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You have accurately quoted the sentence I wrote in comment #172 as saying: “We now have learned that Prigozhin fielded a political action in the US during the 2015/16 election which resulted in the Trump election.” The meaning of this sentence was ambiguous as written. I should have said that:

“Trump was the victor in the 2015/16 election. We have now learned Prigozhin field political action to affect that election. I wonder how much that might have affected the election results.” Putin no doubt had Prigozhin do this to distance himself from accusations of tampering with US elections. I wonder if Prigozhin was similarly engaged during the Brexit fight in the UK. Putin’s use of Prigozhin in Africa to gain gold, diamonds and other valuable minerals, has also enabled Putin to feign ignorance of these activities.

None of this should surprise anyone who takes the trouble to read Alexander Dugin’s book, Foundations of Geopolitics, 1997, which is also linked in comment #172. His writings are reported to be a strong influence on Putin’s world geographical view. I did not come up with the 20 bullet points describing how to conquer the world, Dugin did, and Putin has studied them. This book is read in RUssia’s war colleges, and it has even been proposed to require it in high schools.

If you don’t read the link then you are choosing to remain ignorant and every point you make will be an ignorant one and well worth ignoring. Anyone making comments here who is not aware of the content of Dugin’s book and thoughts is like a person who was unaware of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in 1938. Totally lacking in the information needed to understand or predict Hitler’s soon to be seen world moves, or to write intelligently about him or them.

--- "None of this should surprise anyone who takes the trouble to read Alexander Dugin’s book, Foundations of Geopolitics, 1997, which is also linked in comment #172. His writings are reported to be a strong influence on Putin's world geographical view. I did not come up with the 20 bullet points describing how to conquer the world...."

Thanks for the reference by name. I did a search for the work, and so question your statement about "how to conquer the world...." If you have a source / citation to offer, it would be appreciated. Have you a copy of the work in English? If so, what publisher name?

Wiki reflects the old USSR strategy, as one learned through a variety of sources: one is "45 COMMUNIST GOALS FROM 58 YEARS AGO"

https://www.ethanallen.org/45_communist_goals_from_58_years_ago

The Wiki reads: "Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should 'introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics'."

In "Foundations of Geopolitics" -- Wiki

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Of an English translation on Amazon, one Amazon reviewer states: "The English translation is so bad as to be unintelligible. Russian words are left in at random, more than 90% of all sentences are garbled - several sentences in the sample completely lack verbs. Much of this book is therefore sadly nonsense."

Source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Foundations-Geopolitics-Geopolitical-English-Translation-ebook/dp/B087R1ZJBK

There seems to be an online machine-assist translation (not through Amazon and free on line) : https://agdugintranslate.gitbook.io/foundations-of-geopolitics/part-1-founding-founders-of-geopolitics/chapter-1-friedrich-ratzel.-states-as-spatial-organisms

From Part 4 one reads "On the other side of the liberalism of the 'reformers' and the Soviet-tsarism of the 'united opposition' there is an urgent need for a 'third way', for a special ideological project that would not be a compromise, not a 'centrism' between the two, but a completely radical innovative a futuristic plan breaking with the hopeless dualistic logic of 'either liberals or the opposition' where, as in a maze without a way out, the current Russian public consciousness rushes about."

Recalling that the text was from 1997, is states a different way from liberalism or what he called Soviet-tsarism is imagined.

Skimming the text, it is interesting to note he speaks to a "re-division of the world." Perhaps this is what suggests to you a "conquer the world" imagery. I suspect it more subtle and different.

In that, he writes: "Russians in the New Empire act simultaneously in two roles:
1) As one of the large nations that are political entities of the Federal Empire of the Nations,
2) As the initiator of continental integration into this Federated Empire of Nations."

Interesting too is his statement "During the historical formation of the final geographical picture of the West, the primacy from the island of England passed to the continent of America, especially to the United States. Thus, the USA and the NATO bloc controlled by them became the maximum embodiment of thalassocracy [ sea-based society or state ] in its strategic, ideological, economic, and cultural aspects."

"...Russia has two options, either the military occupation of Europe, or such a reorganization of the European space that will make this geopolitical sector a reliable strategic alliance of Moscow, preserving its sovereignty, autonomy and autarchy. The first option is so unrealistic that it should not be discussed seriously. The second option is complicated, but feasible, since half a century spent by Europe in the position of an American colony left a serious mark in European consciousness.
"Friendly Europe as a strategic ally of Russia can arise only if it is united. Otherwise, the Atlantic adversary will find many ways to bring crushing and schism into the European bloc, provoking a conflict similar to the two world wars."

He seems to speak of a "New Eurasian Order" which is not, therefore a "empire" with Moscow as a new tsar, but a federation of sorts, in which Russia as a nation plays a role. Sounds about the way the BRICS+ and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which the current Biden administration seems to be flummoxed by.

The last chapter is titled, "Chapter 6 - From sacred geography to geopolitics." It ends with "The planetary supra-racial and supranational Geopolitical Revolution, based on the fundamental solidarity of the Third World with that part of the Second World, which rejects rich north project. "

Source: https://agdugintranslate.gitbook.io/foundations-of-geopolitics/part-6-eurasian-analysis/chapter-6-from-sacred-geography-to-geopolitics

What seems likely is that a nation with some 145 million cannot provide troops to "occupy" all of Europe and its 700 million, or the EU zone with its 450 million, or even the entire current borders of Ukraine. The arithmetic is not with the Russian Federation, in that regard. Neither is it in the NATO's ability to 'return the favor.'

It seems that "conquer the world" is old imagery, while something akin to that "new Empire" which is not Russia as a single nation, but something like Bush's "new world order" and Biden's "new liberal order." A consortium of nations aligning in opposition to another consortium of nations seems to be the clearer picture. It is one I personally think the bumbling Blinken (and recently Yellen) are not dealing well with. That consortium seems to be larger than Russia alone, as the BRICS+ and SCO are evidencing.

Trump's stance seems rather clear in this, that we need to "deal" with all the nations of the world, rather than expend further our situation in which, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote, ""Is the United States economically capable or politically unified or socially stable enough to wage a huge proxy war on the frontiers of a nuclear Russia? During the last comparable multibillion-dollar military efforts — the First Gulf War in 1990-1991 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq — the ratio of American debt to GDP was respectively 40 and 50 percent. Today it hovers at nearly three times that figure at 129 percent, given some $33 trillion in accumulated debt."

Have your read the enitre text? I sped thrugh it, and conclude "conquier the world" is not the sense of it. Rather, play a hand in a different group of nations to oppose the current groupings of nations seems the clearer view. In which Russia, enormoaus in land mass byt tiny in population, cannot and seems not to want to "conquer the world." No more than do we. Or the EU.