Press TV (Iran):  alive, well and broadcasting

Last evening I gave a half hour live on-air interview to Press TV (Iran)  that I will not be posting here because under  present war conditions their staff is lucky to be alive and working. They surely do not have free time to edit and upload podcasts.  But I did have the presence of mind to present some points in that half-hour which I wish to share with the Community in this brief essay, namely that BRICS is just another talking shop that counts for nothing in the world of geopolitics, that the Global South has no military forces, no Hard Power to speak of, that in all the world there are presently only two countries actively fighting to bring down American global hegemony and usher in a fairer, multipolar world –  Iran and Russia.

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Stupid is as stupid does. That has been one of my core analytical tools over the years. By this I mean that diplomas from prestige universities do not necessarily tell us anything about a given person in positions of authority. Yale law degrees did not ensure intelligent, effective behavior in James Sullivan or Tony Blinken during their service in the Biden administration. On the contrary, they espoused and implemented stupid, ignorant and destructive policies because they lacked relevant knowledge, life experience and judgment.

Similarly, Power is as Power does. A country with enormous GDP, a nuclear arsenal and otherwise well- armed is not a Great Power if its top officials behave like underlings (to quote Shakespeare) and seek to engratiate themselves with bullies, displaying a lack of dignity and self-respect.

I have discussed the issues of Power, otherwise called Deterrence with professor Glenn Diesen in past months when speaking critically, in particular, about president Putin. A couple of days ago on ‘Judging Freedom,’ I remarked that the recent behavior of chairman Xi of China has been even more depressing. His repeated invitation to Donald Trump to come to Beijing later this spring is unseemly, in very poor taste coming so soon after Trump launched his barbarous war of aggression on Iran in the midst of negotiations which seemed so promising.

Now let me add to this List of Shame prime minister Modi of India who a couple of months ago caved in to U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil. Why? To avoid 50% tariffs on a small part of Indian trade with the U.S. which otherwise is dominated by Indian IT services which are irreplaceable for the US?  The consequence was to publicly invalidate the value of BRICS as the creator of a new, more just world order.

Notwithstanding my recent criticism of Putin’s ‘gently, gently’ approach to his war on Ukraine, he is fighting, he is smashing the combined forces of NATO in and around Ukraine. Russia is thereby doing the world an invaluable service.  Meanwhile, Iran’s fight for survival may be even more salutary for a new world order if it is carried to its logical conclusion and inflicts a humiliating defeat on Trump that brings him down, results in ‘regime change’ in the November elections.

Time will tell.  In the meantime, I say ‘hats off’ to the journalists at Press TV

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

Interview with Harley Schlanger, Schiller Institute/LaRouche movement on the barbarians who now rule Europe

I am especially appreciative of my friend Harley Schlanger’s giving me 45 minutes to delve into the issues surrounding the sanctioning of Swiss national Jacques Baud and my related campaign to petition the European Council to impose these very same personal sanctions on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and her vice president for foreign policy and security Kaja Kallas over their spreading disinformation that is leading Europe into a suicidal armed conflict with Russia.

As I explain here, the immediate task of a write-in campaign should be the removal of these barbaric persons from the levers of power in Europe. The follow-on task arising from careful inspection of the fundamental structure of the European Institutions should be their dismantlement and reconstruction on principles of Separation of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers to put an end to the Absolutism that allows our unelected Commission seated in Brussels to ride roughshod over the governments of the Member States and to trample on the human rights of citizens across the Union. We need a ‘looser union’ that restores to the Member States powers that have been stolen from them by the usurpers in Brussels. But it all begins with members of our Community taking i-phone in hand and writing in to gsdoctorow@gmail.com to express support for sanctioning von der Leyen and Kallas over the crime of building European policies on blatant and self-serving lies.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

News X World: interview today on Russian Rosatom facilities in Iran, on EU meetings today to address the energy crisis and on the coming Depression in Europe

This 9-minute interview has been extracted from the 4pm (Indian time) news wrap-up.  I think several of my answers left the presenter speechless, but that seems to be fine for their producers and I trust the Community will also be pleased by my truculent frankness about what has caused the energy crisis Europe is now experiencing and why there is no solution short of the Parliament’s removing Ursula von der Leyen and her utterly incompetent and ideologically driven team from power.

Getting through to the Kremlin: an important online article by Alexander Dugin

I am pleased to inform the Community that my efforts to bring advice on changing direction in the Ukraine war to the attention of President Putin have just received an unexpected and quite remarkable boost from Russia’s court philosopher, Alexander Dugin.

On his own dzen.ru page (Russian equivalent of Google), Dugin has just published an article entitled «Любопытный аналитик и интересные наблюдения» (A curious analyst and interesting observations).

https://dzen.ru/a/aa2VmfMfGw2qRZNG?ysclid=mmiigf1v40340242948 (in Russian, but, of course, you can run it through your internet translator Deep L on linguee.com)

The article summarizes my thinking and makes specific reference to what I said last week during interviews with ‘Judging Freedom’ and the Glenn Diesen youtube channel. As I have noted in passing, both of these interviews were reposted on the rutube.ru in Russian voice over within hours of their being posted in the English original on youtube.com. The Diesen interview in particular has done very well in Russia where its 8,000 plus views as of this morning is equal to this little channel’s number of subcribers.

Among other points, Dugin restates my points about how the US attack on Iran has shocked Russia’s foreign policy establishment, how there is no longer any faith in negotiating with Trump, how Putin should change course on the war in Ukraine from ‘gently, gently’ to bombing the Kiev regime to ashes. Dugin has rounded the corners a bit to avoid giving offense to Vladimir Vladimirovich but the salient and, shall we say ‘positive’ recommendations in my interviews are accurately reproduced.

Let us just remember that Alexander Dugin is the father of the pro-Russia, anti-Kiev journalist Darya Dugina who was assassinated in August 2022 by Ukrainian special forces in a bomb attack on her car that more likely was intended to kill her father. She and he have been lionized by the patriotic Russian press and Dugin is therefore untouchable for Putin and his minions. We can be sure that his article on my interviews has reached into the Kremlin and, who knows, may help build pressure for a change of course in Russian conduct of the war which is absolutely essential if Russia is to avoid the fate of Iran.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

Pressure mounts on Vladimir Putin

I am fully aware of the skepticism some of my colleagues have regarding the value of public sources and in particular over what is shown on Russian state television to understand and pronounce upon where Russian politics are headed. Nonetheless, I insist that public sources have with good reason been the stock in trade of American and other foreign intelligence on Russia going back to the origins of the Cold War. Today, when Russian state and private electronic media have become highly diverse and often quite free to pick up and transmit views from the talking classes, they are essential if we are to go beyond the use of unnamed, supposedly well informed Russian insiders that colleagues often allude to and instead have something clearly identified and debatable to talk about among ourselves.

And so, dear reader, I once again make reference to the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show of yesterday in telling you that Putin’s handling of the war is coming under very great pressure from the Moscow elites who pull it to pieces before the audience without naming the Unspeakable One in the Kremlin but leaving no doubt whatsoever whom they are criticizing.

The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, the decapitation strike on the Ayatollah and on other top leaders in what Russians call the ‘decision-making centers’ of Iran, makes them all ask what the hell Mr. Putin is now waiting for to do the very same in Ukraine and to put an instant end to the long dragged-out war that is killing and maiming Russian service men every day and putting in question Russia’s deterrence, leading to ever more brazen provocations from the NATO Member States.

These same expert panelists last night asked how it can be that during the negotiations with Witkoff, the Kremlin has allowed the USA to conduct daily spy flights just outside all of its borders from the Far North in the Barents Sea to the Black Sea in the South. The purpose of these flights is perfectly well known: to prepare for a ‘preemptive strike’ on Russia similar to what was done to Iran and possibly using nuclear arms. ‘We should just shoot down these American spy planes’ they said last night with one voice.

The point of these panelists is that the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran violates all the basic rules of international conduct from the founding documents of the United Nations. There are now no rules and Russia must adapt to this situation and defend itself arms in hand.

Is Mr. Putin deaf? The whole of Russia is hearing these lightly veiled denunciations of his management of defense and so far he has not responded to the American attack on Iran with more than telephone calls to the Gulf States sheikhs, which are given full coverage in the first 15 minutes of Russian state television news, no doubt to the great irritation of viewers.

I use this opportunity to call attention to a remarkable document that the economist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts yesterday posted on his website:

Alexander Dugan Wonders if Putin’s demonstrated inability to recognize reality will bring destruction to Russia next

Let us recall that Alexander Dugin has long been cited by Western commentators as a close adviser to President Putin. I have cast some doubt in the past on their alleged closeness, but I freely acknowledge that Dugin has been an influential thinker within the Kremlin elites. Here again we see a lightly veiled harsh attack on everything that Putin is doing on defense.

In closing, I have a bit of advice to offer to Russia’s Supreme Military Commander. Sir, your popularity with broad swathes of the Russian public is partly due to your use of pithy and often off-color folk sayings that resonate with simple folk. I return the favor by offering a rude American folk expression: if you cannot take a crap, get off the toilet seat! The moment of truth has arrived.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

Zelensky: Ukraine is definitely not losing the war: News X World, 21 February

Zelensky calls for European troops to positioned near the front lines, ready for introduction of a cease fire. This is precisely what former British PM Boris Johnson told reporters in an interview yesterday, and it is the worst possible advice.

The leader of the Russian team, Vladimir Medinsky, said in an interview a day ago that whereas the Russian team has one person to report to, Putin, the Ukrainian team has three people to address, one of whom represents the European Union Member State that wants the war to continue indefinitely.

My best advice to Zelensky is to get out while he can. A power struggle is ongoing among his colleagues, Zaluzhny and Budanov. His future does not look good if he clings to power.

Are Ukrainians looking for regime change?  Probably not: they have been brainwashed for the past 12 years. What is needed is a time out, likely a period of military rule, when the population can learn the real state of their armed forces and real state of their economy.

My advice to Chancellor Merz at the close of this interview is that he should tune in to Russian television and he would find that the Russians are ready to wipe Germany off the face of the earth if this hostility continues. It might sober him up.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

NewsX World interview: Ukraine raises military exports to Middle East to billions

I enter this news wrap-up at minute 12 with a discussion of Ukraine’s latest announcement on exports of its military supplies, in particular in the Middle East.  We move on to an item in the EU’s planned 20th package of sanctions against Russia: interception of Russian tankers at sea.  The EU legal team is hard at work trying to justify what is in effect piracy as something acceptable under international law.  As I say in this interview, von der Leyen and her minions are doing their best to bring Europe into open war with Russia at a time when the outcome is clear – turning Western Europe into a Gaza-like wasteland.