An extract from this morning’s interview on Press TV (Iran)

The segment presented in the podcast below is part of a 30 minute discussion of the latest exchange: yesterday’s US attack on an Iranian held island in the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian revenge attack on the main US air base in Jordan. I shared the microphone with a Press TV journalist in their Tehran studio

https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/31/775409/Gilbert-Doctorow–War-will-significantly-diminish-us-influence-as-Iran-holds-Strait-of-Hurmuz

RIA NOVOSTI : Russian ambassador Denis Gonchar –  Russia has no reason to attack Belgium or any other NATO country

This morning’s news ticker on the Russian internet channel dzen.ru has carried a succession of excerpts from the day’s articles about the interview that Russian ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium Denis Gonchar has just given to RIA Novosti. These snippets from RIA Novosti, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Rossiiskaya Gazeta appear on dzen.ru for a few moments and then disappear, making it difficult to take down texts, but I have succeeded with the posting coming from Ria Novosti itself:

Quote

Russia has neither the desire nor the reason to attack Belgium or any other NATO country. Westerners stir up this theme in order to justify in the eyes of their population expenditures on militarization, Russian ambassador in Brussels Denis Gonchar has told RIA Novosti in an interview

I emphasize yet again that Russia has neither the desire nor the reason to attack Belgium or any other NATO country. This is all whipped up for the purpose of justifying militarization and degradation of the socio-economic situation,’ said the ambassador.

He indicated that in the last year military budgeting jumped from 9 billion euros almost to 13 billion and came to 2% of GDP. This year the authorities in Belgium have already budgeted military expenses at the level of 3.44% of which 2.01% are direct defense expenses Gonchar explained.

Unquote

I direct attention to the 3 comments that followed

  1. Popugai Silvera

There is a reason. And a weighty one. – the security of Russia and of its people. No hostile defense blocs on our continent

      2. Yevgeni Porshin

Considering even that NATO is fighting with Russia in Ukraine we haven’t the least need for you with your European values. We have only partly gotten rid of your values. Thank heavens. there is a lot of work ahead  – a whole generation has been lost.

3. Nikolai Danilov

Our Putin also in an interview with a European journalist said in 2008 that only a madman can speak about Russia attacking Ukraine.

4. (name not recorded)

And the Russian people thinks otherwise. Let’s have a vote.

Roughly the same article appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda and attracted a great many comments, which had a definite coloration heavily critical of the Kremlin’s conduct of the war. From these I offer a sampling below:

Тeodorikh

And when precisely will the NATO countries ‘pay dearly’ The bills certainly aren’t reaching them

51

3

Viktor Dynbrovsky

That’s really news 🤣🤣🤣 Impunity. They long ago understood everything, that we just engage in empty chatter.

32

4

Nick Tselikov

It is simple logic: if the drones are flying to Russia from Estonia that means Estonia has attacked Russia.

30

Elena Mi

Only men are leaving comments. …Are you ready to fight against NATO? Zelensky is just waiting for that, to draw some NATO country into the war and then Russia will be fighting not only with Ukraine but with all of Europe. Yes, other NATO countries will be drawn in. For the moment we are only fighting against their weapons, but later there will also be…

20

2

Elena

Who is naïve? The ambassadors or us?  Do the ambassadors think it is we?

21

3

Denis Kapustin

The NATO countries are financing this war and providing weapons. Our response has been delayed, as if we have not finished our red lines. No one takes Russia seriously any more. I am not in favor of a big war, but NATO is openly for it

17

Yuri B

Because they are not afraid of our mumbling

10

Sergei Rubakhin

Hey, you, in the Kremlin! You could at least break off diplomatic relations with the most odious co-belligerents of Ukraine….You are not even capable of that!

8

Roman Belov

Who is listening to our warnings?

8

Yuri (ZZ)

This got to the ambassador in Belgium only in the fifth year of the SMO. He is a quick-witted fellow..

3

Yuri Pastukhov

Don’t be shy. Write to us which country when and what was done in relation to this.

2

1

VladKam

Have they forgotten how to bang on the table with their fist? [reference to Khrushchev at the UN]

Ivan

Well???????? We express our concern??????? This is banal cowardice

Note at the bottom:  the internet algorithms have hidden potentially hostile comments

Indeed, whatever weeding out of comments may have taken place, it is clear that the readers of these news tickers are not stupid, understand very well that what the Kremlin is doing is harmful to Russian national interests.  I stand by my earlier observations that it is unclear how long President Putin can resist the people over the conduct of the war if they perceive it to be against the national interest and cowardly. His entire popularity was built almost exclusivity on defending Russia’s national interest.

Also note that in other ticker accounts of Gonchar’s interview we read that he spoke about (unnamed) NATO countries that lend their sea and air space to Ukraine for their terrorist attacks on the civilian infrastructure and population of Russia.

In closing, I remind the Community that Putin’s ‘vertical of power’ is well in place as regards diplomacy. Ambassador Gonchar is only saying what he has been told to say by his boss, Sergei Lavrov, and Lavrov is saying only what his boss Vladimir Putin wants to hear.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

News X World two-segment interview, 26 August 2026

my appearance as from minute 8.20

In this morning’s news hour, I stood alone in providing commentary on the latest reports of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia and then was paired with Craig Peacock for a discussion of the newly announced Qatari denunciation of a visit to occupied territory in Syria by Israeli Minister of Defense Katz. Peacock is an international affairs analyst based in Tokyo, who is also a regular guest on News X World. I shared the microphone with him a day ago. As I noted then, Peacock’s remarks are well worth listening to. Our respective contributions are complementary and not duplicatory.

Professor John Mearsheimer on why Russia is winning the war and should not consider attacking military factories in Europe supplying Ukraine

It is not my practice to direct the Community to podcasts of my peers or to issue critiques of what any given colleague is saying about the war.  I will break that rule now because the expert whose views I will challenge here is one of the most authoritative persons you will find on youtube. He is the dean of the Realist School of international affairs, which I adhere to. And yet I believe he is seriously mistaken when he said a few hours ago on ‘Judging Freedom’ that Russia is winning the war and that it would be a mistake for the Russians to get into a war with NATO countries over their supply of drones and drone technology to Ukraine.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Te5PIPh3g

I have known Professor Mearsheimer as a follower of his writings and videos. I have also known him in person, about which I will speak below. I have the greatest respect for his courage, demonstrated by publication of his 2008 book (with Professor Stephen Walt) on the Israel lobby, which almost brought his career to an early end. I have still more respect for his 2014 article in the autumn issue of Foreign Affairs magazine explaining why the West was to blame for the conflict with Russia over Ukraine, a position for which he was pilloried by FA’s regular staff in their next edition. He followed up the article with a podcast speech that was seen by tens of millions of viewers. However, these achievements do not make him infallible as I saw in the past, when I first made his acquaintance.

In March 2015 in my capacity as co-founder, Board member and European representative of the American Committee for East West Accord, I organized a panel discussion on the subject of ‘revising the security architecture of Europe to bring Russia in from the cold.’ I was the moderator and the panelists were John Mearsheimer, Professor Stephen Cohen (ACEWA co-founder) and his wife, Katrina vanden  Heuvel, owner-publisher of The Nation magazine. The presentation took place in Brussels’ International Press Club and received good media attention. A video recording of the event is still accessible on youtube:

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6loGinpUtU&t=14s

After the presentation, all three panelists came to my home for dinner and we had a lively discussion during which John and I very courteously crossed swords over the question of Russia’s status as a great power. John said plainly that Russia was a country in decline that could only be a ‘spoiler’ in international relations. His view was at the time widely held among political scientists. Like them, John measured hard power by a country’s GDP.  Russia’s GDP was in 2015 a shadow of its Soviet past and accordingly John, like the Yabloko Liberals within Russia, believed that the notion of Russia standing up to the United States was nonsense. I took and take a very different view of the measure of a country’s hard power, insisting that it depends heavily on WILL, i.e., on national determination properly harnessed by leaders. Indeed, if I may interject an observation from today, anyone who assumed that Iran would be a push-over for the combined might of the USA and Israel because of its very small GDP in conditions of economic disarray caused by the U.S. sanctions of 50 years, such person would now realize that he or she was deeply mistaken by missing the resilience factor and undiluted courage.

John Mearsheimer maintained his low estimation of Russia well into the Special Military Operation, but at some point had a eureka moment and has since then been speaking of Russia as a Great Power. Regrettably, he has not been following the logic of Professor Glenn Diesen and myself, that Russia has been frittering away its Great Power status by failing to respond to ever more brazen provocations and now serious physical attacks on its critical infrastructure from the Collective West.

As you will hear on today’s podcast, Mearsheimer says that Russia is winning the war. In terms of daily advances on the battlefield. He is perfectly correct. But in terms of end-game, I do not see a capitulation by Kiev in the cards so long as Europe is ready to provide all necessary funds and military materiel to keep a rump Ukraine west of the Dnieper and land-locked in the fight against Russia and to use its territory to launch ever more devastating missile and drone attacks on the Russian Federation far into the future.

Mearsheimer also says that Russia should not strike against NATO countries, because it has its hands full right now fighting Ukraine.  Here I disagree most strongly.  Russia is already at war with NATO de facto if not de jure. And I believe this is precisely the best moment for Russia to deliver a blow at the UK, at France, at Germany in a well-considered move against the military factories now supplying drones and missiles to Kiev. This would be permitted under international law. More importantly it will not trigger a united NATO response under Article 5. 

NATO is toothless absent the USA, and the two years of Donald Trump in the Oval Office represent a rare opportunity for Russia.  One can be fairly certain that Trump will not jump into the fight to save Britain or to save Germany if Russia hits the factories producing weapons being used against it.

Moreover, the longer Russia waits to respond, the more time it is giving Europe to rearm so that any eventual war would be fought on terms more adverse to Russia than at present.

These are my arguments. Let the chips fall where they may.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

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