How is Alexander Dugin doing in this timeline? I'm guessing that he's fitting right in with the current state of the UIS.
IIRC, at the end of the original ZRE it was mentioned that he was a leader one of the many splinter factions of the LDPR after the Revolution of 2002 ousted Zhirinovsky.
I doubt he would do to well, though. From what I understand, he advocates an almost multicultural fascism, and promotes a "Russo-Islamic Alliance". That might make him a little unpalatable in a country in which anti-Muslim sentiment runs rampant, and also had to deal with an even worse Chechnya, Belsan, 9/11, a Second Russo-Afghan War...
Some (but not all) of his ideas I could see gaining popularity among the foreign policy elite of the UIS, especially considering their love for creating ethnic strife. He advocates using Armenians and Kurds to destabilize Turkey; Uighyrs, Tibetans, and the like to destabilize China; and black radicals to create racial violence in the United States itself.
That latter one makes me want to bring up a potentially controversial point I've thought about for a while - would the UIS support Black Lives Matter? Regardless of what you think of the group (I don't think very highly of it, but that's another can of worms), I think the UIS would support them in some fashion, not out of a true support for the goals of BLM, purely for the aim of causing racial tensions within the US. Furthermore, I've seen quite a few people here think of the UIS as a "white supremacist" nation, but one must take in mind that ITTL the UIS helped to stabilize a number of African countries.
Now, I don't think the majority of BLM would accept UIS support, seeing as the UIS is largely and rightfully seen as a horrible genocidal dictatorship by nearly everyone in the US. Black radicals with heavy ties to Islam would probably be the most fervent in their objection to the UIS attempting to influence racial issues in America. However, it wouldn't be too inconceivable if some of the more radical strains of BLM and black militant groups such as the Huey Long Gun Club or the New Black Panther Party actually accepted UIS aid and started going around saying things like "the Russians have done more for blacks than America has ever done" due to the aforementioned UIS stabilization of African allies.
Rant aside, I enjoyed the update, though your post about this TL being simply a spinoff rather than a full TL makes me wonder how long it's going to be. Will we get to see any more of the Second Korean War, or some of the other things mentioned by the BBC reporter to Putin in the intro, like the implied collapse of Saudi Arabia or the alternate Syrian Crisis?
