Today, many people quote Alexey Gromyko’s remark that “Russia currently resembles traditional Europe more than the countries of Europe themselves.” I believe he was trying to express something quite accurate. Once, while in Argentina, I exclaimed, “What an excellent European country this is!” Later, when I visited France (even before the sanctions), I was horrified by its condition: “What a garbage heap this is!”

The fact is, many Europeans who come to Russia are delighted. It reminds them of Europe, but in a former, vanished phase. It is the West that no longer exists in the West. You can encounter it in Latin America or here with us. Moreover, soon even some Asian societies might be more Western than the West itself. The degeneration, total failure, transgression, and decline that have overtaken Western societies no longer allow them to be considered traditional Western civilizations.

Of course, this does not mean that we have switched places. One must be very cautious here. Gromyko clearly wants to say that the West has lost itself, while we still have not. But in truth, we are at a stage of Westernization and modernization that still appears relatively decent precisely because of our delay. If we had gone further into Western civilization, if we had followed it more closely, then I believe we would be experiencing much the same: a nightmare, degeneration, a massive number of dirty, aimless migrants demanding rights, a terrorized local population, liberal totalitarian perverts escaping the law while committing horrifying crimes. All of this threatened us as well, right up to the final collapse and disappearance.

The fact that we braked at a certain turn and refused to follow the West further is what creates that very sense of a cozy, likeable, developing Russia that Gromyko noted. There is nothing wrong with that; it is a very accurate observation.

As Tucker Carlson put it: if anything still resembles the West, it is Russia, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.

Yes, it truly does resemble the West. Meanwhile, Rome, Paris, and London have turned into garbage heaps, where it is often hard to find a White person or traditional values. We are not talking about Asian or African countries. Although Africa itself is a beautiful world with its own culture. Islamic countries are admirable too; traditional Muslims are simply wonderful. But everyone should live in their own place. Yet they are deliberately brought into Europe by the globalists to erase the local population beyond recognition and then simply replace them with robots.

At the same time, I want to stress that Gromyko’s statement is not an argument that should guide all of us. It cannot serve as the basis for Russia’s mission, its strategy, or our sovereignty. It is simply a cozy observation by a member of the elite, an heir to a well-known Soviet family, enjoying life and noting how things work well here, while everything has fallen apart and barely functions in the West. In other words, it is just a passing comment from an onlooker.

In reality, this is a very shaky and fragile notion. Because in truth, Russia is a distinct civilization. We diverged from Western civilization in the 11th century and became an independent civilization in the 15th century. We became self-aware in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then, with varying degrees of success, held our ground — sometimes retreating far, sometimes returning again. Now is the era of returning to the understanding that we are a civilization-state. Our president speaks of this, and many high-ranking officials do as well.

So overall, I find Gromyko’s remark misplaced. Right now, it is not about rejoicing that we fell behind the West, and therefore things are clean and orderly here, that things function, and normal people remain — while all that has disappeared in the West. That is, after all, what many of our guests from America and Europe are also saying — those who support a multipolar world and reject the liberal dictatorship reigning in the West.

Things may be “wonderful” for us, in a way, but it is still not a Russian kind of wonderful. We followed Europe, but we fell behind. And it turned out that falling behind was better than keeping up. Just look where all this has brought Ukraine and many other countries.

What we need is our own civilization. We must recognize ourselves as a civilization-state. We must build a Great Russia. A Russia that even aesthetically will look different — technologically, in terms of outward appearance, and psychologically. It cannot be the hedonistic Europe that lingers on the periphery, trying to wall itself off from the most toxic forms the West is now taking. That approach will not last long.

To move towards Europe now means to move towards the abyss, the garbage heap — to move towards LGBT, towards other forms of transgression, feminism, transgender surgeries, replacing humans with biorobots, and handing power over to artificial intelligence. All those forms of total degeneration we now see in the West would have to be adopted if we moved in Europe’s direction. And simply stopping at this halfway point will not work for long.

Remaining as the Europe of the past is not a project. It is not a vision of the future. Russia’s future is something entirely different.

Russia must become itself. And answering the question “What is that, exactly?” is not easy. But one thing is clear: it is not the West. Even our Westernizers and liberals have begun to realize: it is not the modern West. Yet they still think, “Stay just like this, moment — you are beautiful.”

But that will not work. We need resources for the future, we need energy, we need the awakening of forces, we need visions — visions of a Russian future. Without that, our present moment will become merely a pause before we fall further into the abyss. A fall we were already speeding towards for the past 100 years — especially rapidly in the 1990s.

So today, we need a deep strategic shift towards becoming a civilization-state. Thankfully, our president is speaking in those terms. But this must be worked out in detail, described, and acted upon. That is the path we must take.