As Russia wages war on Ukraine, the architects of its expansionist ideology are spearheading another battle on Europe’s bookstore shelves.
Even under sanctions, the Kremlin’s chief propagandists still find publishers giving them a voice, reinforcing Russia’s cynical, ideological front — this one, inside Europe itself.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sparked an international response that has included an extraordinary sanction campaign — freezing assets, halting exports, and taking steps to isolate the country economically. Russia became the world’s most sanctioned country on record. Yet as Moscow’s institutions, including Russian state media, face global bans, its most enduring weapon of soft power — literature — is quietly spreading the Kremlin’s ideology across Europe.
While the European Union has imposed 19 rounds of sanctions and declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, the ideological architects behind the Kremlin’s terrorism continue to find space on the shelves of European bookstores, fairs, and libraries. Even when their authors are sanctioned for their roles in promoting and helping perpetrate Russia’s war.
In this article, we explore the findings of the international analytical community Resurgam, which uncovered a number of Kremlin-linked authors who continue to be translated, printed, and sold across Germany, the UK, Spain, and France. They spread the “Russian world” ideology that seeks to erode Western unity from within. The findings reveal that, as Russia’s missiles target Ukraine, its ideologues continue targeting Europe’s cultural space — with their works distributed, translated, and normalised across the continent.
photo: Facebook/Oksana Hmelyovska
Aleksandr Dugin: the chief ideologue of Russian expansionism
Often dubbed “Putin’s brain” for his deep influence on the Kremlin’s worldview, far-right sociologist Aleksandr Dugin is best known as the founder of neo-Eurasianism, a nationalist ideology that promotes Russia’s imperial expansion. His doctrine presents Russia as the heart of world civilisation and the natural leader of a “New Eurasian Order,” which would preserve the ethnic, biological, and spiritual “uniqueness” of Eurasian nations against what he deems the corrosive effects of Western liberalism. In his vision, the unification of Eurasian lands and cultures under Moscow’s rule becomes not aggression, but a “civilisational mission.”
Dugin has openly endorsed Russia’s war against Ukraine, framing the destruction of Ukrainian statehood as inevitable for restoring a “Greater Russia.” He has called for “an armed rebellion against the junta” and urged to “kill, kill, and kill” those resisting Russian occupation, all under the guise of political science. His numerous works remain widely published in Russia and are taught in universities, where Putin’s favored ideologue lectures on the “dangers of Western liberalism.”
Critically, Dugin’s activities are not limited to academic works. He has advised Sergey Naryshkin, now head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, and his anti-liberal rhetoric has influenced numerous far-right parties across Europe, including Germany’s National Democratic Party, Britain’s National Party, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Hungary’s Jobbik, and France’s National Front.
In the fall of 2022, the European Union formally recognized Dugin’s role helping shape Russia’s war against Ukraine, placing him under sanctions. In July 2025, measures were taken against the think tank he founded, the Center for Geopolitical Expertise. His organisation runs disinformation campaigns against Ukraine, discredits Western leaders, and seeks to manipulate elections across Europe.
However, despite these sanctions, Dugin’s books — mostly published before 2022 — remain available in France, Spain, Germany, and the UK. In Germany, they were officially pulled from bookstores after the full-scale invasion but can still be ordered online or accessed through special collections.
Beyond reprints of older editions, some European publishers continue to give Putin’s chief ideologue a platform — even after his open support for Russia’s full-scale invasion. In 2025, the London-based Arktos Media released Ethnosociology: The Foundations, Dugin’s manifesto outlining his self-styled theory of “ethnosociology.” The book depicts nations and civilisations as collective subjects of history, rooted in “traditional values” that Dugin presents as an existential alternative to liberal modernity. The same publisher had already published several of his works before 2022, some of which remain available for order today on major online retailers such as Blackwell’s.
However, France remains the most active publisher of Dugin’s works, despite EU sanctions against the author. Since 2023, the Paris-based Éditions Ars Magna has released French translations of several of his key texts, which form the backbone of Russia’s ideological framework. These include Métaphysique de la Bonne Nouvelle (Metaphysics of Good News, 2023), which promotes Orthodox Christianity as the foundation of Russia’s “spiritual mission” against what Dugin calls the “decadent” West; Les fondamentaux de la conspirologie (The Fundamentals of Conspirology, 2025), which seeks to justify conspiracy theories as a political tool and reinforces core anti-Western narratives exploited by the Kremlin; and La dernière guerre de l’Île-mondiale (The Last War of the World-Island, 2024), which frames the invasion of Ukraine as the “final battle” for global dominance between Russia and the West — effectively portraying Moscow’s aggression as a civilisational mission.
Daria Dugina (Platonova): the “martyr” of Putin’s “multipolar world”
Aleksandr Dugin’s ideological project does not end with him — it continues through his followers and even his own family. Another figure actively promoted by Éditions Ars Magna is Daria Dugina (Platonova), the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, who was killed in a car explosion near Moscow in 2022. Due to her open endorsement of Russia’s aggression and her role in creating and spreading Russian disinformation, Dugina was sanctioned by five countries in 2022. Nevertheless, her works — including those glorifying her legacy — continue to be released in France.
In 2024, Éditions Ars Magna published Une vie radicale (A Radical Life), a biographical pamphlet portraying Dugina as a journalist who “dedicated her life to fighting US hegemony”. The book openly blames Ukrainian intelligence and the West for her death, depicting her as a heroic symbol of resistance to Western dominance. A year later, the publisher released Optimisme eschatologique (Eschatological Optimism), a posthumous collection of her political essays presented, framed around a militant belief in the inevitability of Russia’s victory in the “final battle of civilisations” against what she dubbed the “terrorist civilisation of the West.” In the foreword, Dugina is described as a “defender of multipolarity.”
Together, these publications echo the image of Dugina as a “martyr” fostered by the Kremlin media, transforming Dugin’s daughter into a cult-like figure and helping to export Kremlin mythology under the guise of philosophical literature.
Sergey Karaganov: the architect of nuclear blackmail
Despite his overwhelming influence, Alexandr Dugin is far from the only Kremlin thinker who finds space on European shelves. Other long-standing architects of Russia’s geopolitical doctrine — including sanctioned strategists — continue to work with publishers across the continent. Among them is Sergey Karaganov, the veteran political scientist and longtime foreign policy advisor to Vladimir Putin. Karaganov is head of Russia’s influential Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, one of the key institutions shaping the Kremlin’s geopolitical doctrine. Often described as the mastermind behind Moscow’s anti-Western turn, Karaganov has long promoted the idea of a “civilisational confrontation” between Russia and the West, while also suggesting the use of nuclear coercion to force Russia’s adversaries into submission. For these reasons, Karaganov was sanctioned by the European Union in June 2023.
In 2023, Barcelona-based Club del Libro released a Spanish translation of his pamphlet Integración en la Gran Eurasia (Integration into Greater Eurasia), distributed directly through the publisher’s website. Imitating a manifesto style, the text envisions Russia as the leader of a “Greater Eurasia” in alliance with China, urging Moscow to radically cut ties with Europe. The work also whitewashes Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and argues that “a strike on Europe would save the world from Western domination.”
Karaganov’s hardline vision set the stage for ideas he would later expand on in Von der passiven zur aktiven Abschreckung (From Passive to Active Deterrence), co-authored with Dmitry Trenin and Sergey Avakyanets, published by the Potsdam-based WeltTrends Verlag in late 2024. The release has stirred debate in Germany, with analysts describing it as a sign of Moscow’s growing radicalisation.
Karaganov’s co-author Dmitry Trenin has also played a crucial role in shaping Russia’s foreign policy and was accordingly sanctioned by Canada in 2023. Once a former Russian military intelligence colonel and longtime director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Trenin was once viewed as a pro-Western analyst. He has since turned towards the Kremlin’s hardline policy, openly supporting the war against Ukraine. In the book, the authors call on Moscow to abandon “passive deterrence” for “active intimidation” (Einschüchterung). They seek to lower the nuclear threshold in an effort to “restore the West’s fear” and force concessions, turning blackmail into the backbone of Russia’s diplomacy.
Valery Korovin: the engineer of Russia’s election meddling
A younger generation of propagandists has begun to emerge and spread Kremlin doctrines under the guise of academic geopolitics and philosophy. Another prominent figure whose works remain accessible in Europe is Valery Korovin, a Russian political scientist, journalist, and long-time advocate of the Kremlin’s neo-Eurasian agenda. Korovin leads the EU-sanctioned Center for Geopolitical Expertise and serves as deputy head of the Eurasian Committee, both central to Moscow’s ideological infrastructure. A close associate of Dugin and a member of the ultraconservative Izborsk Club, he has been active since the early 2000s in promoting “Eurasian integration” and advancing Russia’s influence across the post-Soviet space.
Korovin is best known for developing the concept of “network warfare,” framing information manipulation, digital propaganda, and hybrid operations as legitimate tools of geopolitics. His books and public appearances reinforce the Kremlin’s narratives on sovereignty, Western “decadence,” and Russia’s civilisational mission.
In 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned both Korovin and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise for engaging in “malign foreign influence operations” targeting the U.S. election through fake news platforms and manipulating online content designed to undermine democratic institutions. The U.S. State Department announced that Korovin and his organisation are affiliated with Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU), placing him among the Kremlin’s key propagandists who shape both ideological and digital fronts of its confrontation with the West. Despite these sanctions, Korovin’s works — promoting Moscow’s “network geopolitics” and Eurasian mission — continue to circulate in European spaces, echoing the very disinformation doctrines that Western governments have formally condemned.
In 2024, the Tarragona-based publishing house Ediciones Fides released the Spanish translation of Valery Korovin’s El final de Europa: juntos con Rusia en el camino hacia la multipolaridad (The End of Europe: Together with Russia on the Road to Multipolarity). Framed as a political manifesto, the book depicts Europe as a “satellite of the United States” mired in moral and spiritual decay. Korovin calls for the continent’s “reunion” with Russia to build a “multipolar world” — a familiar refrain casting Moscow not as an aggressor, but as the guardian of “Eurasian civilisation” against the decline of the West. The text mirrors the broader neo-Eurasian ideology promoted by Aleksandr Dugin and Moscow’s propagandist circles, blending pseudo-philosophy with geopolitics to justify Russian expansionism and erode European unity. These messages are spread through very cultural and literary channels that once defined Europe’s intellectual space.
The new page of Russia’s ideological offensive
While Russia’s tanks and missiles wage war on Ukraine, its publishing houses wage another battle — for hearts, minds, and narratives. The continued circulation of Kremlin-aligned authors across Europe reveals how Moscow’s propaganda adapts even under sanctions: shifting from newsrooms to book fairs, from television studios to philosophy shelves.
These publications — marketed as political analysis or cultural theory — serve a deeper purpose: to normalise Moscow’s aggression and recast imperialism as “civilisational duty.” Moreover, ideologues who were sanctioned for advocating genocide or nuclear coercion are being published and sold democratic countries.
The war against Ukraine is not only physical. It is also a war over meaning. Presently, sanctioned Russian propagandists are printing, distributing, and potentially profiting from the words that found prompted the international community to isolate them. They undermine core European values and unity from within Europe. It is not enough to challenge their words in some marketplace of ideas. Sanctioned architects of Russia’s war must not be allowed to extend Russia’s aggression onto Europe’s bookshelves.
