies". They are also existential enemies of many of their own populations - especially those who question the lies and refuse to accept their open russophobia or their covert (and sometimes overt) support of genocidal Israel.
"Europe chose this."
Washington chose this. The political prostitutes of Europe did as instructed. As did the press organs who are even less self aware.
There is no part of this description, which is perfectly accurate, that indicates that Europe chose anything at all.