In about a month after the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Vladimir Medinsky, Putin’s aide and head of the Russian delegation at the negotiations with Ukraine, said that “the very existence of Russia as Russian civilization is now at stake”. Politicians like Medinsky often use this phrase — “Russian civilization”. However, they rarely explain what exactly they mean by it. When it comes to such explanations, this "civilization" is most often associated with the “Eurasian idea”.

Eurasianism is an ideological, worldview and socio-political movement that arose among Russian emigrants in the 1920s and 1930s. Central for them was the concept of Russia-Eurasia as an original civilization that combined elements of the East and the West, but was different from both.