Aleksandr Dugin, otherwise known as “ Putin's Rasputin," has endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States.

Aleksandr Dugin is a key theorist of the ideological underpinnings of Putinism. His " Eurasianism" seeks to provide a basis for uniting not only Russia, but all the world's anti freedom forces, under Moscow's banner against the West.

What Russia needs, says Dugin, is a "genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism." On the other hand, "Liberalism, is an absolute evil. . . .Only a global crusade against the U.S., the West, globalization, and their political-ideological expression, liberalism, is capable of becoming an adequate response. . . . The American empire should be destroyed."

Now, in an article entitled "Trump is the Real America" published on the website of the Kremlin-backed Katehon think tank, Dugin says "Trump...is a sensation. … The Republicans, as well as the Democrats, are the representatives of the US ruling elites. It is a special part of society, being quite far from the ordinary Americans. …The American elite is not even American. Thus, there is Donald Trump, who is tough, rough, says what he thinks, rude, emotional and, apparently, candid. The fact that he is a billionaire doesn't matter. He is different. He is an extremely successful ordinary American. …

"Maybe, that redhead rude Yankee from the saloon will get back to the problems inside the country and will leave humanity alone, which is tired of American hegemony and its destructive policy of chaos, bloody rivers and color revolutions? Trump is a leader…

"Vote for Trump, and see what will happen."

Dugin's endorsement of Trump is noteworthy, particularly in view of the fact that he has been given the role or organizing Eurasianist fifth columns supporting the Putin regime in western countries. In May 2014, as Putin was ramping up his war against Ukraine, Dugin held a secret meeting in Vienna with leaders of most of the ultranationalist parties of continental Europe, ranging from small fringe groups to the powerful French National Front, to organize support for the invasion. This subversive effort has been bearing fruit, as evidenced by the fact, reported by the February 19 Moscow Times that French National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who received $13 million from the Kremlin in 2014, is currently negotiating with Putin for another $30 million (equivalent in France to about $200 million in U.S. political terms) to finance future support.

Trump and Marine Le Pen offer similar political profiles, combining xenophobic demagoguery, anti-Atlanticism, socialistic and protectionist policies, and open admiration and apologetics for Vladimir Putin. The founder of the French National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently endorsed Trump. Marine Le Pen supported the Russian takeover of Crimea, and is being openly bankrolled out of Moscow. Trump supports Russia's actions in Syria, and has reportedly had many questionable business dealings with elements of Russian organized crime.

Trump has been praised by Putin, and rather than reject such praise, has returned it, calling the Russian dictator "a real leader" and dismissing his many murders of political opponents at home and abroad as " unproven." Last month, a British court found that Putin had ordered the murder by Polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who revealed that the 1999 apartment buildings bombings in Moscow that Putin used to seize dictatorial power were the work of Putin's FSB itself. Apparently the billionaire is fine with that too.

Now Trump has been warmly endorsed by the Kremlin's foremost ideological champion against America.

Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Energy of Lakewood, Colo., and the author of The Case for Mars . The paperback edition of his latest book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, was recently published by Encounter Books.