As those of you who have read these pages for some time know, I appeared not long ago on the Johnny Vedmore show of the TNT global broadcasting network that is Australian owned and operates from Britain. On that program I was interviewed by Johnny in a 10 minute slot. Yesterday we were both panelists responding to questions posed by a moderator. The shows are aired live and then released on a number of internet platforms. On Monday I am scheduled to participate in another of their programs hosted by the former British MP James Freeman.
The tone of these programs is lively and always topical. Yesterday’s opened with discussion of the latest Russian expulsion of six British diplomats on spying charges. As I remarked, the Brits may look upon this as a down payment on possible severing of diplomatic relations that Russian Duma member Lugovoy called for a day ago on the Vladimir Solovyov talk show. Why? The answer lies in the aggressively hostile disposition of the recently installed New Labour government and its guiding role in the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk oblast. As we know, the preceding Tory government of Boris Johnson was responsible for the cancellation of the Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement initialed by both sides in March 2022 as well as for several high visibility terrorist attacks within Russia. I am pleased to have given the time to explain that severing diplomatic relations often is a precursor to the declaration of war.
Among other topics of the day, we also talked about Putin’s remark during his visit to Petersburg on Thursday that NATO members which end restrictions on Kiev’s use of the offensive weapons they have supplied for attacks on Russia’s heartland will be considered to have become co-belligerents.
I
I am hopeful that our three-way discussion with the moderator will be as interesting and informative for viewers as it was stimulating for me as panelist.
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by full transcription in English)
Podiumsdiskussion von TNT Muckrakers: Russland weist britische Diplomaten aus, Putin und der Krieg mit der NATO, Starmer besucht Washington und gibt es ein Happy End im Ukraine-Krieg?
Wie diejenigen von Ihnen, die diese Seiten schon länger lesen, wissen, bin ich vor nicht allzu langer Zeit in der Johnny Vedmore Show des globalen Senders TNT aufgetreten, der sich in australischem Besitz befindet und von Großbritannien aus operiert. In dieser Sendung wurde ich von Johnny in einem 10-minütigen Slot interviewt. Gestern waren wir beide Diskussionsteilnehmer und beantworteten Fragen eines Moderators. Die Sendungen werden live ausgestrahlt und dann auf verschiedenen Internetplattformen veröffentlicht. Am Montag soll ich an einer weiteren Sendung teilnehmen, die vom ehemaligen britischen Europaabgeordneten James Freeman moderiert wird.
Der Ton dieser Programme ist lebhaft und immer aktuell. Gestern wurde die Sendung mit einer Diskussion über die jüngste Ausweisung von sechs britischen Diplomaten aus Russland wegen Spionagevorwürfen eröffnet. Wie ich bemerkte, könnten die Briten dies als Anzahlung für eine mögliche Abkoppelung der diplomatischen Beziehungen betrachten, die der russische Duma-Abgeordnete Lugowoi am Tag zuvor in der Talkshow von Wladimir Solowjow gefordert hatte. Warum? Die Antwort liegt in der aggressiven feindlichen Gesinnung der kürzlich eingesetzten New Labour-Regierung und ihrer führenden Rolle bei der Invasion der Ukraine in der Oblast Kursk. Wie wir wissen, war die vorherige Tory-Regierung unter Boris Johnson für die Aufhebung des von beiden Seiten im März 2022 paraphierten russisch-ukrainischen Friedensabkommens sowie für mehrere öffentlichkeitswirksame Terroranschläge in Russland verantwortlich. Ich freue mich, dass ich die Zeit gefunden habe, zu erklären, dass die Unterbrechung diplomatischer Beziehungen oft ein Vorläufer der Kriegserklärung ist.
Neben anderen Themen des Tages sprachen wir auch über Putins Bemerkung während seines Besuchs in Petersburg am Donnerstag, dass NATO-Mitglieder, die die Beschränkungen für den Einsatz der von ihnen gelieferten Angriffswaffen durch Kiew für Angriffe auf das Kernland Russlands aufheben, als Kriegsteilnehmer betrachtet werden.
Ich hoffe, dass unsere Dreierdiskussion mit dem Moderator für die Zuschauer genauso interessant und informativ sein wird, wie sie für mich als Diskussionsteilnehmer anregend war.
Transcription below by a reader
Andrew Eborn: 0:11
Well, it’s just gone 12 noon in London, 7 AM in Philadelphia; and around the world, It’s time for “The Muckrakers” with me, Andrew Eborn. And here on “The Muckrakers”, we pledge to continue tackling the most controversial and pressing news issues of our time. Our mission is to provide more light and less heat in our unwavering quest to uncover the truth and to inform, educate and entertain, all with dignity and respect.
And today we’re going to discuss Putin’s latest warning to NATO, the end game in the Ukraine conflict and the risk of thermonuclear war. And I’m delighted to be joined by TNT titan Johnny Vedmore and Dr Gilbert Doctorow, who joins us all the way– where are you based, Dr Gilbert? Where are you based?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Brussels, Belgium.
Eborn:
Brussels in Belgium, oh, we love it over there. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow holds a PhD in Russian history from Columbia University and is a fluent Russian speaker. He spent most of his professional life in corporate business with a focus on Russia. He has authored five books of essays. He also posted his space in expert forums devoted to international affairs and appeared in Russian domestic political talk shows on all national channels. A very warm welcome to you both, gentlemen.
Doctorow;
Thank you.
Johnny Vedmore:
Thank you.
Eborn: 1:31
Let me deal with this sort of breaking news which has happened in the last few minutes about Russia has expelled British diplomats. Basically, the Russia’s FSB security service has revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow, accusing them of spying and sabotage. The UK government called the spy accusations baseless and stated it is unapologetic about protecting its national interest. Let me get your reaction on that first of all, Gilbert.
Doctorow: 2:00
Well, I think this is a down payment on a much bigger set of problems that are about to appear in British-Russian relations. What I mean is, it’s entirely possible in the next few weeks that the Russians will cut diplomatic relations Britain. This was called for yesterday by a gentleman who many in your audience will find familiar by name, Mr. Lugavoy, who was held to be responsible for a rather high-visability political murder in Britain several years ago. Lugavoy is a deputy of the state Duma, and he called precisely to cut relations.
And why is that? It’s because of what Mr. Keir Starmer is doing as the new Labour government repeats the policies of the first new Labour government of Tony Blair and moves to be a reliable partner of the United States in the capacity of a dog. In the case of Mr. Blair, Prime Minister Blair was denounced by many in the opposition in the United States as being a lapdog of Bush. In the case of Mr. Stammer, I’d say he’s the hunting dog of the present administration, because he is one step ahead of the United States, not two steps behind like Mr. Blair. And he is bringing down on Britain the risk of being the first target for a Russian retaliation. So long as it remains in a diplomatic domain, the cutting of relations is the first step. Usually the cutting of relations is the first step before declaration of war. And that’s exactly the sense in which it has to be understood. So the expulsion of these six diplomats is only a foretaste of what is to come.
Eborn: 3:55
Right, Johnny?
Vedmore;
Yeah, Keir Starmer, I’ll echo Gilbert there, Keir Starmer and David Lammy are one step ahead of the agenda, partially because the agenda is being created behind closed doors, and they have always been part of that deep-state infrastructure. We know that Keir Starmer, while he was in the administration under Corbyn, was actually joining the Trilateral Commission in secret, and he’s got a lot of secretive background. He seems like a deep-state actor, he seems like this is the perfect time for him come to power. The fact that the spies have been kicked out, it suggests there’s a new reset in the relationship in what’s about to happen.
4:43
This happened when Putin first got in as well, about ’99, 2000. You saw a load of spies, people being outed as spies in a leak by a former British intelligence agent who put out a load of names and that started another, you could say, exodus of spies, including some that were working in the Estonian embassy. One of them was a guy called Pablo Miller, whose handler was the infamous Christopher Steele of the Trump-Russia dossier, and who also handled Sergei Skripal. So you can see there’s, you know, there’s a web of spies always on the periphery of Russian borders, always working hard, some inside. This seems like a reset and there’s a big change coming.
Eborn: 5:37
Yeah, it is. I mean, you’ve called them spies. Many times they deny being spies. Basically, Russia claims that the British Foreign Office was coordinating efforts to escalate the political and military situation in Ukraine, aiming for Russia’s strategic defeat. And Russian state television, they had named and showed photographs of the six expelled diplomats, with the FSB warning the UK to stop intelligence activities. Gilbert, you mentioned this is basically the precursor for war; can you elaborate?
Doctorow: 6:06
Well, Mr Putin at the St Petersburg Cultural Forum, or on the sidelines of the Forum, was asked a question by a certain Pavel Zarubin, who is a journalist who runs a program called “Moscow, the Kremlin, Putin” on Sunday evenings. And he is a, he shadows Mr. Putin wherever he goes. And he was at the Forum yesterday. And in between meetings, he asked Mr. Putin a question that’s on the minds of most every Russian and on a lot of us here in the West. That is, how he will respond, how Russia will respond to the likely granting of permission by the United States and Britain to Kiev, to use whatever military hardware, particularly long-range missiles that they are given by the West to attack deep into Russian territory.
6:55
Mr. Putin opened his remarks. He was– this is a subject which you would think would generate a lot of heat. And I can say by contrast what I mean by heat. The Russian talk shows last night were showing images of Chancellor Scholz in a very heated discussion before a public in which he was making fist-like gestures and they showed on the side of the screen Hitler making the same fist-like gestures. So the heated discussions that are considered acceptable in German culture before audiences are not acceptable before Russian audiences. And Mr. Putin was very calm and reserved in his response. Obviously this was well prepared in advance, because he had a full day’s agenda, and you don’t just take up questions as deep and important as that on a moment’s notice.
7:44
His answer to Zarubin began with the explanation we’ve heard in the past few weeks from various sources, but here it was hearing, we heard it from the number one in Russia. From the standpoint of military expertise, Russia believes that it’s impossible for Ukraine alone to carry out, to use these missiles effectively against itself. That means they do not have the possibility absent the daily and I should say minute-by-minute provision of satellite reconnaissance to Ukraine officers to enable them, or to directly program missiles for targeting purposes.
But that’s not all. The second factor and the more important factor is that maintenance and ready preparedness of these weapons requires a great deal of skill, a great deal of education and knowledge of the sophisticated systems that are there, which nobody can impart in two or three weeks’ training. In short, only with the assistance and the presence of NATO officers in Ukraine can these weapons systems be used offensively against the Russian Federation. Accordingly, drawing the dots, Mr. Putin is saying that we view, we, Russia, view any attacks coming from Ukraine of these missiles, and particularly we’re talking about the British Missiles Storm Shadow, because the United States, to our best knowledge, is withholding permission to use its missiles, ATACMSs, for reasons that are very important to you, Britain in particular. But I will get to that, I hope, later in this discussion, how the United States is using Britain as another sacrifice, fighting Russians to the last Briton.
9:34
The point is that from the standpoint of Russia, the launch of such missiles against targets within the Russian Federation is the equivalent of NATO countries firing those missiles, meaning in short, at the end, his conclusion that the nature of this war changes with that permission to Ukraine, from a proxy war to a direct war that NATO countries are waging on his country; and that Russia will respond appropriately to the level, or calibrate it to the level of threat that it sees in these incoming missiles.
Eborn: 10:17
Yeah, and we’ve seen– and language is so important in this, isn’t it? We say “responding appropriately”. What does that mean in practice?
Doctorow:
It means that he is not being aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, which is– the “aggressive” word was in today’s “Financial Times” review of just what we’re talking about. He was being factual and matter-of-fact. [“You do this, and we will do that. And I’m not telling you what we will do, but it will be calibrated to the level of danger that you’re imposing on us.”]
Eborn:
You mentioned rather– I’m sorry, Gilbert. Carry on, yes.
Doctorow:
It was intentionally vague, and it was to encourage Britain, the United States and others not to allow, for example, Ukraine to use those missiles to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant. If we do that, as I have written earlier today, it will be a memorable event But I doubt that any of us present will be around to remember it.
Eborn: 11:09
Right. Chilling stuff. Johnny.
Vedmore:
Yeah, I think, you know, they’ve been pushing the buttons for a long time. The West have been seeing how far they can get in to Russia, basically: how much they can disturb the Russian State, the people. They want Russia to be broken down. And that’s what they really want to happen. And they’ve done this through a lot of other mechanisms, aside from warfare, actual warfare. So a lot of the runup to this has been neocon NGO kind of cold war, where lots of actions are taken to put pressure on the countries surrounding Russia to turn against Russia.
12:10
Now, we’ve reached the point where Putin has finally said, and Russia finally said, “This is it. You step over this line and it is war.” And we all knew that it was coming. We all knew that eventually, the more they push, the more they swamp the intelligence infrastructure into countries surrounding Russia, that this was going to lead to a state of war. And this is, this is the closest we’ve ever been within our lifetimes to something that is equal, if not even more severe than World War II. And that’s saying something. I just don’t– I think a lot of the British people are sleepwalking, and the Americans, all of the West, are sleepwalking into this. The actual citizens don’t realise the dangers and don’t realise that we’re the ones, we are the aggressors. We are the ones who are constantly pushing the button. We have swallowed our own propaganda, partially because after World War II, the Western powers had to adopt Soviet-style Leninist propaganda to compete, to really, really fight back against the narrative.
13:22
And what’s happened now is it’s flipped, it’s almost flipped completely. Russia has become kind of like the West once saw itself as, and the West have become this aggressive power that looks to push all of the buttons. And I hope it’s happy now. I hope they’re happy. They’ve pushed all of the buttons. And now we’re at the state where Putin’s saying, “If you keep going now, we this is the last straw. We will push the button back.” And that means something extreme, especially for the people of Britain, like Gilbert says, you know, we are now on the front line, as always. And you know one spark and this powder keg goes up.
Eborn: 14:05
Yeah, chilling stuff as I say. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to be doing a deeper dive into how we got here and is there a way out of it. Don’t touch that dial.
TNT: 14:18
Critically analyzing global affairs. The Muckrakers on today’s news talk TNT.
Eborn: 14:25
Well welcome back to “The Muckrakers”, with me, Andrew Eborn. And if you’re interested in news for the Middle East, do check out Levantis.me which brings down all the main stories into plain English and presents you with just what you need to know each day for news, comments and analysis and a really fresh non-partisan take on news for the Middle East. And of course for what’s really going on in Gaza, try Levantis.me, which you can also find on X as Levantis underscore ME. And it’s a run and a big editor over there is our regular here on “The Muckrakers”, Martin J., who will be watching and listening to every word to make sure I plug his sites relentlessly, which I’ll continue to do.
15:07
Just before the break, I said we were going to unpack some of the history, so everything can be put into context. And how did we get here, Gilbert?
Doctorow:
Well, I have to say my background, my professional training, you mentioned my PhD in history, and I think I’m virtually the only historian who’s the kind of commentator on programs like your own these days; that my peers, my colleagues, I think are all hiding under their desks because if they said anything like what I’m saying, they’d be fired the next day. But I have the benefit of being a bit older and not subject to firing. I speak as an historian. You asked for the background, and historians pay attention to the starting date.
We have different disciplines, some are journalists. Journalists usually have a starting date that goes back two weeks. Talking heads and pundits have a starting date that may go back 10 years. That’s already great. Historians, of course, can bore the public by going back centuries. I won’t do that. But I’ll say that a 20 year back look in the rear view mirror is appropriate to the situation that we’re now undergoing. And this is where I look at the statement of the head of MI6 at the “Financial Times” global meeting last weekend as being typical of the problem that we are all facing when we look at the Ukraine war. He takes it back no further than February of 2022. That’s when the Russians waged their, entered upon their war of aggression in Ukraine. And that’s the whole prehistory to where we are today in 2024.
16:52
Regrettably, when you start in February of 2022, you have already ruled out any understanding of what we’re facing. You have to go back at least to the, what’s called the coup d’etat in February of 2014 when the Americans effectively, Victoria Nuland, installed a nationalist government, overthrew the elected prime minister of Ukraine, sent him fleeing for his life to Russia, and installed a nationalist government in Ukraine, which remains with us today, one which is viciously anti-Russian for its own citizens who happen to be Russian speakers, and which has viscerally hatred for the Russian Federation and is very willing to allow itself to be used by the United States and NATO for their purposes, in the mistaken belief that their purposes and its purposes are the same: that is, the recovery of lands that Ukraine has lost to the Russian Federation over the last 10 years.
18:02
Well, if you go back to 2014, and you see that this government was installed for the purpose of buildup of an anti-Russian force, a NATO base, which NATO had been inviting the Ukraine and Georgia to join, or at least the Americans within NATO were doing that back to 2008 when it was resisted by some of their colleagues, and so it wasn’t approved formally by NATO back then. But it was already on the table that the United States was pushing for this NATO entry of Ukraine for the purpose that we now know, purposes which have been aired by various personalities in the military and political life in the States in the last couple of years: to bring Russia to its knees and to inflict a humiliating defeat, a strategic defeat on Russia.
19:00
And here I come to the point of Johnny a few minutes ago, the idea of causing great pain to Russia. The disruption of political life in Russia was the objective. When you inflict a great military defeat on a country, it is not unusual for there to be a revolution in that country or in some way, or coup d’etat, or in some way for the government to be overthrown. And that has been the objective of the United States and some of its allies in NATO going back two decades. And this has been a guiding light to all efforts in Ukraine by NATO and its allies. So that is what brought about the moment of truth in in December 2021, when Mr. Putin, and particularly in the words of the Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, put terms of a settlement for a new architecture of security in Europe to NATO and to the United States.
20:06
These were peremptorally dismissed, and Russia decided that it had no recourse but to go to war. And so the so-called “unprovoked aggression” was, in fact, something that had taken a long time to build up, and it was the United States’ disparagement of Russia, United States’ interest in overturning the political order in Russia that was behind this whole development.
Eborn: 20:34
Right. And it is interesting, a lot of people have said strategically, I mean, Ukraine is basically the breadbasket of the world, and a lot of people said that a lot of property and the debt that they have, a lot of the land there, I think somebody even said as much as 30 percent, has already been taken by some of the people who are lending these huge sums of money. Can you shed any light on that?
Doctorow: 20:59
It was true that Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had black earth. This is the kind of soil in which you plant a broomstick and the next day you’ve got a tree. It is very fertile land. It was more than a meter, I think, maybe three meters thick. It’s now down to less than one meter because of depletion, abuse, abusive agricultural practices. Nonetheless, it is still some of the most fertile land in Europe and it can, under proper conditions and proper investments, proper agricultural techniques, be really, as you say, a breadbasket.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s for specific cultures, specific crops, not for all crops. Ukraine was the biggest producer in the world for sunflowers and sunflower oil. As an example, for this look at grains or corn, as you call it in Britain, the issue is a bit more complex. In point of fact, Russia, which was, which suffered famines in the late 19th century, Russia, which had a tremendous shortage of grain production in the years of Brezhnev and had to sign, to its great embarrassment, long-term procurement contracts with the United States for grain to feed its cattle, Russia has become a much bigger producer, a much bigger supply of agricultural products to the world at large. And if you have the proper management, proper investment and the proper personnel, they have done wonders with lands which were largely wasted during the Soviet period.
22:46
So to speak of Ukraine as a unique granary of the world is, I think, to mistake the agricultural balances as they are today. Nonetheless, it remains true that land in Ukraine is highly valuable, and as you say, a large, 30, I’ve even heard higher percentages of the land have been bought up on the cheap by international agricultural combines.
Eborn: 23:12
Johnny.
Vedmore:
I would go back with history. I would go back to about 1989 to see the current modern development of how we got here. But that was spurred on by a lot of the philosophy, the ideas that came out of America, Harvard, places like that during the late 50s and through the 60s where they were deciding globalism is going to be the way of the future. And for that, we can expect multi-polls of globalism to appear, and one of those polls of globalism would be America, Britain and Europe united. And so that automatically then puts forward the enemy, doesn’t it? It says, if we’re going to be united, then who are we going to be united against? And that’s sort of the thinking.
Now over the years, the West developed leadership programs that we all know about, that we’ve all heard about, from a post-war period, started about 1950, with Kissinger’s International Seminar forming and training world leaders to put into power. And eventually in around 1989, you start to see the first colour revolution. And these colour revolutions were then weaponized in a way that allowed the West to take advantage and put pressure on the Soviet Union so it would fall, and then install their own leaders in. And we’ve seen this slow crunch since the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, this slow crunch, country after country, falling under some sort of Western influence.
24:54
We’ve reached a point now where the neocon agenda scares most of the people in the region. The Western world looks like a hellscape to the people who are very traditional in values and still hold religion and traditional values as in high regard in the East and in Russia. And so they don’t want to end up with the type of immigration that we’ve got over here, the type of society that we’re creating over here, the woke culture. They’re not interested in that at all. So there’s a breaking point now. And I think that’s why this is happening now. There’s two things, is that if you want to create globalism– whether you’re the West or the East, and if you want to implement an agenda which is extremely well mapped out, I don’t think people realize how well mapped out this is by public policy institutes such as the World Economic Forum– if you want to institute this, you need to destroy a lot of what is currently here.
25:54
And I think that we’re coming up to a point where a lot of these guys are saying, well, you know, we followed this neocon agenda through to the point where now we’re at breaking point. Ukraine, where I mean, in 2004, you had by the German Marshall Fund figures, you had roughly 30,000 NGOs working, Western NGOs working in Ukraine to destabilize the country. And you saw how that worked. But that was during relatively peacetime. Now we’ve reached a point where we see where that’s led. It’s led to a war. It’s led to a point where, you know, recently the Slovakian leader who had an assassination attempt soon afterwards was saying, “Hey, you know, we’re starting to look back towards the East, because we don’t like what’s going on in the West.” And I think that– they know in the West that that’s going to keep happening.
26:49
So the only way is to create something new and to have some form of reset. And the best way to reset is war. And I think when the greatest reset was announced by the World Economic Forum, I think that was really the start to say, “We are changing things within society, so much so that we need to completely and utterly start afresh and anew.” And like I say, the best way to do that is war for these people. That’s what they think. So be wary of the people you vote for. Be wary of the agenda you follow. Look at what’s going on behind the scenes because it’s been going on for donkey’s years, and it’s now reached a point where there’s a crescendo.
27:29
And at this moment today, on Friday the 13th, this is when Putin says, “No more” to the crescendo. “We’re now at the breaking point. You make your decision on what comes next.” So we’re at the end now; we’re at the end of this road. This is a new era of history.
Eborn: 27:46
Yeah. And as I say, very, very chilling stuff. Friday the 13th indeed. And we talked about this earlier, about some of the weapons and various things that have been used. We talked about the F-16 aircraft, we often reference that here on “The Muckrakers”, and actually pointing out: to learn to fly those F-16s actually takes months, if not years. So they’ve been basically having, NATO allies have already been helping on that sort of basis, haven’t they Gilbert?
Doctorow: 28:14
Well the Wunderwaffe, the wonder arms, have been a talking point over the last couple of years, and each time the suggestion was made that one or another of these wonderful sophisticated weapons or weapon systems would change the course of the war. But I’d just like to, that same idea, I’d like to build a couple of points that my fellow panelist just made. And indeed, starting point, why exactly did this break out in February 2022? Why not earlier? Why not later? It’s called a window of opportunity. And the window of opportunity precisely is around weapon systems.
In 2018, Mr. Putin, in his pre-election state-of-the-nation speech, about one month before they had the presidential elections, he said that, he unrolled before the public what his government had done in the period since the United States pulled out of the ABM treaty, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, to save themselves. And they invented, for the first time in Russia’s history, ancient or modern history, Russia had prepared weapon systems that are a generation ahead of anything in the West. They always were playing catch-up. In the nuclear age, they were rushing like hell to catch up first with the atomic weapons than the thermonuclear weapons developed in the United States.
29:49
This time, they declared they were a generation, they were at least 10 years ahead of the United States, and hypersonic missiles were the leading edge of this. There are other weapons systems too, but let’s leave it at that. We’ve seen what hypersonic missiles do in the last week in the attacks on Poltava with an Iskandar that is Mach 6 and with a Kinzhal or dagger missile that is Mach 10. The Mach 10 weapon hit Lviv, getting through the Patriot and three other air defense systems from Western Europe that were supposedly protecting Lviv. This is what Mr. Putin had announced in 2018, and it was realized and used effectively in front of the whole world in the past week.
But in 2022, Mr. Putin decided it was time to use or lose this window of opportunity. And if Russia was going to pressure NATO and the United States to redraw the rules of European defense, European security, this was the time. Also on the point that Johnny made, a very good point about America’s preparation of world leaders, I would add one point: weaponizing wives. It is noteworthy that people like Saakashvili has an American wife, that Mr. Radek Sikorski, who is the foreign minister of Poland today, has been a leading voice in pro-American and anti-Russian policies in Poland for the last decade. He has an American wife, Applebaum, who was a leading propagandist for neocon views.
31:35
So the United States played its role in precipitating what’s come, and the timing on the Russian side was, as I said, led by their advantage as they saw it in strategic weapon systems.
Eborn: 31:50
Albert Einstein said that “I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.” I mean, chilling stuff again. What would war look like?
Doctorow:
No one can say. I don’t pretend to have an insider knowledge here. But I think when Mr. Putin said that he will respond in an appropriate manner according to the level of threat, I can think of many things that would not look like thermonuclear bombs dropping on anybody. He could, for example– what has been rumoured, what has been discussed, as an idle topic of discussion, perhaps among the financial circles in Britain– is to cut the cables to Britain. I think your financial system and your economy would go down the next day without a person dying. So there are many things that can be done. They can attack the United States military bases around the world, and they can provide the Houthis with the Kinzhal, which is an aircraft carrier-capable missile.
They just don’t have to blow up New York or London, although that’s also available. Let’s face it, about six months ago, the Russians announced that one Sarmat missile, which is the updated most recent acquisition of the Russian military, one Sarmat missile can destroy the whole of Britain. How can it do that? It carries maybe a dozen avant-garde missiles or warheads. These are Mach 20, Mach 20, unstoppable, each carrying nuclear weapons. Britain would sink. So that dire scenario exists, but I think it’s very improbable that things will ever get to that point. And I think even when we’re hearing… Yeah, okay.
Eborn: 33:41
Johnny.
Vedmore:
I was just going to say, on that point about, before we get into the break, about that point about Albert Einstein, he did not really understand what artificial intelligence was, what it would look like and what would happen. We had a pandemic that was purposely blown up out of all proportions so that they could introduce mRNA technology and leave back the chemistry of the past for making compounds that were meant to be for medicines. Now we are going to have World War III to introduce AI technology, AI weapons systems, and a world which has been mapped out by the same people who have been taking us to conflict against Russia. What people don’t realize is that those sticks and stones that Einstein talked about will be all that’s left when the robots are in charge because the world is seriously turning into a dark dystopian place with AI technology. And this is part, I think, why warfare is making those in power drool because they know that they get to test out weapons systems and technologies that are well beyond anything we’ve seen before.
Eborn: 34:56
We’re going to take another break. When we come back, we’re going to be pressing Dr Gilbert on his suggestion that we’re being used here in Britain by the United States. We’re also going to finish, we’ve promised, on a positive note to what peace might look like. Don’t touch that dial.
TNT:
From national security to global corruption, this is “The Muckrakers” on Today’s News Talk, TNT.
Eborn:
Well, a very warm welcome back to “The Mudcrackers” with me, Andrew Eborn, joined by Johnny Vedmore and also Dr. Gilbert Doctorow. And the US and the UK are close to allowing Ukraine to use Western missiles to strike inside Russia. This is going to be discussed at a White House summit between President Biden and UK PM Starmer. Gilbert, you were saying, [three seconds sound loss] –tion, can you elaborate?
Doctorow: 35:48
Yes. First of all, although Mr. Putin’s remarks yesterday about Russian reaction were taken to be aggressive and sort of … to have, to be nothing more than a reiteration of Russian saber-rattling of the past months, in fact, they’ve had an impact. If you just look, I think that Britain and the United States are wobbling right now. The more that comes out, the more I understand that they are hesitant. Certainly the United States is said, from back channels, to rule out the use of its own ATACMS missiles in the heartland of Russia. And those would be, frankly speaking, the most effective missiles to be used, because they are ground-launched missiles, whereas the British Storm Shadow or the French equivalent, Scalp, they are aircraft-launched missiles. They would be ideally on F-16s.
36:52
Wait a minute, the Ukrainians don’t have F-16s. The one thing, out of six of them that were delivered already has been shot down. So that is really a theoretical threat for Russia rather than a practical threat at this moment, whereas the ATACMSs would be a very real threat since, as I said, they are ground-launched. Nonetheless, the United States, it clearly is moving its feet towards the obvious. It does not allow its weapons to be used. And what does that mean? Why would it say to the British, “Hey, you go ahead, that’s great, you support Ukraine and protect them and so forth”? Well, it is setting up Britain to suffer the same fate as Ukraine has, to be used as a weapon against Russia at its own risk and suffering, while the United States, by the same logic, thinks that it can get away scot-free.
37:56
So Britain would go down. France would go down if its Scalps were involved. They would be subject to Russian retaliation that could be as severe as the threat to Russia had been the damage to Russia had been from the use of these missiles against the Russian heartland. This is not exactly a repeat of the Iraq War, where Mr. Tony Blair was sitting in the sunshine. He was the fair-haired boy of the United States. And he had enabled and legitimized American military action. Here, Britain will be at least to the Americans’ thinking the first and the only victim of this brave assistance to Ukraine. I’d just like to add a correction here. That’s dead wrong. I think it’s perfectly clear from what Mr. Putin was saying that Russia will go after the United States, whether they are ATACMSs or not ATACMSs, that are used to inflict damage on the Russian heartland.
39:02
Mr. Putin did not say this will be a war by Britain against Russia, or a war of France against Russia, or Germany against Russia. It is a war of NATO against Russia. And we all know who runs NATO. So this– if it is any comfort to British citizens, to listeners of this show. It is not Britain alone that would be subject to a Russian retaliation, should the Ukrainians use Storm Shadow to inflict grievous damage and loss of civilian life in the Russian heartland.
Eborn: 39:37
Right. I’m not sure what comfort that would necessarily give people, other than “we’re not alone in this”. I mean, you mentioned previously, Gilbert, that a lot of your contemporaries are too scared to speak out because they feel they might get sacked. Can you elaborate on that?
Doctorow:
No, I know that there are some. Look, I’m in an awkward situation. My talking point is I’m fluent in Russian and watching the talk shows because Russia, I maintain, is a fairly open society despite all the prejudices against that position in the West, a fairly open society and open sources can provide a great deal of information which I use in what I write and what I say on air. Nonetheless, there are hundreds of specialists as well experienced with the Russian language as I am, and some of them still have their wits about them, and know which is up and which is down, which is to say that they are closet … thinkers, with the same view of the present situation as I have. If they were to dare to speak out, they would be fired peremptorally, and I have that on good information from people who should know that, because they are leading academics in the States.
40:56
In this sense, I use this moment to express my great appreciation for Professor Meersheimer at the University of Chicago and Professor Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University, who suffer the slings and arrows from their colleagues at the university administration, when you consider that maybe 95 percent of staff come out against Russia and with unqualified support for the Washington narrative. That is the situation.
Eborn: 41:27
Yeah, it is. We always say here on “The Muckrakers” and TNT generally is that this is the home of free speech. We’re not trying to take sides. We’re just trying to look for the truth. And I think it’s jaw, jaw, not war, war. And I do want to finish on what peace might look like. We promise people that there is a shining ray of hope somewhere. But first of all, Johnny, just give me your reaction to what Gilbert said, and then we’re going to look at this positive side.
Vedmore: 41:56
Yeah … one of the things I really want to put forward is that, you know, if you study what a black swan event is, an event that is so massive in magnitude, but is relatively unexpected, but when you look back at everything that’s happened, it makes sense that we should have expected it. That’s a black swan event, and we’ve been saying, you know, there’s going to be some form of black swan event before election time, that will change the course of election. So in a sense, you could say this is an amazing moment. Again, a moment of opportunity, a window of opportunity to meddle in the elections, in a sense. The Russians have done the ultimate meddling. They’ve said, look, this is what we’re gonna do and we’re gonna go into all-out war If you continue along that path, and it’s a month and a half, two months till the election, and what’s going to happen? What are the American people going to do? They’re going to look for a peacemaker. They’re going to look for someone who can say, “Calm this down.” Someone who said over and over again, “Let’s stop this from happening. Let’s not go into World War iii.” We saw in debate the other night between Trump and Harris, Trump say, [“They want to lead us into World War Three. They want to lead us into what would be basically a nuclear apocalypse.”]
43:24
And this is what we’re seeing. And so Russia are taking this opportunity and this can be seen what Putin has said. And this threat should be seen as a black swan event, which can change the course of history. You know, it can change the direction we’re going. And now the Americans are going to be the ones who have a choice. Either they’re going to choose to continue on their current path where neocons are supported to undermine the stability of world peace, or they can choose another option where for at least a small amount of time sticking plasters are put over the wounds and we try and get towards something where we can develop some form of world peace that is stable.
44:12
I think that the American people, regardless of the propaganda, will end up voting in Trump based on something along these lines, based on fear for their livelihoods, fear for their societies. I think we’re approaching something which is a very, this is the most opportune moment for Putin to say what he said and do what he’s done, because America is watching now intently and they are going to say, “What are our options?” and look around. And whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, there’s only one person who’s talking about making peace with Russia. There’s only one person.
44:53
It is interes– you raise the US Presidential debate where Harris, I think, surprised people, surprised a lot of people She performed a lot better than people thought. I had Errol Musk on the program again yesterday. He was saying she was wearing these wonderful earrings which could be used for communicating and people might have been feeding stuff into her ear. You can check that out yourself. But Harris warned that Trump would give up Ukraine to Russia while Trump avoided siding with either country, calling for an end to the war. What was your take on the debate, Gilbert?
Doctorow: 45:26
Well, unfortunately, the debate was hijacked by issues that are quite irrelevant to our survival. Whether or not illegal immigrants are eating dogs on the front lawns of peace-abiding citizens in the suburb here or there. There were many issues that were totally spurious and unfortunately are part of Mr. Trump’s electoral baggage. There were other issues which are not spurious, which are very much in the foreground in American political life, whether it’s green agendas or whether it’s reproductive rights of women. But the real problem is that people do not follow, to my knowledge, they don’t have top of mind, as Johnny just expected, that they are concerned about life and death. I think that most people in the States would, listening to this program, would think that this is, that we are speaking of something highly exaggerated and improbable.
46:34
Regretably, that’s not true. Regretbly, the United States administration, at least on the side of the State Department, is following insane policies and insane priorities. I’m very glad that Johnny mentioned the November election date, and that is really a key issue. One can interpret the behavior of the administration now as trying to bait the Russians to get them to do something explosive, something dramatic, something that would bring down on them the ire of the Global South, and could justify a massive– sorry, a massive American attack on Russia before the elections, while thereby pushing over the top Kamala Harris, absurd as that kind of thinking may be, insane as it may be.
47:29
I think it cannot be excluded from the game plan of somebody like Jake Sullivan or these other shallow, very shallow individuals like Tony Blinken. So the American public doesn’t quite get it. They don’t see this, but I agree with the overall idea of Johnny that the only thing that could save us, or the main thing that could save us, not the only, but the most visible thing that could save us all would be a Trump victory on November 5th. And I think that is the understanding of Mr. Putin as well. Therefore, should there be any strike on Russian Federation heartland using these missiles in the period between now and November 5th, I think it is improbable that Putin will go for that bait. He will hold off until the die is cast on November 5th, and it’s clear whom he’ll be dealing with.
48:28
If Trump wins, then I think the Russians will back off, however grievous harm done to them by these missiles will be, in the expectation that Trump will do– let’s face it, what Harris said, that he will instantly stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and the country will fall in a couple of weeks. That is a scenario that gives peace to the world. There are moved out other scenarios.
Eborn: 48:58
Yes. You mentioned, Gilbert, at the beginning that we would finish on a positive note. Is that your positive note, a Trump victory?
Doctorow:
It’s not the only one. As I said, there are other things that the Russians could do that would not be the level of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons. If, let’s be honest, if the Russians were to cut all of your undersea cables, that would be enormous damage to Britain and it might sober people up. So I think there are these various solutions that are non-fatal that would bring to the attention of broad publics in Britain, in the United States, that they are not invulnerable, that Russians are capable of causing them enormous damage if they continue with their warmongering.
Eborn: 49:53
Right. The final word then is the– one minute left to us. The leaders around the world may well be watching “The Muckrakers”. Some do. It’s surprising what quarters, especially if they don’t get to hear this narrative elsewhere. What would you like to say to them?
Doctorow:
To think about their own people and to put aside ideological prejudices that they are, they were elected by their nation, and they should be serving their nation, and at present that is not happening. The pragmatism that was once the common sense guiding American policy for decades, if not for centuries, has been overturned by ideologists who have caused havoc in the world and who do not look in a rear-view mirror, and have faced no consequences for the millions of deaths they have caused in a whole sweeping series of countries.
50:52
So if they were to consider for a moment what are the true interests of their peoples in economic welfare, and in collective approach with those Russians as well, to the major global challenges we have, then I think they would turn away from the present course that’s leading us to a nuclear war.
Eborn: 51:17
We can only hope that sense does prevail and that people heed those very chilling words if sense doesn’t prevail. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining us here on “The Muckrakers”. Jonny Vedmore, it’s always a pleasure to see you. I hope that the rest of you, in spite of the chilling news that’s going on, have an enjoyable weekend. I’ll be back with you next week. Errol Musk, the father of Elon, will be joining me yet again, together with another galaxy of stars. I hope you join me then. But for me, Andrew Eborn, thanks very much for joining me, and I will see you next time.
TNT: 52:27
If you missed this hour, simply go to episodes@TNTradio.live.
Gilbert Doctorow 
Good one !
LikeLike