The first four hundred years the Moscow state developed purely in the Asian direction in "a complex military-political co-working with the Asian Horde". This was written by Putin’s aide Vladislav Surkov.
"The Moscow proto-empire was created in a complex military-political co-working with the Golden Horde, which some tend to call yoke, others - an alliance. Whether it was voluntary or involuntary, but the eastern vector of development was chosen and tested”, - Surkov writes.
"Even after the Great Stand on the Ugra river, the Russian kingdom continued to be in fact part of Asia, willingly annexed the eastern lands, claiming the legacy of Byzantium, this Asian Rome, under the immense influence of noble families of Horde origin", - one of the Kremlin's ideologists admits.
"The apex of Moscow’s “asiaticism” was the appointment of Simeon Bekbulatovich, a Muslim-born Khan of the Khanate of Qasim, as the sovereign of all Russia. Historians attribute this "trick" solely to natural playfulness of Ivan the Terrible. The reality was more serious: there was a solid court party, who promoted Simeon Bekbulatovich to be a real ruler. Boris Godunov had to demand that the boyars promised him not to "want Simeon and his children to reign". That is, the state was half a step from the consolidation of the eastern "development paradigm", - Surkov said.
According to Surkov, Godunov was also a "descendant of the Horde Murza". And only the Polish-Cossack invasion brought tsars from the West.
"The Polish-Cossack invasion began, bringing Moscow new tsars from the West. It was somewhat symbolic. Rus broke off from Asia and began to move towards Europe", - Surkov wrote.
"So, for four centuries Russia had been going to the East and for four centuries - to the West. Neither there, nor there it has managed to strike root. Both roads have been passed. Now the ideologies of the third way, the third type of civilization, the third world, the third Rome will be in demand... ", - asserts Putin's assistant.
Up to now, all of Russia's imperial policy towards Ukraine was built on the postulate of "the brotherhood of the Slavic peoples", the origin of Muscovy from Kievan Rus, and the "sacredness" of Orthodox shrines...