"I once looked back at the year 1472, at how Ivan III—what a brilliant ruler, brilliant—well, more accurately a prince, though I tend to call him a tsar. The Grand Prince. Really, how much he did for our country! I always say we have so many underestimated historical figures, as if they were deliberately erased from history. He fought against the Horde, sent their tribute payments away, and finally freed our country from that yoke.

I kept wondering—why us? Why was the Horde so oppressive, why did our people endure such a long and humiliating existence? Life was so hard for our people. But we endured, we defeated it. Later I spoke with a historian who said that tracking the histories of peoples leads to the conclusion that there is some kind of providence. Believers call it God. To avoid insisting on any particular view, I’ll just call it providence.

There is a providence that prepares and shapes a nation for the greatest battles in the history of mankind. Our nation—the Russian nation—is such a nation. That’s how it happened. Why we were chosen, I don’t know. But we are a people meant to win wars. And we were being prepared, shaped, for the decisive battle in all human history.

Then Ukraine happened. We sat and talked for a long time, and I came to this conclusion: this kind of conflict could not have arisen in any other part of the planet. Because only we can defeat Nazism. And that it is Nazism—there is no doubt. This is not neo-fascism or neo-Nazism, as I’ve always said—it’s time to stop using vague terms. This is revanchist Nazism. These are the same ideological tenets, the same heroes. Banderites are not neo-fascists. Banderites are revanchist fascists. These are the same vile bastards who once fought against our people. That’s why Bandera is being resurrected now. And that’s why the war is happening.

As I said before, these are not Ukrainians fighting. It is some kind of entity that has lost its identity, that doesn’t know its own language or history. This is no longer a Ukrainian or a Russian. This is a mercenary and a killer. These are Nazis. That’s why we are fighting in a war that is historically predetermined, and our victory in this war is encoded—on one important condition: that we do not stop. Nazism must be eradicated completely.

And so the greatest mistake we could make is a mistake in understanding our historical, global purpose. Russians exist on this earth to fight evil."