ПЕРСПЕКТИВА до 2033 / Андрей ДЕВЯТОВ

Summary

Andrey Devyatov frames his talk as an attempt to assess a confusing political moment, while warning that historical analogies can mislead. He briefly criticizes Russian television commentators before turning to a prospective meeting in Shenzhen involving Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin, which he says a Wall Street publication compared to a “new Yalta.”

Devyatov argues that Tehran in 1943 may be a better analogy than Yalta. In his reading, Tehran took place while the outcome of the war was still uncertain and involved discussions about opening a second front. Yalta, by contrast, suggests that the war’s outcome and the postwar division of the world had already been settled.

He also rejects a comparison to the Munich Agreement, saying it casts any deal as appeasement and implies that China and the United States would help Russia seize Ukraine.

To explain his broader view of history, Devyatov discusses a cyclical model attributed to Soviet mathematician Maslennikov: a “barcode of change” composed of 36 periods. He describes cosmic time units and singles out a 726-year “Horde wave,” while acknowledging that he is not a mathematician or physicist and is offering hypotheses rather than certainty. He calls this kind of political forecasting “intelligence of consciousness and time,” comparing it to weather or geological reconnaissance when conventional science cannot provide a clear forecast.

He also invokes Ecclesiastes and argues that translations differ over whether the relevant term means “spirit” or “wind.” For him, the “spirit” returning in a cycle supports the idea that events may be returning to an earlier historical pattern.

Finally, he connects the expected summit and an upcoming fifth plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party to a wider political struggle. He likens the situation to Pushkin’s Boris Godunov: a tense, unresolved “detective story” in which peace-oriented figures confront those determined to win. He says he will return to that question later.

Presenter

• Andrey Devyatov — presenter and commentator.