"[2] Zhirinovsky, during the 1993 legislative campaign, referred to LDPR as the “centre-right party” and claimed that its views were such that it could potentially be allied with Women of Russia and Civic Union in the State Duma.
[2] The LDPR platform declared that "the political activity of the LDPR is directed toward the restoration by peaceful means and the preservation of the Russian state that was created over the course of centuries; the restoration and guarding of the borders of the country, the realization within the country of the peaceful coexistence of all the populations inhabiting it–both small and large–with the right of preservation of traditions and customs, and the development of each individual's national culture and religion.
[13][14] Zhirinovsky desired for the inner-boundaries to not be ethnically based,[13][2] and for all inner regions to be subordinate to a strong central government in Moscow, creating an authoritarian Greater Russia.
[17] During the 1993 legislative elections, LDPR believed that privatization should be limited to small or medium-sized business, land should remain under state ownership, industry should be state-controlled and all forms of “speculative trading” should be prohibited.
[17] In 2013, Zhirinovsky declared that the Northern Caucasus should be surrounded with barbed-wire fence and that its residents should have to pay a tax if they have more than two children (a two-child policy).
[35] Zhirinovsky also proposed reducing the number of members of the State Duma from 450 to 200 and abolishing the Federation Council in order to establish a unicameral parliament.
[22][38] In August 2014, he argued that Russia should abolish political parties and adopt an autocratic system in which the leader would be chosen by the "five to six thousand wisest people" in the country.
[5] In his 2018 campaign, Zhirinovsky reverted to his earlier stance on presidential authority, pledging to create a "brutal dictatorship" if he was elected president.
[40][41] In the 2010s, Zhirinovsky recommended that ways the general public could improve their health included abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, eating less meat, and having less sex.
[44][5] During the 1993 legislative elections, Zhirinovsky claimed that Russia would see a major increase in national revenues as a result of his proposals to eliminate crime.
[29][30] In his 2018 campaign, Zhirinovsky proposed establishing martial law courts across the whole country, similar to what Pyotr Stolypin did when he was Prime Minister of Russia.
[22] Despite his tough-on-crime stance, Zhirinovsky and his son Igor Lebedev have been accused of selling LDPR seats in the Duma to shady businesspeople in a ploy to help shield the businessmen from criminal prosecution via parliamentary immunity.
[10] In a 1994 interview with The Washington Post, Zhirinovsky threatened to prosecute and imprison journalists who "interfere with my private life" and "inflict moral damage on me.
Appealing towards ethnic resentments, in one of his televised monologues during his 1996 presidential campaign, Zhirinovsky pledged to end policies that were being carried out "at the expense of the Russian people.
[2] In the fall of 1991, commenting on what he feared to be a future in which Russia had been destroyed by democratic rule would look like, Zhirinovsky predicted, "Iran and Afghanistan can drag Central Asia over to its side, Turkey is settling scores with the Transcaucusus; Poland and Romania will take care of Ukraine and Moldova.
That leaves an embittered Russia which will torment itself with China and Japan, with the Yakuts and Buriats, with the Volga Region, in an eternal knot of insoluble problems.
[53] Zhirinovsky was believed to consider the former Central and East European satellite states of the Soviet Union to be part of the Russian sphere of influence.
[5][54][55] In the early 1990s, a frequent backdrop he used for speeches and press events was a map of Russia expanding east through Alaska and west through Finland.
"[57] He stated that he believed that the Russian army's "last march to the south would lead it to the shores of the Indian Ocean and to the Mediterranean, and mean liberation for 20 million Kurds, hundreds of thousands of Baluchis (and) Pushtuns.
"[57] He also declared that "the ringing of the Russian Orthodox bells on the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean would be the sound of peace for the people of the region.
"[57] In 1994, Zhirnovsky wrote that "Russia reaching the shores of the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea is a task that will be the salvation of the Russian nation.
"[4] Zhirinovsky believes that Russia's possession of nuclear weapons (and the threat of their use) would prevent other nations from stopping expansionist moves on their part.
I will act like Hitler in 1932 [sic][63]In December 1993, Zhirinovsky stated that he believed that Estonia would be forced back into union with Russia by "economic means."
[10] Other comments Zhirinovsky made at this time included an insistence Thrace and historical Macedonian territory needed to be returned by Greece to the control of Bulgaria, as did the Romanian northern part of Dobruja.
[85] In November 2015, after an incident in which a Russian bomber was shot down by a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet after an air-space violation, he stated in a speech to the Duma that Russia must detonate a nuclear bomb on the Bosphorus to create a 10 meters high tsunami wave that would wipe out at least 9 million Istanbul residents.
[8] During the 2019 United Kingdom general election, Zhirinovsky and the LDPR endorsed Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson in order to "quickly bring Britain out of the European Union".
[40] He referred to the country as a “second-hand goods store” filled with “cocksuckers, handjobbers, and faggots.”[40] He issued an outlandish threat, declaring that he would alter the gravitational field of the Earth in order to sink the entirety of the United States into the oceans.
[40] He issued controversial statements about then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice saying, She is a black whore who needs a good cock.
[citation needed] That same year he also threatened to attack Washington, D.C.[43] Zhirinovsky was additionally friends with former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, whom he once termed his "favourite American politician".
"[109] During the 1993 legislative elections, Zhirinovsky proposed ceasing assistance to other countries in order to invest more funds in improving Russia's economy.