Daily Brief: The New Russian Empire Isn’t Coming by Force—It’s Coming by Design
A cultural analysis of Russia’s long-term strategy, indirect communication, and relationship-driven diplomacy—and how understanding it may be the only way to contain Putin’s vision.
In today’s email
🇷🇺How to deal with Putin’s New Russian Empire
📊 Russia’s Energy Pivot to the East
A Visionary strategy rooted in Long-Term Orientation. Not reaction—restructuring.
🧨 Germany, Missiles, and the Kremlin’s Quiet Warnings
High-context communication reveals how indirect conflict plays out across borders.
🤝 Progress in U.S.–Russia Talks
Behind closed doors, Particularist diplomacy is shaping a fragile future.
🧠 Why These Cultural Dimensions Matter Now
When global trust is fragile, culture—not charisma—explains everything.
📚 Book of the Week: The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk.
📱 Cultural Perspective on TikTok
🗳️Poll - Putin’s end game
Russia has been an expansionist nation for most of its history. It operates from different cultural drivers than the US.
As Winston Churchill famously said:
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interests.”
Understanding Russian culture was the key that Churchill missed.
Russia can be contained, and knowing how Russian leaders think and their cultural perspective is the key to working with Putin and holding his vision of a New Russian Empire in check.
The Cultural Dimensions: Long-Term Orientation, High-Context, Particularism
Today’s headlines are best understood not by politics but by culture.
Russia’s decades-ahead energy planning is explained by its long-term orientation. Cultures with this mindset value resilience, strategic patience, and pragmatic adaptation over time.
In direct (High-Context) communication, Russia responds to German missile policy through indirect warnings and historical references, not confrontation.
Relationship-based rules (Particularism) are visible in US–Russia diplomacy, where building trust depends on personal relationships and behind-the-scenes negotiation, not legal norms.
These cultural perspectives explain Russia's actions, which are opposite of typical American culture. Combined with Russia's historical empire building (see this week’s book recommendation), the reasons behind the Ukraine invasion become clearer.
Ignore culture, and the world seems chaotic. Understand the culture, and the chaos makes sense.
The News
📊 Russia Unveils Ambitious Energy Export Strategy Amid Sanctions
Cultural Lens: Long-Term Orientation
Archetype: The Visionary
Russia’s new energy strategy isn’t a reaction; Russians think too long-term to be reactionary. Faced with reduced European demand and persistent sanctions, the Kremlin is turning eastward with a bold projection: nearly tripling natural gas exports by 2050 and expanding LNG capabilities.
This is Visionary thinking: building new pipelines, rerouting supply chains, and planning for an energy future less dependent on the West.
➡️ Read the full story on Reuters
🧨 Kremlin Criticizes Germany’s Potential Supply of Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine
Cultural Lens: High-Context Communication
Archetype: The Connector
Rather than direct threats, the Kremlin responded to Germany’s discussion of missile support for Ukraine with subtle rebukes and concern about “escalation.” This is high-context diplomacy—where what’s unsaid can carry more weight than what’s said.
The Connector archetype is in play: navigating fragile relationships, using emotional tones over legal terms, and framing Germany as abandoning peace for war.
➡️ Read the full story on Reuters
🤝 Kremlin Reports Progress in US–Russia Talks
Cultural Lens: Particularism
Archetype: The Bridge Builder
Amid global tensions, US envoy Steve Witkoff met with President Putin in a four-hour session described as “very good.” Discussions focused on ceasefire conditions, restoring diplomatic missions, and limited cooperation.
This is particularist diplomacy at work, building trust through relationships, not rules. And it’s the Bridge Builder archetype: neither idealistic nor aggressive, just quietly working to mend something broken.
➡️ Read the full story on TASS
Why This Matters
If you want to understand Russia, don’t start with politics. Start with how Russians think. Start with culture.
Russia has always been an expansionist nation, from the tsars to the Soviets to Putin.
But not because they’re chaotic. Because they’re Visionary.
Russian leaders plan for decades. They don’t just react to sanctions; they reroute pipelines, triple energy exports, and rebuild empires stealthily.
When they negotiate, it’s not about rules but relationships. It’s why four-hour meetings matter more than signed treaties. Russia signals, postures, and implies. That’s why subtle rebukes hit harder than direct threats.
Putin isn’t rebuilding the USSR, and he’s building a New Russian Empire - One pipeline, one missile, one handshake at a time.
You can’t fight culture with force. You fight it by understanding it and working with it.
Russia can be contained, but only if we stop pretending they think like us.
Understanding — Not Judging
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong and needs to be stopped now! But . . . when you understand the cultural backstory that creates the perception of a ‘need’ for Russia to expand, it becomes clear why Putin invaded. It’s the first step to stopping a New Russian Empire before it begins.
If Texas or New Mexico separated and began negotiations to return to Mexico, would US leaders be any less inclined to invade and return them to the US?
We can understand why Putin invaded and even sympathized with Russian motivations while holding Putin in place and restoring Ukraine's sovereignty.
Book Recommendation for the Week
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk
As Putin pushes deeper into Ukraine, many see only a modern war. But Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game reminds us this isn’t new - it’s how Russia works.
In the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires waged a shadow war across Central Asia, fighting for influence, territory, and access to India. Today, Russia is playing the same game. Only the map has shifted west. Ukraine, like the khanates of Central Asia before it, is caught between Russia's dream of empire and Europe's ideal of sovereignty. Hopkirk’s book doesn’t just tell a history—it explains the mindset of a nation that never stopped expanding.
When you understand history, the future is not a mystery.
More Cultural Perspective on TikTok
A new trade bloc in Asia won’t be using the US dollar, and that’s the beginning of the end for US power.
A trade bloc between the EU and South America gets fast-tracked to avoid US tariffs.
New trade talks between Europe and China to reduce dependency on the US and avoid Trump’s tariffs.
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