🔻 Putin is not a victim of geopolitics — he is a broker of it.

For the past two decades, Russia has repeatedly claimed betrayal: NATO’s “broken promises,” the Minsk Agreements, the Budapest Memorandum, the Istanbul talks. But behind every “strategic deception” lies not miscalculation — but a calculated transaction. A war traded for internal repression. A pipeline deal swapped for geopolitical silence. A so-called “multipolar world” in exchange for personal offshore security.

🔻 “They’ve deceived us” is an all-purpose excuse.

It absolves everyone: generals, diplomats, propagandists — and Putin himself. It turns strategic failure into a patriotic myth. More importantly, it justifies the sale of defeat as part of a larger imperial theater.

🔻 There is no empire — only the illusion of one.

Modern Russia is not an empire. It is a colony governed by Moscow, where regions are exploited, and citizens are expendable. The idea of “imperial interests” is a marketing product: sold to Western think tanks, Eastern autocracies, and nostalgic domestic audiences.

Putin’s Kremlin sells a curated bundle: military bases, cultural resentment, nukes, Soviet kitsch, and “moral conservatism.” But none of it represents national sovereignty — only strategic branding.

🔻 Alexander Dugin wants victory “at any cost” — but cannot see the war itself is a commodity.

The system does not seek victory. Victory ends the war. And without war, there is no justification for dictatorship, economic collapse, or ideological hysteria. Putin doesn’t want to win — he wants to sell the illusion of eternal struggle.

🔻 “They’ve deceived us again” is not pain — it is a business model.

It’s not that Russia is being plundered. It’s on sale. Whoever pays more gets a piece — from nuclear secrets to Orthodox narratives. Moscow isn’t an imperial center; it’s a geopolitical pawn shop for kleptocrats.

⏳ Time is always on someone’s side. But never on the side of the deceived.