In an interview with Sotnik TV, Andrey Illarionov, a former advisor to President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of his rule, talked about how his former boss’ perception of his duties and priorities has changed since 2008.
According to Illarionov, although Putin has always been dismissive of political freedoms and human rights, before 2008 he was interested in the economy and aimed at Russia’s economic growth, achieving some success in this regard.
However, from 2008 (the beginning of the economic crisis), he completely lost interest in this and realized that his mission was the revival of «historical Russia,» which Illarionov characterizes as the Russian Empire, uniting Orthodox nations and countries: Russia, Ukraine (excluding Western Ukraine), Belarus, Moldova and Georgia.
It should be noted that «Voice of Islam» has been writing about this for many years — from a certain point, corresponding to the election of Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev, power in the country was seized not by abstract security service agents, as was the case in the early 2000s, but by a specific clerical and security service group focused on the project of the so-called «Russian world,» which implies the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church within it.