Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:06
Hi everybody, today is Tuesday, December 3rd and Dr. Gilbert Doctorow is here with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Good to be with you.

Alkhorshid:
Let’s get started with what’s going on in Georgia and in Syria. What are the repercussions of these two major events that are happening right now in the Russian media, and how do they feel about it in terms of what’s going on in Ukraine?

Doctorow: 0:33
Well, I’m glad that you asked me to direct attention to the Russian media, because their take on these developments is rather different from what we hear in major media here in the West, or in the alternative media. I’ve heard some very interesting and well-informed statements by people like Scott Ritter, with regard to Syria, who knows vastly more than I do about it. But that is reflecting his insider’s knowledge of politics on the ground in that part of the world. And the Russian, what I’m bringing to this discussion is what the Russians are saying about it.

1:09
Because the Russians are a big player in one of these two crises. They’re a big player in Syria. They were when they came in and saved Assad’s regime or government, as you wish to call it, in 2015, 2017, by very well conducted air strikes coordinated with Iranian forces on the ground to knock out what the extremist terrorists, which the Americans like to call moderate terrorists and which now the Americans are calling rebels. Rebels, my foot. These are terrorists, and they have been financed by the United States.

1:54
However, let’s come back to the difference in interpretation. From the Russian perspective, what is happening in Syria is an American operation. Some of my peers, like I said, Scott Ritter, have good reason to put the finger on Israel as the driving force. And of course, Israel is a beneficiary of chaos in Syria, because it interrupts supply lines from Iran, which is a source of munitions, missiles, and all sorts of good things, to Hezbollah. It all crosses Syrian territory. This is the reason why there have been these Israeli strikes over the last several years, air strikes on arms caches in various places of Syria.

2:38
It was all about that movement of arms across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon. So then the beneficiaries of chaos that interrupts that neat logistical solution, keeping Hizballah armed. The Russian perspective on this is that it’s driven by the United States. For the United States, it is a concept that they have two areas of conflict in which Russia is a participant or can be named as a participant, and which can distract public attention away from the disastrous situation for America’s Kievan allies. The war is being won on the ground day by day with a thousand Ukrainian soldiers here and there killed every day with 30 or 40 Americans killed manning various weapons systems on Ukrainian territory with French soldiers being killed.

3:47
All of this bad news crawls into the front page even of the “New York Times”. It was yesterday they had an article on the front page, on the online edition, about the real military setbacks. And they spoke about these two towns or cities, which are now under contention, that is in the middle of the Donetsk region. The the important logistical hub Pokrovsk, which is now being renamed by the Russians to its original name before the Ukrainians got hold of it. It is Krasnoarmiisk, and that’s the name under which it will appear in Russian military bulletins; and Kharkovka, which is mostly captured already by the Russians. Both towns will fall completely in the next week or two.

4:40
The Russians claim to have about 50% or 60% of Kharkovka and a substantial portion of Pokrovsk. These are enormous blows to the supply of arms to the Ukrainian front. The loss of these towns opens the way for a Russian offensive straight across to the Dnieper. The next major cities would be the ones that were most famous in the period of 2014, so- called Russia Spring, when the rebellious Donetsk militias held on to Slaviansk was the name of the town, which is yet to be reached by the Russian offensive. They held on to it for 85 days in a kind of saga that for them is like the Americans talking about the Alamo. It’s holding on to a fortified area against the overwhelming enemy forces.

5:45
So the Russians are moving very nicely; and the Americans, the Brits, would particularly like to get this off the front page of the news. And it’s so much more convenient to have what’s going on in Syria, which as the “Financial Times” very nicely put it, “Well, the Assad forces are doing badly because the Russians and Iranians are so weak.” They love to say the Russians are weak.

It takes your mind off the fact that the Ukrainians are being crushed, ground down. And that the Russians have demonstrated their military might 10 days ago or whatever by their blow using the hypersonic, a Oreshnik ballistic missile to destroy a multi-story fortified concrete multi-story factory making– it’s an old factory that was always involved in production of missiles and other military gear. So they demonstrated their military might and the “Financial Times” would rather have us forget it.

6:49
The second area that is in the news, that for the purposes of American propaganda is another front, another point where the Russians are losing is Georgia. The Russians are losing what they don’t have. The Russians were, after the 2008 war, the Russians have had very poor relations with Georgia.

For a brief time, they had restored air transport between Russia and Moscow and Tbilisi, but that was taken down. There was a lot of protests in Georgia over that. And in point of fact, they have no diplomatic relations. Russian leverage on Georgia today is zero. But that doesn’t stop our media, our mass media, from saying what Washington would like them to say, that at least the election in September of the new parliament and prime minister in Georgia was Russia-influenced, Russia- controlled, and is trying to put Georgia back in the Russian sphere of influence.

7:58
And it does, we have now a revolt, something like the start of a civil war going on in the streets of Tbilisi, very much according to the Ukrainian Maidan scenario, down to little details like handing out cakes to the street demonstrators, handing out 40 euros equivalent to everybody who appears on the streets to try to overthrow the government. The only thing they haven’t had yet, which would be in line with the whole Maidan scenario dash catastrophe is the use of snipers to pretend to present the government as being murderous. When in fact, the snipers in the case of Maidan were … Georgian, by the way, snipers who were brought in precisely to facilitate the overthrow of the government, since the murder of people on the streets of Maidan would be laid at the door of the president Yanukovych. This is coming, because there are Georgian fighters in Ukraine who are now heading back to Tbilisi. So they can fulfill the rest of the scenario and try to kill people on the streets and blame it on the government.

9:33
The point is that in our newspapers, this whole saga, the whole adventure in Georgia is presented as pro-Russian, anti-Russian. It’s nothing of the sort. As I said, the Russians have no boots on the ground, they have no presence, they have no diplomatic mission, which could be coordinating the efforts of the young prime minister to hold on to power and to kick out the president, whose term expires within this month, but who’s refusing to leave her office, claiming that the elections that put in place the parliament were fraudulent. Well, these are two trouble spots, and the Russians have their view, which I’ve just expressed, on who is behind it. And who’s behind it is a country that has an abbreviated three letters starting with U, the USA. That is the present situation.

Alkhorshid: 10:44
I think the main question right now is: what would be the policy of the United States under Donald Trump in Georgia? And to what extent Europe would be involved when Donald Trump comes to power in Georgia, in order to facilitate some sort of color revolution in your opinion?

Doctorow:
Well, the color revolution is underway. The question is, there’s a very big difference between 2013 and 2024. The difference is who’s the top of the government. Yanukovych was a very weak man. If he had shown the courage and the determination that Lukashenko showed three years ago when his rule was threatened, or two years ago, when his rule was threatened by a pretender, a false king, or the queen, who was backed by the Lithuanians and by the Poles. And he showed his teeth and he came out with his son, both of them armed with Kalashnikovs, saying, “You’re going to have to take me.”

11:52
Well, Yanukovych was not such a fighter. He was a very weak man. And he did not do what common sense would have dictated, which is to beat to hell those violent street demonstrators. He didn’t do it. I think this government in Georgia is prepared to do it as a young, vigorous and very smart Prime Minister, they’re very lucky to have him in this Georgia dream team.

12:18
So that scenario won’t go. But to answer your question about the United States, I think the United States doesn’t have to do very much, because the work for the color revolution is being led by the French on behalf of the United States. And why do I say that? It’s quite extraordinary that in at least two countries, the head of state of democratic sovereign states is a person who’s a dual national, which should be a no-no. You should not have a dual national as your head of state. It’s a contradiction in terms.

12:53
And she, the sitting president, is a French national. And as I said on Russian television last night, she’s not only a French national, but she’s working and has been working for a long time with French intelligence. Therefore, she would not take the position that she has taken, which is directly challenging the elected parliament and the elected prime minister, by refusing to step down and calling them illegitimate. She would not dare to do that if she didn’t have the full power of France behind her. And I assume that’s via the French diplomatic mission and whatever.

13:44
So the Americans don’t have to do very much. Trump can just rest easy and find something else to busy himself with. Mr. Macron’s people have got the rebel cause, the traitorous cause in Georgia well in hand. I think they’re going to lose.

Alkhorshid: 14:02
How do they talk about, in Russia they’re talking about– because we know in 2020 there was an agreement between Iran, Russia and Turkiye considering Idlib and Aleppo being a demilitarized zone. What do they talk about the situation right now between these three countries? I’m talking about Turkiye, as you’ve mentioned, being totally in the hand of the United States, playing on their part in Syria.

Doctorow: 14:32
Yeah. Well, the Russians are deeply disappointed by the behavior of Erdogan. And I think his chances of getting into BRICS even as a partner have been reduced to close to zero. I think the Chinese are also furious at him. So with these two core members of BRICS on the committee deciding who’s going to enter the association, I think Mr. Erdogan is no longer on the list.

But the Russians explained that this is a very– the first day, the day when Aleppo was seized, Russian news said nothing about it. You would have no idea that there was a crisis going on there. Yesterday, Russian news and Russian talk shows, the two most serious analytic programs that I watch– both “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov”, and the earlier in the day program, “The Great Game” with Vyacheslav Nikonov– they both had segments of their program devoted to the crisis in Syria.

15:41
And what I heard was, this is from, of course they’re not just people from the street. They’re not just talking heads. These are leading scholars from Moscow University and from other very authoritative research institutes who are specialized in the Middle East. What they had to say is that first of all, they believe that Mr. Bashar Assad is largely responsible for this catastrophic loss of Aleppo.

16:21
He was not doing the job properly. He was not taking into account that you snuff out rebellions as they did between 2015 and 2017, 2018, with Russian and Iranian help. And it dies down, but then it flares up again at some point in the future. And he was totally unprepared for a flare-up, which he had no right to be. So the Russians are quite unhappy with Bashar Assad. They’re trying to put heads together with the Iranians, who were the people on the ground today and people in this axis of resistance as the cat’s paws of Iran, they were the people on the ground mostly who saved the Assad regime in that period, critical period, starting with 2015 when the vast majority of the territory was in the hands of various rebels.

17:27
So the situation today is bad but not terrible. The loss of Aleppo is very important. It is the second- largest city in Syria. And it was before 2011, I think it was the largest city in Syria. Also the sortie, the advance that these rebels made, oh I’m calling them rebels, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

In fact, in the past we would have called them Islamic extremists, Sunni extremists and terrorists. All these people moved south from Idlib into Hama. It’s another province which has apparently some important military infrastructure that they are in the process of seizing. They said they seized weapons caches there.

18:24
So there’s a threat. They’ve been turned back, or at least the line has been held in this province, South Lidlib, Hamas. But the Russians are at a disadvantage. Their logistical supplies between the center of the country and their airfield and naval base on the coast are in jeopardy. So the Russians are looking in an anxious way in trying to save the situation with the forces they have on hand there, which are primarily air force. They are making attacks in the first day of action– again, this is very sketchy news that came out on Russian television– that killed 350 of these insurgents or terrorists by their bombing campaign.

19:16
There will be a lot more of them. They have their airplanes there and they also have some ground forces, but marginal. The expectation of the United States is that this, from the Russian perspective, is that the whole Syrian crisis would be an important distraction for the Russians and would take the pressure off the front in Donetsk, giving some relief to Mr. Zelensky. That is a false hope. I think the Russians are quite prepared to see Syria collapse if at the same time they finish off Ukraine.

Alkhorshid: 19:55
It seems that there was a phone call between Putin and the President of Iran Pezeshkian. They are talking about they are going to meet soon in the near future, personally. But do you see that these two countries are trying to manage the situation with Turkiye, or they’re just, they don’t know what to do with Turkiye right now.

Doctorow:
Well, I think Pezeshkian has a better feel for Turkey right now than Putin does because Putin refused to take a phone call yesterday from Erdogan. That’s the state of their present relations, whereas Iran had sent their foreign minister into both Damascus to meet with Bashar Assad and to meet with Erdogan in Ankara, I believe.

20:52
So the initiative for finding a great-power or regional-power solution to the crisis in Syria is really with the Iranians. At the same time, the Russians point to something that you will not find mentioned anywhere in our major media, which [is] the situation is not as bad for Assad as it was in 2015. He has gotten the support of Saudi Arabia, of Egypt and of the United Arab Emirates in this present fight against the Sunni terrorists. Back in 2015 he was public enemy number one among the Arab countries. So in this sense, the situation is considerably more favorable, at least the regional situation, is more favorable to Assad than it was back then.

Alkhorshid: 21:53
In your opinion, right now in Russia, if you remember, Keith Kellogg is talking about the Biden administration preparing everything for Donald Trump to put him in a better position. Is what’s going on in Georgia, in Syria, and Jake Sullivan talking about sending more weapons by mid-January to Ukraine. Is part of that grand plan on the part of the deep state in the United States?

Doctorow:
Well, the Russian position of Mr. Trump has become very clear in the last week or two. And out of this, there are a number of things I want to share with viewers to give them some comfort that the world is not going to hell and that a nuclear war is most improbable given what the Russians have learned and how they intend to continue their their activities against the Ukrainian and NATO forces. What they learned is that Mr. Trump is worthless, from their standpoint. They have discounted him completely as a factor in the end game of the Ukraine war.

23:15
If they pretend– well, Mr. Putin is never an insulting person, he never would show his disdain, except if you happen to be Angela Merkel and he knows that you are afraid of dogs. In that case, he might show his disdain for you in a way that people will know. But as regards Donald Trump, of course, he will be given all respect. Mr. Kellogg, General Kellogg will be given all respect if and when he makes a visit to Moscow.

But the outcome of those talks will be zero. From the Russian perspective– they discussed precisely Kellogg’s outline back in June, published, on what the solution to the war could look like. And this was presumably what he was feeding to Donald Trump back then. And it’s presumably what Trump had in mind when he spoke, said that he could solve the war at once. From the Russian perspective, what is coming to the public domain, the public news about the Kellogg Plan back from June, dates from June and has no relevance to November, December 2024.

24:31
The battle has moved on. The Russians have achieved sweeping victories and conquered additional territory, more territory in the last month than the preceding 12 months. They have shown on their television for the first time in a way that you can make sense out of it, they showed exactly how the battle, the line of confrontation, the battle lines in Donetsk have moved in the last month. It’s dramatic.

And they’re comfortable that they have a winning hand and that time is on their side. And they have something else. And that is their present reading of the meaning of Oresznik and what to do with it. Many of our commentators, both in mainstream and in alternative media, have considered that Mr. Putin will use this weapon to strike against a NATO country.

25:39
I myself put Poland at the top of the list of potential targets for a Russian strike if they were further subjected to ATACMS, SCALP and Storm Shadow firings from Ukraine into their territory. However, I think on the basis of their dismissing Trump’s possible contribution to a solution, considering the desperation and the recklessness of the Biden administration, considering the utter recklessness and stupidity of the British Prime Minister Starmer, and how he is conducting himself in British policy…

I think the Russians have stepped back and said, “Why are we going to play into the hands of these people who are hoping to incite us to do something that will raise the escalatory level? And why would we wait a minute for the arrival of Mr. Trump when he showed himself by appointing these hopeless loud mouths and Waltz and Gortcan who are insulting us, why would we wait for Trump to come to power? No reason at all.”

27:07
So, in this context, what is the leverage that they enjoy from the power of the Oreshnik? Well, in Ukraine, it’s not Mr. Trump who’s sitting in a bunker 200 meters below the earth. It’s Mr. Zelensky, who now realizes he’s totally vulnerable. And all the American and NATO generals who are in similar bunkers around, either around Xxxx or within the Kiev area, they all can be killed in a moment’s notice by the Russians. So the real pressure, the point of leverage, is not in Washington where you’ve got dummies with Yale degrees on their office walls, who don’t get it and who are only making these sounds for the sake of getting a better university position on January 21st.

28:10
No, leave them alone. Let them talk to themselves. Let them talk to their journalists. The Russians are applying pressure where it can move things on the Ukrainians. It’s the Ukrainians who are now about to lose five million refugees to Europe because all heating and electricity is being reduced to close to nil. And they are, and Mr. Zelensky is rattled, as he should be, by the strength of Russia’s new arms.

Alkhorshid: 28:46
In your opinion right now, with what we’ve seen considering Oreshnik and the power it has in terms of any sort of escalation between the West and Russia, do you think that– we have two conflicts in the West Asia, in Georgia, and with escalation in Ukraine– do you think what would be the next step on the part of the policymakers in the United States? Because they want to escalate the situation, in my opinion. They don’t give up on escalation, that any possibility, they can take any possibility to escalate the situation. But at the end of the day, we have the fear of having a nuclear interaction between the West and Russia. Russia doesn’t need to go nuclear because they have a new, as you’ve mentioned, hypersonic missile that is so capable of hitting any target in the West. But the West doesn’t have it. This is the problem that you’re facing right now.

Doctorow: 29:53
Well, as I’ve written a couple of days ago, when this situation was discussed on the Sunday “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” show, one of the regular political-scientist commentators said that they were delighted with Mr. Putin’s speeches in Astana on Wednesday and Thursday, both sitting at the session of their treaty organization of defense.

And he was talking tough. He was talking very tough. They were very happy finally that their president had moved from what they called Soviet- era diplomatic language to the kind of very straightforward in-your-face language that he was using in Astana. And to sum it up, what’s the best way to for Russia to conduct itself in front of the West now? it’s just to say, “Hands up! Time for you to surrender, because we got you covered.” And let’s just say something about the Oreshnik, which again, is not much discussed.

31:10
Yes, it’s an intermediate range ballistic, but it’s at the top end of intermediate and the bottom end of intercontinental. It is intercontinental, it depends where you fire it from. If you fire it from Kamchatka, from the Russian far east, it can reach Montana and maybe farther down the US West Coast. So of course it is intercontinental in that sense. It’s where you position it.

It also can wipe out any or all of American military assets in the Middle East. You fire it from Astrakhan and that’s it. You’ve got the whole US military establishment in West Asia covered and ripe for destruction. Now, I think the only limitation in this is first of all, how many of these Oreshniks do they have? And it’s clear that when they say they’re going into serial production, they mean three-shift production.

32:06
They have a few of them, clearly, but they decided not to waste them on a further attack on Ukraine until and unless Mr. Zelensky fires another one or two or more ATACMS or Storm Shadows into Russian territory. Then they will start spending some of their stock of this missile, their hypersonic missile. In the meantime, they’re doing quite well, thank you, destroyed the energy infrastructure and various arms caches and concentrations of foreign mercenaries using simpler, much less expensive short-range missiles. The Iskandar in particular, which has a 500-kilometer range, quite sufficient to wreak havoc across Ukraine, which is what they are doing.

Alkhorshid: 33:04
We’ve seen, if you remember in the Trump’s presidency, his first term, he wanted to withdraw the US troops from Syria and later on he said, we’re there, I didn’t do it because we have a lot of oil there and we have to take care of that. Don’t you think that would be the case in Ukraine in the future? That would bring some sort of– because Lindsey Graham was talking about the resources in Ukraine, and they may go in that direction. That would be problematic for Russia. Don’t you think that would be the case?

Doctorow: 33:44
Look, Ukraine was an important country for population. It had 45 million. It’s down now to 28 million and soon it’ll be down to 22 million or less across all the refugees who headed either to Russia or to Europe. It was important because of the skills of the population and the manufacturing infrastructure in Donbass, which was among the most advanced and important contributors to the Soviet economy.

34:13
The wealth that Russia has received in terms of population and manufacturing capabilities in the Donbass, which it now possesses, I think more than offsets the $350 billion in frozen assets and so forth. So that aspect, manufacturing in both the equipment and the skills, the manufacturing skills and the mining skills of population in Donbass, were an important contributor. The agricultural component also was very important. Oil and gas, much less important. There was discussion of fracking and how that would open up all kinds of possibilities for energy sufficiency or as you’re suggesting for energy exports from Ukraine but that was never really exploited.

35:13
There was considerable resistance within Ukraine to fracking. I said nothing much came of it But they have their metal, they have a lot of things. Mr. Zelensky has opened up shop to sell off his country as if he has a right to sell it. He has no legitimacy. And I think any contracts he makes will be overturned in international lawsuits because he has no legitimacy. I don’t think that the United States is motivated in its policy towards Ukraine by this kind of mercantilism and resource capture. That is no doubt an additional bonus, but it’s not what’s driving American policy there. It’s all geopolitics. It’s trying to deprive Russia of its rightful place in the world by having it under continual pressure by an existential enemy that they are supplying.

Alkhorshid: 36:21
What were the repercussions of Donald Trump’s comment on the countries who are not willing to use dollar any more? Because he’s just trying to intimidate them by putting more sanctions on these countries. How do they talk about it in the Russian media?

Doctorow: 36:41
They laugh at it. I think he’s making a fool of himself, because he’s carrying to a still further extreme all of the self-destructive practices of the Biden administration in its sanctions policy. It is utterly impossible for the United States to sanction the BRICS countries. That is more than half of the world’s population, a very substantial part of global GDP. Whom are they going to sell to, after all? Whom are they going to buy from? It is showing utter ignorance of the real economic power of the United States today in the present configuration of nations. It’s assuming that the United States has the preeminent place in the global economic pecking order that it had in 1947. It doesn’t.

37:42
The only thing that he can achieve is self-isolation of the United States and harm to the American economy. So the Russians take this as showing rank stupidity. They don’t say that openly, but they laugh. They laugh.

I think that it also misses the point. I think Trump was very badly advised. He was following all of the promotional hype about what BRICS would do and not following what they actually said and concluded in their declaration of the BRICS summit, which is not attacking the dollar. They made it plain that their efforts will be of a constructive rather than a destructive nature, constructive in that they’re building parallel institutions for global governance that they expect will take over eventually from the existing institutions but for some time will be parallel. And they did not, they pointedly did not make de-dollarization an objective or the creation of a BRICS currency the objective, knowing that this will alienate many prospective new members of BRICS who do not want to risk their ongoing, their substantial commercial relations with the United States for the sake of an unproven new currency.

39:33
So the whole BRICS exercise is assuming a gradual replacement of the dollar with bilateral currency exchanges or by trading in national currencies. The biggest factor in de-dollarization is not what Trump was talking about. “Ah, who’s going to stand against it?” No, The biggest factor is what the Saudis are doing. And he doesn’t dare touch that.

The fact that the Saudis did not renew the petrodollar agreements with the United States, that they are now doing substantial sales to China in Yuan and not in dollars, that’s the single biggest threat to the American financial hegemony, not any declarations coming out of BRICS.

Alkhorshid: 40:30
Do you think in Donald Trump’s view right now, is he saying these conflicts are helping him or just solidifying the relationship between Iran, China, Russia and other countries within BRICS?

Doctorow:
Well, the Russians view Trump’s plans for foreign policy as having the notion that he can make some kind of a pragmatic solution to relations with the Russians and then can try to split off the Russians from the Chinese.

41:05
The people around Trump have been rightfully alarmed that the Biden administration did so much to solidify a Russian-Chinese high-level alliance, practically speaking, an alliance. And they would like to take one or the other country aside to break this up. Well, they can’t take China aside, because they’ve already declared China as enemy number one and the biggest threat to Americans global position. So what’s left is to take the “junior” partner, as they like to see it. The concept of junior partners is also nonsense. It shows ignorance of the real strength of the Russian negotiating position within their relation with China. But that’s a separate issue, for a separate discussion.

42:03
Gilbert, what’s so interesting right now is the United States, Washington, right now is talking about that the next battlefield between the United States on one side and Russia and China and BRICS on the other side wouldn’t be in Africa. It means that it would be in Africa because it seems– do you see the war expanding under Donald Trump, in a new front in Africa?

42:37
I’m not aware of his policy plans. I am aware of what Mr. Biden is doing at the very end of his four-year term. He’s finally made it over to Africa, one last hurrah. And as the BBC is describing it today, his trip there is a step towards addressing the concerns in Africa, that America is not interested in their continent, whereas the Chinese have invested so very much.

43:05
And the suggestion is the Americans will invest in Africa. That’s an assumption that doesn’t have much foundation under it. As for the Russians, they’re busy in Africa, but doing different things, not so much commerce of supplying security and arms sales, not, I said, not commerce, not civilian commerce, not consumer-goods type of commerce, but services they’re selling, namely security, military assistance and military supplies. So that is the Russian presence in Africa is rather small footprint. The Chinese have an enormous footprint, because they’re so dependent on raw material supplies, minerals and other things for their industry as a global manufacturer and exporter that Africa to them has, like Latin America, has very great meaning and importance and is worth investing in.

44:11
For the United States, it’s hard to see that, because the United States is no longer the world’s factory. It’s a consumer, not a producer of manufactured goods. Therefore, I find it hard to imagine that the American investment in Africa can become a serious rival to China’s.

Alkhorshid: 44:35
We had all of Sholz within Kiev. And is this one of the final attempts on the part of the Biden administration to keep things calm in Kiev. And what do we know about what’s going on in Ukraine politically between these political parties, between these different factions?

Doctorow: 45:03
Well, on the latter, I cannot claim an expertise to add to this discussion. I don’t follow the political factions within Ukraine. But as to Mr. Scholz’s visit, that was shown on Russian television. They again had a good laugh of his stepping out of the train and holding onto an aluminum suitcase. And they were asking, what have they got in there? Is it loaded with banknotes? Is it loaded with gold ingots? Well, gold ingots, because you know, that would, Scholz may do his exercises in the morning, but he’s not going to carry a suitcase like that full of ingots. So it was something rather that he didn’t want anyone else to have a chance to see. His visit there was– I don’t think provided a great deal of comfort to Zelensky.

45:55
The Russians call it “political tourism”. They don’t take this seriously. He didn’t give Zelensky what he wanted most, which is permission to use a Taurus missile. He specifically denied that this was something that Germany will accept for the reasons that we’ve heard in the past, because it would have to be German personnel manning and guiding those missiles. Instead, he offered various types of military aid and kept on beating the drum how Germany is the largest supplier of military goods to Ukraine after the United States.

46:40
Mr. Zelensky looks uncomfortable, And as well he might, because really his days are numbered, and if he’s not careful, his days on earth are numbered.

Alkhorshid: 46:54
How about Europe, the European countries right now? Is the conflict in Ukraine, or would this conflict in Ukraine be a dividing issue for the Western European countries or they were still united in their policies?

Doctorow:
Well, I have something, kind of challenge, to the audience to think about on this very question, something that’s crossed my mind. Why is it that we have 27 leaders of whom 25 are just licking the boots of the United States and are not doing anything to look after the interests of their own people and are submitting to the American dictates on how to conduct a war against Russia by way of Ukraine? Why is that the case? And as you say, is it split? Yes, it’s split, but not dramatically split in any way. You have Mr. Orban all there by himself as the one brain in the whole operation, and the rest of them presenting themselves as dummies.

47:58
Now why is that true? Are these people genuinely dummies, or is there something else going on? I believe there’s something else going on, which no one is talking about. And that is: all of the states, the 27 states, they have sacrificed, going back to 1992, when the European Economic space, the Community, became the European Union, when what was an economic grouping became a supranational state, they all gave up their sovereignty, large amounts of their sovereignty, to the point where a head of state or head of government has the power of a city mayor and not of a traditional head of state.

48:48
They gave up foreign policy. Even Germany, pretend to do policy. You’ve got that complete idiot, Baerbock, who was busy getting herself censored by the Chinese for making insulting remarks about Xi. They pretend to do something like diplomacy, even if they have such very poor, very poorly educated personalities speaking on behalf of their diplomacy. But this is an accident, because there is nothing there. The diplomatic function is concentrated in Brussels.

49:29
And so all of these countries are not countries any more in the traditional sense of understanding. And this is precisely what Putin has revolted against. That type of denial of sovereignty is unacceptable to the Chinese, to the Russians, to the Iranians, and to a few other countries who stand out. Europeans– and why did they do this? Why did they give up their sovereignty?

50:00
Because they believed, falsely, wrongly, that national sovereignty is the basis for wars. Countries are aggressive. If they have full sovereignty, they make wars on one another. And since the European Union is supposed to be a peace project, we do away with sovereignty. Well, this other factor: they wanted to integrate for the sake of freedom of travel within the borders of the EU, which ultimately took the form of the Schengen, and to simplify economic life, financial life within this whole space by creating a common currency, the euro.

50:50
And you can’t, if you are not willing to tie the currency to gold, then you have a fiat currency. And a fiat currency requires that all members using that currency have a coordinated tax system, budgetary system, deficit agreements, and all the rest of it. And that’s what they’ve done. They have a fiat currency which works fine, but the result of that fiat currency is that European leaders are nobodies. And we can afford to have complete idiots bearing the title of prime minister or head of state. That’s what we have.

51:25
No, I don’t mean to say everyone’s an idiot, of course not. But they have been stripped, they have stripped themselves of the responsibilities and the powers that would give them a voice in the present conflict over Ukraine. They don’t have a voice. And into this void– it was a void before she took power five years ago, she being Von der Leyen– you had a drunkard who was the head of the Commission, the drunkard prime minister, former prime minister of Luxembourg, who didn’t do very much. And she came around and she understood, “My goodness, I can seize all this.”

52:23
And she did. And nobody said no. Nobody said that the European Union constitution doesn’t give you these powers. So they’ve all been silenced, and she has seized the power. She’s very ambitious, she’s not stupid, she’s vicious and she has concentrated all the power in her own hands. So you ask her, is Europe divided? Who cares if it’s divided? So long as Von der Leyen has all of the cards in her hand, it doesn’t make any difference.

Alkhorshid: 52:58
What’s tragic, Gilbert, about what’s going on in the European countries is those people who are largely corrupted are getting to the power. This is the tragedy of what’s going on in Europe. And they’re having everything in their hands to change the future of Europe. And it doesn’t seem that they’re representing the people who are, as we’ve seen so far, the people in Europe want some sort of change. But do you see that coming to Europe, even under Donald Trump?

Doctorow: 53:31
He may be the disruptive force. He doesn’t have any respect for the European leaders for all the reasons I just outlined above. And I’m sure he may not think of it conceptually as I’ve just outlined it, but the net result of these people are nobodies: he’s right. So why should he respect them? Why should he care what they think of him? What they think of the ambassador who’s delivered to France, the convicted felon who’s a jailbird, and he’s now, because of his relationship with the Trump family, is now going to be the ambassador to France.

54:11
It fits in with his estimate of what France counts for, which is to say close to nothing. And ultimately in foreign affairs, he’s right, it counts for nothing. What will change this? I’m afraid nothing short of breaking up the European Union and turning it back to where it was before 1992 as an economic community.

And it can have a common currency. Why not? Only it would be tied to the gold. It can be done if somebody realizes what you sacrificed to achieve a common currency that is based on fiat, you will realize that it’s time to undo some of these crazy things that were done by very smart, very progressive intellectuals in 1992 with the best interests. There were no villains in the piece, but what we see now [is] a Europe that’s descended to lower depths and has people who are an embarrassment. And they’ve had a whole succession– looking at foreign policies, a whole succession of embarrassments in what preceded Mr. Borrell.

55:26
Borrell is an embarrassment. He’ll never live down “This Europe as a garden, and outside our gates is a jungle”, said two years ago. It’s an embarrassment for anyone with any self-worth to consider this. And before him, what did they start with? Lady Ashton, this British Dame. I mean by title, not by sex, from Britain. She was the first nitwit to head European foreign policy. She didn’t know her ass from her elbow. And then she was followed by this Italian, name escapes me right now, who was a mental case.

56:10
She couldn’t bear the pressure of the office. And you saw the anguish in her face every time she appeared in public. And she was speaking for the European Union. There is something seriously wrong, just as it’s utterly unacceptable that this buffoon, insulting buffoon, Baerbock, is sent on missions abroad to represent Germany and to deal with complex issues like separating China from Russia.

So I know that the party, the bloc in the parliament that was created and is headed by Viktor Orban, is to reform the European Union and not to deconstruct it. But I dare say he’s going to have to rethink this, because I don’t see a way that you can reform the European Union under conditions when the constituent member states are not states, they’re not nation states. They are, they’ve been deprived of powers of diplomacy and of powers to think for themselves, which is a disaster for an entity that represents 500 million people.

Alkhorshid:
Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

Doctorow:
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to have a lengthy chat with a brave Canadian who defies the Trudeau government’s intolerance for free speech and public debate on relations with Russia.

Our chat covered the waterfront of issues in current international affairs and I leave it to the community to watch part or all of the video as it sees fit. A written transcript will likely be available within the coming 24 hours and I will post it then.

A 90-second video capturing the essential point of this interview may be found here:

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Ein langes Gespräch mit Free Canada: Dimitri Lascaris in Montreal

Gestern hatte ich das Vergnügen, mich ausführlich mit einem mutigen Kanadier zu unterhalten, der sich der Intoleranz der Trudeau-Regierung gegenüber der freien Meinungsäußerung und der öffentlichen Debatte über die Beziehungen zu Russland widersetzt.

Unser Gespräch deckte eine Vielzahl von Themen der aktuellen internationalen Politik ab, und ich überlasse es der Community, das Video ganz oder teilweise anzusehen, wie sie es für richtig hält. Eine schriftliche Abschrift wird wahrscheinlich innerhalb der nächsten 24 Stunden verfügbar sein und ich werde sie dann veröffentlichen.

Transcript

Good day, this is Dimitri Laskaris coming to you from Montreal, Canada for Reason to Resist on December 2nd, 2024. About two weeks ago, Ukrainian forces attacked military targets in the Russian city of Bryansk using US-supplied ATACMS missiles. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, this attack caused some casualties in Russia. Ukraine carried out this attack despite prior warnings from Russia’s government that the use of such weapons on Russian territory could be deemed by the Russian Federation to be an attack by the United States on Russia. About 10 days ago, Russia responded to the attack on Bryansk by striking the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new hypersonic weapon called the Ureshnik.

Shortly after that retaliatory attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech which caused some observers, including yours truly, to believe that if Ukraine attacked Russian territory again with Western supplied weapons, Russia might attack a Western military base outside of Ukraine. Well, Ukraine attacked Russia again with ATACMS. This time, however, the targets were in or around the Russian city of Kursk. Russia did not retaliate thankfully by striking a Western military base outside of Ukraine. Rather, it launched a massive attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure or what remains of it. So the question remains under what circumstances might Russia attack a Western military base or other Western military target outside of Ukraine. Now here to discuss this and other related matters with us is Dr.Gilbert Doctorow.

Dr. Doctorow is a student of Russian affairs going back to 1965. He’s a graduate of Harvard College, a past Fulbright scholar, and a holder of a PhD in history from Columbia University. After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. He is an American citizen and a long-time resident of Brussels. And I thank you, Gilbert, for joining us today.

Doctorow:

Well, very good to receive this invitation.

Lascaris:

So based on your examination of the evidence, in light of the brief history that I’ve just recounted, what is your best sense of where the next step on the escalation ladder lies?

And by that I mean, do you think based upon statements coming out of the Russian Federation, that Russia will strike a Western military asset outside of Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian attack on Russia with Western supplied missiles. And if so, what kind of damage would such a Ukrainian attack have to inflict on Russia for Russia to respond in that manner? I think that in the last couple of weeks, Mr. Putin and his associates had some time to reflect on what is the best way to proceed. And they stepped back from this threat of striking a target in a NATO country as an early measure.

Doctorow:

I think that may not be a measure that they entertain at all, considering what now seems to be their strategy. The strategy is to destroy the regime in Kiev. It is Mr. Zelensky, who is shaken thoroughly by the power of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile to destroy bunkers up to 200 meters deep. The sort of bunker that he finds refuge in, the sort of bunker that the American and West European generals are sitting in while they do the planning of the actions for the Ukrainian army.

In other words, he is the one who is amazingly vulnerable and he is not a member of NATO and he can be destroyed at will by the Russians. Therefore, the pressure point is really on Kiev right now and not on Berlin or London or Washington. This is much safer, it’s much less likely to lead us to a nuclear war, and it is the most efficient way of getting what the Russians want, which is regime change in Ukraine.

Another factor in this new strategy that I see is that they are not interested in waiting one minute for Mr. Trump to come to power. They are, by all of his recent appointments, by the outrageous statements of some of these appointments, they understand that nothing good will come with the inauguration of Mr. Trump. It is outlandish claims to be able to resolve the war by knocking heads together, by threatening the Russians. That is unacceptable.

It is not feasible, as the Russians understand, and there’s no reason to coddle him. So the pressure point is now on Kiev, And I think it will be felt. We will see. The Russians have not only destroyed some of the 20% of power generating facilities still standing in Ukraine in the last two weeks. But they’ve also attacked various bases where there were foreigners.

And when they knew there were foreigners, they killed a number of Frenchmen. They killed 40 Americans, they say, in another attack at another location in Ukraine. And they are showing their strength right now using missiles that are less capable but very efficient. The Iskander, this is a 500 kilometer range missile that is not hypersonic, but that gets the job done at rather low cost. And they’re saving their still rather few are Oreshniks for some contingency where they might be needed to take out Berlin or could take out some facility in Western Europe.

When I say take out, I want to be clear about it. Destroying cities is not the ambition of the Russians and the missile they’re about to use, should such an attack be needed, is not capable of destroying cities. It’s capable of pulverizing a given exact site, whether it’s an infrastructure site, whether it’s a factory that’s deeply underground and protected by reinforced concrete levels, such as happened in the Dnipro bombing. The force of the Oreshnik missile is comparable to a nuclear bomb, but without the radiation and without the extensive collateral damage. It utterly pulverizes and burns to ash the immediate target and leaves cities intact.

Lascaris:

Now I had intended to ask you today, Gilbert, about the pressure growing within Russia for a more forceful response by the Russian Federation to these US missile attacks conducted by the Ukrainian military. This morning, when I woke up, I found in my inbox a comment that you had just published relating to your review of an important political talk show in Russia, the most widely watched one last night. And it sheds some light on this whole question of whether there’s pressure growing within Russia on Vladimir Putin to be more forceful. Could you share with us what you learned last night by watching this program?

Doctorow:

Well, it’s not only Paul Craig Roberts in the USA who writes about or thinks about the risks inherent in the cautious approach of Mr. Putin to all of the provocations that he has received from the West in the course of this war as it’s going up an escalatory ladder. There are those among Russian political scientists who carry a lot of weight, who have spoken about the need to be demonstrative and not just to jawbone.

I go back to July of 2023, when Sergei Karaganov, who is widely known in the West, he was very frequently a guest of the Social Democratic Party think tank in Germany. And this man, who has substantial influence within Russia, had written that the country should stage a strike, a nuclear strike, with tactical nuclear weapons, somewhere in NATO land, in order to put an end to all of the senseless, foolish denigration of Russia and of its president that has persisted into 2024 from the decade of the 90s, where it all started when Russia was indeed on its knees or on its back because of all the economic disruption of the years under Yeltsin. Karaganov was calling for a strike.

It raised a great controversy in the West and within Russia itself, where he was disowned by other professionals in the security domain of Russia. While Mr. Putin held his calm, his sang-froid, he knew better than anyone else what was in the pipeline And what would meet the requirements of a shock and awe strike that would impress the world media and some politicians, hopefully, about Russia’s true might and its ability to use that might and determination to use that might if it were further provoked and if it felt that it was liable to suffer substantial damage to not just reputation but in terms of infrastructure and loss of life. That was the Oreshnik. That the Oreshnik was such a revelation and such a talking point in the last couple of weeks is our fault.

It’s not that the Russians were holding back. It was what we were not looking at or willing to entertain. And what I mean is that from 2018, in March of that year, just three weeks before the presidential election, for which Mr. Putin was standing for another term in office. He made a speech, which we call the State of the Nation speech, to the bicameral legislature and many invited guests, in which he rolled out the various new strategic weapons that Russia had been developing ever since the United States pulled out of the the anti-ballistic missile treaty, this is going back to to President Bush Jr. in 2002. Thenit became clear that America had as its plans to become capable of a first strike, a decapitating strike on Russia, for which there would be no response in the Americans’ view. So the Russians had been developing weapons, and as these weapons were rolled out in 2018, Mr. Putin spent an hour of his two-hour speech on show and tell, using animated illustrations of how these various systems would work. But he was not taken seriously by Western media and presumably by Western politicians. He wasn’t taken seriously because how could it be that Russia with a military budget ten times less than the United States could do what Mr. Putin had just said aloud, that it had moved for the first time in its history, including the history of the Soviet Union going back 70 years. This was the first time Russia claimed to have moved a generation ahead of the United States in strategic weapons. By a generation ahead, I mean 10 years. They had developed these hypersonic missiles. The one that he rolled out and described in 2018 was a forerunner of what we saw in the last two weeks.

A forerunner in the sense that the flight characteristics, the potential damage of such a hypersonic missile were there in the forerunner, which was an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile. Whereas the Oreshnik, which was just demonstrated in the bombing and destruction of Dnipro, was at the upper limit of an intermediate range ballistic missile. The upper range is 5, 000 kilometers. Above that one speaks about the missiles as being intercontinental.

In any case, this new weapon, which Mr. Putin has described as being unstoppable, if the Western air defenses cannot even track it, let alone intercept it. This was a game changer.

Now you asked me about the Vladimir Solovyov program, his evening program of last night. And this was quite interesting because the Russians have been, of course, under great pressure. I think a week before I’d noticed that the host of another authoritative and widely watched news and analysis program, Vyacheslav Nikonov of The Great Game, was ashen-faced when he mentioned on air that the Ministry of Defense had just announced what you spoke about a few minutes ago, these two missile strikes that took place on Russian territory in Bryansk and Kursk, this coming week after what should have been the showstopper, the Russian attack on Dnipro.

Well, he was ashen faced then a week or 10 days ago. This week, the Russian chattering classes already had time to absorb all the news and they felt quite comfortable with a speech and a press conference that Mr. Putin made during his two-day state visit in the middle of this past week in the city of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, where there was one of these periodic meetings of the Collective Security Defense Treaty Organization. This is the Russian equivalent to NATO, the idea is similar. It is a defense alliance of former Soviet republics, of which Russia is the most important member, of course.

And at that meeting and the press conference that followed, Mr. Putin spoke in a very militant way, a very self-confident way about how Russia has these weapons, is ready to use them wherever is needed, and that all threats that are being talked about in NATO and outside of NATO, how the West will respond to Russia’s advances on the battlegrounds in the Donbass and recovery of its partly occupied territory in Kursk region. This was all quite open, frank and undiplomatic. The Americans like to say that everything is still on the table, meaning that all options are open. And Mr. Putin in his speech used the Russian equivalent, saying that about measuring the weather forecast for a day, that anything is possible. So he was giving a rather open threat to the West. Don’t even think about it. We have the means to be victorious in any exchange with you. As regards the rumors that you in the West, you in the States are thinking of supplying nuclear weapons to Ukraine, please understand that we will not tolerate this and we will use everything in our arsenal to ensure this doesn’t happen, which is a not very well-disguised statement that we will bomb the hell out of Ukraine with nuclear weapons to ensure that they do not take possession of nuclear weapons that they can use against us.

So this talk really impressed these representatives of the chattering classes, those are the sophisticated watchers of politics in Moscow. And the result in what they were saying on air what I’ve called it Black humor. They were saying that Mr. Putin is no longer using Soviet-age, Soviet-vintage diplomatic talk. He is speaking directly, frontal assault language, which they liked very much and which they wished he had done earlier.

But they’re quite happy to see it now. And that essentially what Putin is saying is, to the West, is Hands Up!. The game is over, hands up. And we put that into concrete terms, since so many people in the West are talking about what the conditions of an end to the war in Ukraine can look like with or with Mr. Trump’s intervention, how Mr.Zarensky is supposedly ready to concede territorial loss in exchange for Russia’s acquiescence in his country becoming a NATO member. Mr. Trump is talking up a storm about how he’s going to end this war in a matter of days. All of that you can put in the rubbish bin. This is the essence of what the panelists were saying, because Russia is proceeding very well on the battlefield, is pushing back the Ukrainians.

To be sure, there are counter-offensives, there is great caution being exercised by the Russians in their advance because of the ever-present Ukrainian drones and strike drones. Nonetheless, they are advancing several kilometers a day. They are forming what they call cauldrons or surrounding units of the Ukrainian army for destruction, either surrender or destruction. They expect that with the offensive that they’re now preparing, they have several hundred thousand men ready to strike within the Donbas area. Within the Donbas area, they will push back the Ukrainians to the extent that the Ukrainian army will collapse and they will have to be forced to accept a capitulation.

I think that these Russians are the talking classes. They’re very close to the Kremlin. And I think that what I was hearing last night is the same conversation within the walls of the Kremlin. That they have no interest in waiting for Mr. Trump. They expect to win the war on the ground handily, to the extent that if there will be no peace treaty, there will be a capitulation act.

Lascaris:

Now, in the course of answering my question, you mentioned the relative size of the Russian military budget and the military budget of the United States, approximately 10 to one at the time that the special military operation began. By my calculations, and I’ve written about this a fair bit, NATO military spending at that time in early 2022, the official figures was collectively in the range of $1.2 trillion US. So this would have been closer to 15 times the military budget of the Russian Federation.

Those are based on official figures. There was an interesting analysis done a while ago by the Tri-Continental Institute, which said that US military spending was closer to $1.6 trillion a year, rather than a little less than a trillion. So that would put collective NATO military spending in the range of two trillion dollars a year. And of course, there have been these incessant calls over the past couple of years in Europe, in Canada, the United States for increasing the military spending of NATO member states. I would have thought that rational people here in the West who are paying taxes to fund our militaries would be very upset about the value we’re obtaining for our expenditures Because as we can see on the battlefield, as you described, it seems quite clear that the Russian Federation is going to win this war, despite the fact that the West has poured a truly stunning amount of weaponry and other forms of aid and assistance to the Ukrainians in this war.

And I would have thought that this should be precipitating a debate in the West about how is it that we are not able to compete effectively in this battlefield against the Russian Federation when our countries collectively are spending so much more money on their militaries. And I’m interested in your views on why this is the case. Why does it seem that the Russians are getting so much more value for their military expenditures than we are? And is it related to the structure of the military industrial complex in the West in Russia. I understand that in Russia, arms manufacturers, military contractors are for the most part state controlled.

Whereas in the West, of course, they’re extraordinarily profitable, privately owned corporations. What’s your view about this? Why are the Russians able to achieve so much more with such a smaller military budget?

Doctorow:

Well, it’s a very complicated question you’re asking, and I hope you’ll bear with me as I take a bit of time to respond to it because of several dimensions to this here.

One is the effectiveness of Russian spending, and the other is the total inefficiency of American and European spending, which is not goal-oriented, but is a political machine within the countries to serve interests that have nothing to do with defense. The first thing that has to be said, of course, you have to look at the value, the dollar value put on these budgets in Russia. And the real value of rubles compared to the nominal value compared to the dollar… But At what point are we comparing the numbers that make sense? That’s a small issue.

The big issue is elsewhere. It is to what extent are the Russians pragmatic and whether they sensible in setting goals for what they wanted to achieve? Let us note that the American military expenditure is very heavily on offensive weapons. The Russian military budget was very heavy on defensive weapons for defending its own territory and a few other odd pieces of land around the globe.

But the American military budget is very largely spent as none other than Vladimir Zhirnovsky, this rabid nationalist as they liked to call him in the 90s, but a very strong nationalist and a very strong mind, who said on this very same Solovyov program, going back four or five years ago, explaining just the question that we’re talking about: how could the Russians pretend with such a limited economy, with a limited GDP compared to the States, and a limited budget available for spending on military compared to the States. How could they pretend or even imagine that they could be competitors, not to say victors in a contest with the United States. Well, because the United States spends, as Mr. Zhirinovsky colorfully put it, a lot of money on toilet paper. The United States has, what is it, 800 military bases around the world, and a very large part of the American military budget is either for waging wars in the forever wars that we’ve had since the 1990s, which consume vast amounts of money, of armaments that are destroyed, and to maintain its global hegemony by all these bases, which really don’t defend the United States in a military sense.

They are means of subordinating and controlling countries all around the world. These are different objectives. The political objective of the United States stands out. I’m speaking about outside the country. Inside the country, we all know that America, there’s a lot of pork barrel, they call it in American political language.

It is the exchange of favors among the congressmen: who gets what part of the military budget for bases and for production facilities on the territory that sends that given congressman to Washington. So, it’s not just that money is going into the pockets of the major suppliers, to the major components of the military industrial complex that are in private hands, and these funds are being transferred through dividends to their shareholders. But the problem is bigger than that. It’s the whole concept of what is needed to defend the United States. I said that the weapons systems that they built have been largely for maintaining power abroad rather than defending the United States in a narrow sense.

At the same time, a vast amount of money has been spent on what the Russians call a 21st century Maginot Line. That is all the money spent on the anti-ballistic missile defense. The notion that the United States could have some kind of iron dome, could have some kind of protection against incoming missiles. Money is spent on this, a vast amount of it. The Russians, long ago, going back to 2002, understood this is almost an impossible task.

And it’s also a very expensive task. And they didn’t even want to get into it deeply. So they have some they have systems and some very advanced systems like the S-400 or now the S-500, which are anti-aircraft, anti-missile missiles. But they have not spent a vast amount deploying that. Most of their money went elsewhere into things like we saw, the Oreshnik and its forerunner, the Sarmat, which is a very heavy, ultra heavy, intercontinental missile, which carries in its nose cone, I think, a dozen Avangard hypersonic coasting missiles that hit the ground at not 10 mark, which is the speed velocity of the Oreshnik, which did its vast damage in Dnipro, but twice that, at 20 Mach.

So going back to 2018, the Russians already brought this out, and they brought out a whole range of other very impressive strategic weapons. They also redid, remade their whole nuclear arsenal, something that the United States is still talking about doing. The Russians did it, achieved it. This was all within this limited budget. There’s something that people don’t talk about. Until rather recently, it was common to say, oh yes, Mr. Putin’s a thug, and this is a kleptocracy, and the wealth of Russia is being put into the pockets of Putin and his friends. This sort of rubbish was part of the Russophobe line that we’ve heard now for more than a dozen years. I think that the demonstration that all these accusations were just vicious propaganda has been witnessed in the last two weeks when we saw the Oreshnik. You can extrapolate out from that to understand that the other weapons systems with which Mr. Putin described in 2018 also have been mostly, if not completely, realized and deployed.

All of this takes vast wealth and vast management of the highest quality physicists and engineers. So this is a tremendous investment. And if you were to believe all the stories of our rotten propagandists who have their PhDs from Yale and Columbia on the walls of their university offices, If you were to believe them, there would have been no money left for the purposes that I just described. As for Europe, Europe is a total mess.

The United States has a problem with pork barrel and with a lot of its funds for the military being utterly wasted because what is of interest to the congressman is not the effectiveness of the weapons systems that will come out of this spending, but how their voters in their districts will be beneficiaries of the defense industry and of the government’s defense spending.

Well, in Europe, you’ve got a lot of money spent, as you described, but to no effect, because there is no European vision of its defense needs. The Spanish don’t believe for a minute the threat of Russia to European security. The Baltic states don’t believe for a minute the risks posed to the southern European countries, France and Spain, by North Africa. So what kind of defenses are needed in Europe, that is not agreed.

And the spending is almost pointless because it does not bring any real unified military capability to the European Union or European members of NATO. If you take out the American military component, NATO is a deck of cards or a house of cards. It is incapable of defending itself. The European leadership, or so-called leadership, is a travesty because these high officials in the European institutions are not creative folks. They are really quite lame individuals who believe that there is strength in unity.

Unfortunately, they can’t see the folly of the policies that they are collectively following for the sake of unity and strength. And this question, for example, of Europe now spending a vast amount of money to create an iron dome over itself. I mean, these people don’t open their eyes. The Oreshnik, which I said, is not really a surprise because it’s this technology the Russians have explained to anyone with ears to hear going back to 2018. The fact is that hypersonic missiles cannot be intercepted and will not be intercepted for years to come.

And by the time that capability is arrived at, adversaries like Russia will have a new generation of assault weapons that are unstoppable. So this is a fool’s game and the European collective leadership is playing that fool’s game and throwing away the money of taxpayers.

Lascaris:

I just want to mention one specific element of that fool’s game, which is of particular interest to me because I am also a citizen of Greece and I spend a good bit of time there. And that’s reports that came out recently that both in the Israeli press and the Greek press that Greece is negotiating the purchase of a 2 billion euro iron dome system from Israel. And of course, Greece has one of the highest debt to GDP ratios in the world, is heavily indebted, barely escaped the financial crisis a few years ago, and it’s negotiating to purchase this system after the Iranians and Hezbollah have demonstrated that they’re perfectly capable of penetrating the Iron Dome system.

Quite apart from all of that, who is going to threaten Greece with a missile strike? The word is that the Turks are going to do it. I would have thought that being members of a military alliance, Greece and Turkey, should at least provide assurance to the Greeks that they’re not going to get attacked by Turkey. None of this makes any sense. It just seems like another boondoggle of the Greek military.

In any event, since we’re on the subject of rubbish propaganda, I wanted to ask you about a matter related to this missile strike in Russia by the Ukrainians. There’s been a lot of chatter in the West about North Korean troops in Kursk. And now we’re also seeing reports that the Russian Federation is recruiting mercenaries from Yemen. I’m not aware, Gilbert, of any evidence whatsoever that There are North Korean soldiers fighting in Kursk or anywhere in the battlefield in this war. What do you make of this claim that North Koreans and now Yemenis have been recruited into the Russian military effort in Ukraine?

Doctorow:

Well, I don’t know that they are fighting. Nobody knows. The Russians do not comment on this, whether yay or nay. And it really is a distraction. The Western media are looking, driven under the guidance of Mr. Blinken’s minions at the US State Department, they are looking to find any news that can distract the reading public and the viewing public from the daily disasters on the battlefield that the Ukrainians are experiencing. Nonetheless, even in a Russia-hating journal, newspaper like New York Times, even in today’s edition you find the very open statement that the Russians are advancing, are about to take several key cities in Donetsk. And these are logistical centers of considerable importance. After the seizure of which will come in the next several weeks, the Russians will be able to take almost the entire Donetsk region, meaning bringing them to the Dnieper River. So, this bad news, the Western media, under the guidance of the United States propaganda officials would like to move to the back pages and they give space on the front pages to news that demonstrates the weakness, the essential weakness of Russia.

That is the message that comes out of today’s Financial Tomes with respect to what’s going on in Syria, that the loss of Aleppo to insurgent rebels demonstrates the weakness, and this is a direct quotation from today’s Financial Times, the weakness of Iran and Russia, weakness of Russia. That’s the kind of text that the editors of this publication approve of highly. So it’s a distraction, important as it may be to other people in other regions like Western Asia, what is happening in Syria, for the purposes of the Financial Times, it’s terrific to have that news to blast all over their newspaper and hopefully just keep you from reading the bad news about how the Ukraine war is going adversely to the interests of Kiev. Let’s see, is there something that I missed in your question?

Lascaris:

No, I think you’ve… The main point of my question was to ascertain whether there was any evidence to back up disclaimer.

Doctorow:
Oh, yes. There’s no evidence. But I think it is reasonable to assume that there are North Korean soldiers in Kursk, And they’re there for training purposes. They’re there because North Korea hasn’t been in an active military conflict for decades. And to speak only about the size of an army as having some meaning without it having any hardened troops, any troops experienced in battle is not very realistic or meaningful.

So for the purposes of Pyongyang, it is very helpful that some of its soldiers who otherwise back in the homeland are almost only busy with construction projects because they’re used not as a force for war, but they’re used for civil and other infrastructure construction. So have them see and perhaps even try their hand at using some of this new military hardware that the Russians have developed and are using so effectively in the battlefield. Very few countries have the kind of experience with drone warfare, that the Russians do now. So I think it’s edifying.

There’s another aspect to this, completely different aspect to this, which is hardly spoken of in Western media. By having these people come ostensibly to help the Russians on the Ukraine front, Mr. Putin is making a point. The point is, hey, we Russians, we’re ready to come and help the North Koreans if they need any assistance on the Korean Peninsula. This is a two-way defense treaty that Russia has with North Korea. The existence of that treaty changes dramatically the power balance in East Asia.

Russia is reminding the world that it has a common land boundary with North Korea, that Russia is a major player in the Far East and the North Pacific. This is an aspect to this presence of North Koreans in Ukrainian territory from 1991, otherwise now considered Russian territory. And this is a side to it that nobody’s talking about in our newspapers. But it’s certain people in the Pentagon are well aware. Anybody in Tokyo, anyone in Seoul, is well aware of the significance of the North Koreans being on the Western front, because it means the Russians will be on the Eastern front.

Lascaris:

Since we’re talking about that part of the world, I wanted to ask you about the BRICS Summit, which concluded in Kazan, Russia in late October.

At that summit, which was chaired by the Russian Federation, there was much discussion about creating an alternative international payment system that could prevent the United States from using the dollar as a political weapon. Shortly after the BRICS Summit, I think it was actually within the last few days, Donald Trump came out swinging against the movement to replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, and in a post on social media he stated, quote, we require a commitment from these countries, and he’s referring here to the BRICS members, that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar, or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy.”

Before I invite you to offer your views about this threat, I just want to mention that Trump just employed a similar tactic with respect to border security. He threatened both the Canadians and the Mexicans with substantial tariffs if they did not police their borders more vigorously. The Canadian response was for Justin Trudeau to get in a plane and fly to Mar-a-Lago and provide to Trump the assurances that he was looking for.

I think also the Mexican president did more from Mexico. She provided those assurances. Something tells me, however, that the BRICS member states are not likely to respond quite as cooperatively to this threat. What do you make of this threat? And what, to the extent there’s been a reaction within Russia, either at the level of the political commentators or at the governmental level, what has that reaction been? And what do you think they’re likely to do in response to this threat?

Doctorow:

Well, the Russians systematically take their time to respond to things like this. They have not made an official response. And I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. Look, I think anyone who has followed my other appearances on videos, or more importantly what I write and publish on my Substack platform.

The situation is pretty clear. I have been a supporter of Donald Trump’s electoral campaign as being the only one of the candidates, of the two candidates. I don’t speak about Jill Stein and others like the RFK candidacy, which I supported briefly. I don’t speak about these others who were marginal candidates, but among the two main parties, the only one who had held out any hope of a change from the disastrous policies of the Biden administration leading us on the path to nuclear exchange was Donald Trump. And the likelihood, as I saw it, was that he would resolve the war simply by stopping shipment of further armaments and funds to Ukraine.

The simplest thing to do would be to step back and just say, just let the Ukrainians fight as long as they could and do the inevitable, which is to capitulate. Nonetheless, I have been deeply disappointed with most of the appointments that Donald has made, his candidates for the power ministries, for people who will have an important say in the implementation, if not in the formulation of US defense policy, as with respect to Russia and to the rest of the world. There have been several loudmouths who have said the most outrageous things, that violate completely any sense that Donald Trump was seeking accommodation with Russia. The Russians, as I said, also take note of all of these shenanigans of all of these utterly irresponsible people who speak in the name of Donald at this period of transition. And they have, as I said some moments ago, they decided not to wait for Donald’s inauguration because they don’t expect anything good from it and just to proceed in carrying out the war, winning it and ending the fighting on their own terms.

So with respect to what you just described, the policies on the dollar and BRICS, they’re outrageous. His remarks show that if given a chance, his inclination is to continue the self-destruction and the self-isolation that has been the mark of the Biden administration through his policy of sanctions. The net loser in the sanctions has been the United States and its allies, mostly the allies, of course. But this additional plan this additional plan to deny BRICS members trading relationships with the United States because they are seeking to establish a non-dollar means of exchange – that can only isolate the United States and harm the American economy. The BRICS meeting in Kazan was very careful by its body language, by some of its official language in concluding documents, to make it clear that the destruction of the dollar, the destruction of the existing global management structures, institutions is not their objective.

The objective is to build parallel institutions for global governance that will fulfill some of the tasks that the existing institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank, perform, but perform very badly. And so it is with the currency. It was when we went into this meeting of BRICS, there were many commentators in the alternative media who were expecting that there will be the rollout of a new BRICS payment system. Well, they did so, for the sake of buying a hot chocolate, not for the sake of major international trade and commerce. For that, the BRICS has nothing at this time, and it’s not rushing to fill that need.

Instead, the BRIC’s economic financial plans are presently focusing on something else which is not threatening to the United States or to the present world order. That is the incremental growth of the New Development Bank that has its seat in Beijing and which I think has $30 billion of projects that signed off, 100 projects, with some of the BRICS member states. And to use this as a Soft Power, as a point of attraction to the Global South to invite them into the BRICS community in this two-tier community of full BRICS members, of which there’ll be a very slow expansion because they have to have some kind of cohesiveness among themselves since all of the decisions are made on the basis of unanimity and consensus. And the second tier, what they call partners, who will not be insiders, but will benefit from the infrastructure that BRICS represents as it grows. So that is my answer to your question about Mr. Trump and his extremely foolish statement that you recited.

Lascaris:

Yeah. I just, as a footnote to that, you mentioned some of the other commentary coming out of his key members of his team. I’m sure you’re familiar with the statement by Sebastian Gorka, his pick, I believe, for national security advisor that Mr. President Putin is a thug.

It was interesting to me that I think it was just in the last couple of days, Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying that Donald Trump is an intelligent and experienced candidate, whether he was serious or not. There was quite a striking difference in the level of decorum that he continues to employ when he talks about Western leaders compared to the kinds of statements we’re seeing coming out of Sebastian Gorka, where they use this gutter language, which is not going to, I think we can say, safely promote a dialogue between the two governments. At the outset, when we talked about the language that the Russian government is employing around these attacks, and you indicated that the commentators in Russia are, shall we say, reassured by the fact that the Russian Federation is now using more forceful language, particularly in talking about how they’ll respond to US missile attacks on Russian territory. But they still cling to this decorum. It’s quite interesting to me.

There’s a whole culture of diplomacy in Russia, which seems to be much more mature and sophisticated than you find in the Western halls of power nowadays. Do you think that there’s any kind of capacity left for true diplomacy amongst Western governments? It almost seems like amateur hour. When you see people like Sebastian Gorka, whatever he may think of Russia’s president, referring to him publicly as a thug, is simply not going to promote dialogue between the two governments, and one would have thought that that’s obvious. I have the overall impression that diplomacy is a lost art in the West. I’m interested in your thoughts on that subject.

Doctorow:

Diplomacy is practiced between states. And here we come to the rub. The 27 member states of the European Union are for all practical purposes non-sovereign entities. They have ceded a lot of their sovereignty to Brussels.

As one head of state said a couple of years ago, the real power of a head of government in our country is equivalent to the power of a city mayor. So how much diplomacy do you expect to find practiced among city mayors? Not much. And so it’s not surprising. And why is this so?

It’s not accidental. It’s not just because of a power grab by this monstrous woman, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission. It is an ideological persuasion here in Europe that state sovereignty yields war. And if the European peace project is furthered, as the national boundaries and national cultures of Europe fade away, that’s a dead-set proposition. It weakened, condemned Europe to lose all of its or any of its residual prestige in the world as a geopolitical force. But it’s a reality. They deny the value of sovereignty and they see it only as a force for confrontation and war.

Now, I’ve said a number of times in the last six months that the Russians are not bunny rabbits. And I wouldn’t overdo my estimate of the civilized nature and the kindness and the Christian disposition of Mr. Putin, which is real, but I wouldn’t overdo it.

I was thinking of this very point in the past week when Western journalists were trying to find something to say about Angela Merkel’s newly published memoirs. It seems, they couldn’t find anything of particular interest in those memoirs, which is not surprising because she was as chancellor, as dull as they come. And what they found was her story about how Mr. Putin threatened her with his dogs. And when he was in Astana, and he had this press conference before leaving the capital, before heading back to Moscow, there were maybe five, six minutes spent with his answering the questions of one journalist. Why did he threaten Merkel with dogs, knowing that she is afraid of dogs. Mr. Putin said: please, I apologize to Angela Merkel. I didn’t know that she’s afraid of dogs.

Don’t believe it for a minute. Do you mean to say that a man with the intelligence, gathering, interests and capabilities of Vladimir Putin, who certainly knows everything about all of his guests, so he can treat them accordingly. This man did treat Angela Merkel accordingly by exposing her to dogs, knowing that she’s frightened out of her wits.

Lascaris:

Interesting. So you’ve been very generous with your time, Gilbert. I have one more question if I might on the economic front. Do you have time for one more question? Yes, yes. You wrote recently about the decline in the ruble. I believe it was during the past week or perhaps it was the prior week.

There was something in the range of a 7% decline in the ruble against the US dollar. The last I checked, it was trading at about 115 to the dollar, which would be the lowest point since the early days of the special military operation in 2022. To the extent you’re able to say, why do you think this is happening? But more importantly, what do you think it says about the direction of the Russian economy? I’ve heard some, I don’t know how reliable they are. I’ve seen some reports that there may be trouble brewing in the Russian economy, even though it has fared very well in the face of these sanctions. It has experienced, for example, significantly higher growth than the major European economies, than the United States economy. But is this a sign of trouble ahead and how is the Russian intelligentsia reacting to this rather significant decline in the ruble?

Doctorow:

Well, the ruble, I think you meant the 115 is to the euro. I think it rose to about 105 against the dollar, maybe a little bit higher.

In any case, this is looking at a month. This is more like a 10% or 12% drop in the ruble. Now, Mr. Putin was asked about this, again, at the press conference that he held in Astana in the middle of this past week. And he didn’t give a very satisfactory answer, certainly not a definitive answer as to why the ruble has tumbled, except to say that there’s no need for panic, that the Central Bank is monitoring all of this very carefully and has it under control.

That point is a bit misleading because the Central Bank is working very hard to control inflation, but it’s not targeting the exchange rate. The Russians let the exchange rate float. They do not try to bolster the ruble by selling dollars, by selling other Western currencies in their stockpile they have available to them. So support for the ruble is minimal in the sense of the usual props. The main support should have, would have been the very high prime rate.

Russia has a prime rate now of 21 percent. It’s been going up steadily in the last several months. It is rumored to rise to 23% during this month of December. That sounds quite amazing. It’s a very high rate, considering that by all indications, the rate of inflation is only 8%.

I say only inflation would be higher if it weren’t for this very high prime rate. The high prime rate has a number of elements to it. Not only does it cut off sources of credit to commerce and industry, but it provides in the form of very high spot interest rates on savings accounts or on current accounts that are interest bearing for the population.

Now you asked about the reaction of the intelligentsia or the public at large. Intelligentsia often are ragtag people in terms of finance. But the chattering classes are not ragtag. They are very much upper middle class by Western standards. And of course, they can be unnerved by the depressed exchange rate because they’re the ones who travel abroad. Now, before the COVID and before the sanctions on Russian travel, the lower middle classes also traveled abroad.

I mean, more than 10 million Russians were traveling abroad before COVID. Now, the numbers are lower, or the travel abroad is in different parts of the world, not in Western Europe as it was before, not in the Americas. They are traveling to places where the dollar is the mark of value and they are concerned that their travel will be much more expensive, that their imported cars will be more expensive, And so that is all painful. The pains of this inherent inflation for certain types of goods and services that are imported will be compensated for by getting 21% or 22% on your current account with your bank. And practically anyone who has the money to invest or to take advantage of the possibilities of protection against inflation, it’s the wealthier people as usual.

They can open accounts that are denominated in precious metals, being gold, silver, platinum, or they can take physical property of gold ingots or gold bars starting from about a quarter of an ounce. You can take it, put it into safe deposit boxes. They have safe deposit boxes in major urban banks. And you can protect yourself against the falling domestic currency.

So there are protections for wealthier people. For the people who live hand-to-mouth, which is always a fairly large part of the population, they don’t have appreciable savings to protect since they spend the money on daily consumption. They are beneficiaries of the 8% inflation rate as opposed to a much higher rate. They were beneficiaries of the doubling of take-home pay for the average Russian worker over the last year because of the labor shortages and their ability as workers to quit and take new jobs where they are better paid. They are the beneficiaries of the reopening of factories in the middle of Russia in the Urals, factories that have been closed going back to 1990s and the economic catastrophe of that time. And they reopened, largely serving the military industry, but not only.

So all levels of Russian society have some kind of protection against the drop in the value of the ruble against the dollar. The average man was living hand to mouth in the sense of he or she lives off of the monthly paycheck. They also are beneficiaries of numerous subventions from the government, whether it’s for pensioners getting free or nearly-free tickets to cultural events, free transport, many such features, all of which are linked to the inflation rate. So the inflationary costs are compensated periodically in adjustments. So that part of the population also is protected and there’s really no reason for there to be popular discontent.

Here in Europe, we have something similar. I was quite surprised that there weren’t any big demonstrations or street marches, strikes here in Belgium when the effects of the economic downturn related to the fantastically high energy costs that Europe experienced after the first months of the Russian-Ukraine war. Well, it was all quiet here. And why was it quiet? Because salaries are all linked to inflation adjustments.

Linked to inflation adjustments. And so a large part of the out-of-pocket costs to the whole economy and to the general population was covered by the state mandated inflation adjustments in salaries and other benefits. So it is in Russia.

Lascaris:

Right. Well, I thank you very much again for you being so generous with your time, Gilbert, and I hope we’ll be able to continue the conversation in future.

Doctorow:

Well, thanks for the invitation.

Lascaris:

And this is Dimitris Laskaris coming to you for Reason to Resist on December 2nd, 2024.

This 57-minute discussion with host Nima Alkhorshid is the longest session we have had and, from my perspective, one of the most challenging.

The opening segments deal with the latest international crises – the ‘rebel’ takeover of Aleppo and threat to the Assad regime in Syria and the political struggle for power being fought out in the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia. My efforts were to present the Russian view of these crises, which differs very much from what you will hear and read today in both Western mainstream and in alternative media.

From there we moved on to a variety of currently hot issues including the likely Russian reaction to the Trump-Kellogg plan for peace in Ukraine and the risks of Russia’s using its new hypersonic ballistic missile Oreshnik against NATO countries leading to further escalation towards a nuclear exchange.

My overarching observation is that the Kremlin has written off any possible contribution by Donald Trump to ending the war in Ukraine and are relying solely on their own efforts to subdue Kiev in the coming weeks and ending the war on their own terms.

I am hopeful that viewers will find the discussion of the foregoing to be worth their time.  However, I am particularly pleased with the final 10 minutes in the interview in which I was given the opportunity to explain my position calling for the deconstruction of the European Union and the return to an economic alliance such as the European Economic Community before the creation of the Union in 1992. I see this as feasible, while retaining many of the benefits of the EU, such as the common currency, if the Euro is changed from a Fiat valuta to a gold-backed currency. In any case, the pitiful collective EU leadership consisting of nonentities is the direct result of the abandonment of sovereignty in the 1992 constitution which leaves the 27 “leaders” with no powers and no responsibilities to deal with the crises at Europe’s doorstep and beyond that we see today.

Comments will be most welcome.

See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhSwiA-coPE

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

“Dialogue Works,” 3. Dezember 2024: Eine massive russische Antwort kommt!

Diese 57-minütige Diskussion mit Gastgeber Nima Alkhorshid ist die längste Sitzung, die wir je hatten, und aus meiner Sicht eine der anspruchsvollsten.

In den ersten Abschnitten geht es um die jüngsten internationalen Krisen – die Übernahme Aleppos durch die „Rebellen“ und die Bedrohung des Assad-Regimes in Syrien sowie den politischen Machtkampf, der in den Straßen von Tiflis, Georgien, ausgetragen wird. Ich habe mich bemüht, die russische Sichtweise dieser Krisen darzustellen, die sich stark von dem unterscheidet, was Sie heute sowohl in den westlichen Mainstream- als auch in den alternativen Medien hören und lesen werden.

Von dort aus gingen wir zu einer Reihe aktueller Themen über, darunter die wahrscheinliche russische Reaktion auf den Trump-Kellogg-Plan für Frieden in der Ukraine und die Risiken, die sich aus dem Einsatz der neuen russischen Hyperschall-Rakete Oreschnik gegen NATO-Länder ergeben, was zu einer weiteren Eskalation in Richtung eines nuklearen Schlagabtauschs führen könnte.

Meine übergreifende Beobachtung ist, dass der Kreml jeden möglichen Beitrag von Donald Trump zur Beendigung des Krieges in der Ukraine abgeschrieben hat und sich ausschließlich auf seine eigenen Bemühungen verlässt, Kiew in den kommenden Wochen zu unterwerfen und den Krieg nach seinen eigenen Bedingungen zu beenden.

Ich hoffe, dass die Zuschauer die Diskussion über das Vorstehende als lohnenswert empfinden. Besonders zufrieden bin ich jedoch mit den letzten 10 Minuten des Interviews, in denen ich die Gelegenheit hatte, meine Position zu erläutern, in der ich den Abbau der Europäischen Union und die Rückkehr zu einem Wirtschaftsverbund wie der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft vor der Gründung der Union im Jahr 1992 fordere. Ich halte dies für machbar, wobei viele der Vorteile der EU, wie die gemeinsame Währung, erhalten bleiben, wenn der Euro von einer Fiat-Währung in eine goldgedeckte Währung umgewandelt wird. In jedem Fall ist die erbärmliche kollektive EU-Führung, die aus Nichtskönnern besteht, das direkte Ergebnis der Aufgabe der Souveränität in der Verfassung von 1992, die den 27 „Führern“ keine Befugnisse und keine Verantwortung überträgt, um die Krisen vor der Haustür Europas und darüber hinaus, die wir heute erleben, zu bewältigen.

Kommentare sind sehr willkommen.

Siehe  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhSwiA-coPE

Times are grim in international relations as every reader of these pages knows well. But allow me to assure you that Russia’s chattering classes are NOT wrapping themselves in bedsheets and slowly walking to the cemetery in advance of some hypothetical preemptive nuclear strike on their country. i.e. they are not preparing for eternity any time soon.  No, they are likely ensconced in armchairs with mugs of beer in their hands while they enjoy the black humor delivered to them by the country’s most widely watched talk show host, Vladimir Solovyov.

Like every news program on Russian state television yesterday, the Solovyov show gave ample coverage to Vladimir Putin’s s speech in Astana, Kazakhstan before fellow heads of state of what were once Soviet republics and are now members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the sense of which the BBC almost gets right when it calls the CSTO Russia’s NATO.  Putin spoke about Russia’s military might and about what he can do using the Oreshnik hypersonic intermediate range ballistic missile to utterly destroy the Kiev regime should they continue to launch French, British and American rockets into Russian territory. His listeners smiled politely, though, surely, he was scaring the living daylights out of them all. For the home audience in Moscow, on the other hand, his very tough speech was music to the ears of his countrymen. At last, they were witnessing ‘Putin Unbound.’ Both Solovyov and his panelists used the moment to let off steam and to enjoy a good laugh in what has to be described as black humor.

Political commentator Sergei Mikheev, a regular on the show, set the tone when he said how pleased he was that Putin was moving away from the Soviet style diplomatic language which had proven to be so unproductive in dealing with the leaders of today’s Collective West. He was now speaking in the only manner that those folks understand: frontal assault. What Russia should be saying to the West now that its superiority in weapons had been demonstrated for all to see via the Oreshnik attack on Dnepropetrovsk is simply: ‘Hands Up!’

Others joined in with similar contributions, including:

“Our opening lines to Berlin should be: ‘you have three hours to evacuate the city before we demolish it!’”

and

“To the Brits, who seem to be suffering extraordinarily from their loss of empire: ‘We’ll put you out of your misery!’”

                                                                        *****

Jokes aside, the feeling of the panelists on this show and the mood of the weekly news wrap-up hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov a couple of hours earlier was that there is no need for negotiations with anyone to end the war in and about Ukraine. Russia is smashing its way to total victory, the enemy lines will collapse under the overwhelming pressure of the ongoing offensive, and Russia will get what it wants in the act of capitulation that whoever is left to speak for Ukraine signs.

In this scenario, a role for Donald Trump in ending the war and the American notion of the outcome as a ‘frozen conflict’ in which Zelensky cedes land in exchange for NATO membership – all of this is trashed by the Russian side.

You will note that the Russian programming yesterday was wholly focused on the war on the front lines of Donbas and in the Kursk region.  To my knowledge, there was no coverage of the feats of Russian arms that appeared on the Times of India’s youtube channel yesterday, namely the destruction of a trainload of freshly arrived ATACMS and Storm Shadows in the Odessa region, or of the similarly reported Russian assassination of the main leader of rebel forces occupying Aleppo in Syria. None of this has yet been announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense.  Indeed, the entire issue of threat to the survival of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria was not covered yesterday by Russia’s main news channels.  In short, there was nothing to spoil the fun over ‘Putin Unbound’.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Hände hoch! Schwarzer Humor dominiert die neueste Folge von „Sonntagabend mit Wladimir Solowjow“

Die Zeiten in den internationalen Beziehungen sind düster, wie jeder Leser dieser Seiten nur zu gut weiß. Aber ich kann Ihnen versichern, dass sich die russische Oberschicht NICHT in Bettlaken hüllt und langsam zum Friedhof schreitet, um sich auf einen hypothetischen präventiven Atomschlag auf ihr Land vorzubereiten. Das heißt, sie bereitet sich nicht in nächster Zeit auf die Ewigkeit vor. Nein, sie sitzen wahrscheinlich in Sesseln mit einer Maß Bier in der Hand, während sie den schwarzen Humor genießen, den ihnen der meistgesehene Talkshow-Moderator des Landes, Vladimir Solovyov, liefert.

Wie jede Nachrichtensendung im russischen Staatsfernsehen gestern hat auch die Solowjow-Sendung ausführlich berichtet über Wladimir Putins Rede in Astana, Kasachstan, vor anderen Staatsoberhäuptern der ehemaligen Sowjetrepubliken, die heute Mitglieder der Organisation des Vertrags über kollektive Sicherheit sind, deren Sinn die BBC fast richtig erfasst, wenn sie die OVKS als Russlands NATO bezeichnet. Putin sprach über Russlands militärische Macht und darüber, was er mit der Oreschnik-Hyperschall-Mittelstreckenrakete tun kann, um das Kiewer Regime vollständig zu zerstören, sollten sie weiterhin französische, britische und amerikanische Raketen auf russisches Territorium abschießen. Seine Zuhörer lächelten höflich, obwohl er ihnen sicherlich eine Heidenangst einjagte. Für das heimische Publikum in Moskau hingegen war seine sehr harte Rede Musik in den Ohren seiner Landsleute. Endlich erlebten sie „Putin Unbound“. Sowohl Solowjow als auch seine Diskussionsteilnehmer nutzten den Moment, um Dampf abzulassen und herzhaft zu lachen, was man nur als schwarzen Humor bezeichnen kann.

Der politische Kommentator Sergei Mikheev, ein regelmäßiger Gast in der Sendung, gab den Ton an, als er sagte, wie erfreut er darüber sei, dass Putin sich von der diplomatischen Sprache im sowjetischen Stil abwende, die sich im Umgang mit den Führern des heutigen kollektiven Westens als so unproduktiv erwiesen habe. Er spreche jetzt auf die einzige Art und Weise, die diese Leute verstünden: Frontalangriff. Was Russland dem Westen jetzt sagen sollte, da seine Überlegenheit bei Waffen durch den Oreschnik-Angriff auf Dnepropetrowsk für alle sichtbar demonstriert wurde, sei einfach: „Hände hoch!“

Andere schlossen sich mit ähnlichen Beiträgen an, darunter:

„Unsere ersten Worte an Berlin sollten lauten: ‚Ihr habt drei Stunden Zeit, um die Stadt zu evakuieren, bevor wir sie zerstören!‘“

und

„An die Briten, die offenbar außerordentlich unter dem Verlust ihres Weltreichs leiden: Wir werden euch von eurem Elend erlösen!“

                                                                        *****

Spaß beiseite: Die Diskussionsteilnehmer dieser Sendung und die Stimmung in der wöchentlichen Nachrichtensendung, die ein paar Stunden zuvor von Dmitry Kiselyov moderiert wurde, waren der Meinung, dass es nicht nötig sei, mit irgendjemandem zu verhandeln, um den Krieg in der und um die Ukraine zu beenden. Russland bahnt sich seinen Weg zum totalen Sieg, die feindlichen Linien werden unter dem überwältigenden Druck der anhaltenden Offensive zusammenbrechen und Russland wird bei der Kapitulation, die von demjenigen unterzeichnet wird, der noch für die Ukraine sprechen darf, bekommen, was es will.

In diesem Szenario wird eine Rolle für Donald Trump bei der Beendigung des Krieges und die amerikanische Vorstellung vom Ausgang als „eingefrorener Konflikt“, bei dem Selenskyj Land im Austausch für die NATO-Mitgliedschaft abtritt, von russischer Seite verworfen.

Sie werden feststellen, dass sich die russische Berichterstattung gestern ausschließlich auf den Krieg an den Frontlinien von Donbas und in der Region Kursk konzentrierte. Meines Wissens gab es keine Berichterstattung über die Heldentaten der russischen Waffen, die gestern auf dem YouTube-Kanal der Times of India erschienen sind, nämlich die Zerstörung eines Zuges mit frisch eingetroffenen ATACMS und Storm Shadows in der Region Odessa oder darüber, wie ähnlich berichtet wurde, dass Russland den Hauptführer der Rebellen, die Aleppo in Syrien besetzen, ermordet hat. Das russische Verteidigungsministerium hat bisher nichts davon verlauten lassen. Tatsächlich wurde die gesamte Frage der Bedrohung für das Überleben des Regimes von Baschar al-Assad in Syrien gestern von den wichtigsten russischen Nachrichtensendern nicht behandelt. Kurz gesagt, es gab nichts, was den Spaß an „Putin Unbound“ trüben konnte.

In his press conference at the end of his two-day state visit to Kazakhstan, President Putin was asked about the sharp devaluation of the ruble against the dollar and euro that was occurring during the week. By my estimation the ruble exchange rate worsened by about 7% in just a few days’ time.   

The question was no doubt anticipated by Putin, but nonetheless he did not give a definitive answer. Instead, he mentioned various determinants of the exchange rate at any given moment, including the latest price of the price of a barrel of oil on export markets (which has fallen below the critical $70 mark), the actual and anticipated rate of domestic inflation (now at 8% and presumed to be falling), and the seasonality of tax payments by industrialists.

Meanwhile, Western observers have been hoping that the exchange rate deterioration reflects some serious hidden weakness in the Russian economy and/or the effectiveness of the latest US financial sanctions which once again cut off Gazprombank, Russia’s leading bank for settlement of hydrocarbon exports from the international banking system, making it difficult to realize proceeds from sales abroad.

While the causes for the worsening exchange rate cannot be identified today with certainty, political observers in the West speculate on some hoped-for revolt of the oligarchs and broader population against the loss in value of the ruble, the main currency of their savings.

I say ‘main currency’ because Russian citizens at all levels of society enjoy the possibility of opening bank accounts in Chinese Yuan and other fairly stable currencies. They also can open accounts denominated in precious metals including gold, silver, platinum and palladium. And they can buy and receive in their hands bars of pure gold, the smallest ingots weighing as little as a quarter of an ounce.

Of course, for the general population in Russia there is not much experience with Yuan or with precious metals, just as there is not much experience with the stock market, whether in mutual funds, Exchange Traded Shares on the Moscow bourse or similar financial instruments which the Russian retail banks are now heavily promoting to their clients.

But what they can do is take advantage of the eye watering interest being paid by Russia’s leading banks on both time deposits and on special interest-bearing savings accounts that have no limitations on deposits or withdrawals and compound interest on the daily balances.  The time deposits looked like a very good deal when they locked in 10% annual interest on 12 month accounts some six months ago. However, as of today, the special unrestricted savings accounts have flown past that level to the present-day 22% being offered. These rates rise and fall month by the month.

How can the banks offer these incredible interest rates on current accounts?  Keep in mind that the prime lending rate of the Bank of Russia is now 21%. I assume that banks get a still better return on consumer credit that they extend to holders of their Mir cards or their automobile loans.

The stated reason for the Bank of Russia’s sky-high prime rate is to tame inflation and bring it down from 8% to half that number.  Indeed, it is a tribute to the Central Bank that it has kept domestic inflation at ‘just’ 8% given the tight labor market in Russia which has already doubled the salaries of ordinary working people in the past 12 months. The labor market is tight because of the vastly increased production levels of the military industrial complex, which is now running on three daily shifts and which has revived manufacturing in the many one-factory towns in Central Russia that were moribund since the crash of the 1990s. Then we must consider as well the removal from the work force of many volunteers to serve in the Special Military Operation under contracts that begin with a 10,000 euro payment upon signing the contract. 

There are many economically savvy commentators within Russia who decry the high prime rate for strangling the economy and putting in jeopardy the 4% growth in GDP that the Putin government has targeted.  But the loss of affordable bank loans to industry and commerce under present conditions of the prime rate is at least partially offset by government subventions to the military industry and to favored sectors of the consumer economy.

In fact, I see the sense of the sky-high prime in that it has led to sky high interest rates being offered to the Russian public on their bank deposits.  This surely has the effect of pulling cash out of the consumption column and putting it into the savings column, thereby reducing the inflationary pressures in the economy very substantially.

To be sure, the interest paid on bank deposits can only have an impact on the family budgets of those who have money left over at the end of each month to invest in savings accounts. That is a minority of the population, given that many Russian families live from month to month on their salaries.

The majority of the population may not profit from eye-watering interest payments on savings, but do profit from inflation being kept under control. These same people at the bottom of the financial ladder, especially pensioners and young families, receive many support payments that are regularly inflation-adjusted upwards. For none of these people does the exchange rate to the dollar or euro have any practical relevance. Whereas for those wealthier strata of the population who would be anxious about the loss in value of their rubles when they travel abroad or purchase big ticket items like imported cars, the interest on their bank accounts or the growth in value of their gold bars in safe deposit boxes should provide solace.

                                                                          *****

I close today’s ‘diary entry’ with a remark on the much-discussed Russian attack on Dnepropetrovsk with its new hypersonic missile Oreshnik that has set tongues wagging in both Western mainstream and alternative media this past week.

One name has been missing in all accounts of the Russian ‘shock and awe’ action: that of the Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov, who in July 2023 touched off a domestic and international controversy when he called upon Vladimir Putin to authorize a ‘demonstration’ attack on one or another West European country using tactical nuclear arms to bring the Collective West to its senses and put an end to the hubristic confidence that Russia was a paper tiger than can be pushed around.

At that time, some Russia-cheerleaders in the West believed that Karaganov had a good point, that Putin’s forbearance, his turning the other cheek after each escalatory move by the West was leading only to more dangerous conflict ahead, including full-blown nuclear war when Russia’s back was to the wall.

We now see that Vladimir Putin knew better what was in the Russian pipeline of weapons systems that could achieve the objective of ‘shock and awe’ without opening the Pandora’s box of nuclear weapons: it was precisely the high precision and vastly destructive Oreshkin, for which, as he has pointedly said, the West has no defense for years to come.

My conclusion is that there is some space between despair that Putin is encouraging escalation by holding back and despair that the Russians have also gone mad and are leading the way to Armageddon.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Ist der Rubel noch etwas wert? Warum gibt es in Russland keine Panik wegen der 7-prozentigen Abwertung gegenüber dem Dollar in der vergangenen Woche?

In seiner Pressekonferenz am Ende seines zweitägigen Staatsbesuchs in Kasachstan wurde Präsident Putin nach der starken Abwertung des Rubels gegenüber dem Dollar und dem Euro gefragt, die während der Woche stattgefunden hatte. Meiner Einschätzung nach hat sich der Rubel-Wechselkurs innerhalb weniger Tage um etwa 7 % verschlechtert.

Putin hatte die Frage zweifellos erwartet, gab aber dennoch keine definitive Antwort. Stattdessen nannte er verschiedene Faktoren, die den Wechselkurs zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt beeinflussen, darunter den aktuellen Preis für ein Barrel Öl auf den Exportmärkten (der unter die kritische Marke von 70 US-Dollar gefallen ist), die tatsächliche und erwartete Inflationsrate im Inland (die derzeit bei 8 % liegt und voraussichtlich sinken wird) und die Saisonabhängigkeit der Steuerzahlungen von Industriellen.

Unterdessen hofften westliche Beobachter, dass die Verschlechterung des Wechselkurses auf eine ernsthafte, verborgene Schwäche der russischen Wirtschaft und/oder die Wirksamkeit der jüngsten US-Finanzsanktionen zurückzuführen ist, die die Gazprombank, Russlands führende Bank für die Abwicklung von Kohlenwasserstoffexporten, erneut vom internationalen Bankensystem abgeschnitten haben, was die Realisierung von Erlösen aus Verkäufen im Ausland erschwert.

Die Ursachen für den sich verschlechternden Wechselkurs lassen sich heute nicht mit Sicherheit bestimmen, aber politische Beobachter im Westen spekulieren über einen erhofften Aufstand der Oligarchen und der breiteren Bevölkerung gegen den Wertverlust des Rubels, der Hauptwährung ihrer Ersparnisse.

Ich sage „Hauptwährung“, weil russische Bürger auf allen Ebenen der Gesellschaft die Möglichkeit haben, Bankkonten in chinesischen Yuan und anderen relativ stabilen Währungen zu eröffnen. Sie können auch Konten in Edelmetallen wie Gold, Silber, Platin und Palladium eröffnen. Und sie können Barren aus reinem Gold kaufen und in ihren Händen halten, wobei die kleinsten Barren nur eine viertel Unze wiegen.

Natürlich hat die russische Bevölkerung kaum Erfahrung mit dem Yuan oder Edelmetallen, ebenso wie mit der Börse, ob nun mit Investmentfonds, börsengehandelten Aktien an der Moskauer Börse oder ähnlichen Finanzinstrumenten, die die russischen Privatkundenbanken ihren Kunden derzeit massiv anbieten.

Aber sie können das enorme Interesse nutzen, das die führenden Banken Russlands sowohl für Festgelder als auch für spezielle verzinsliche Sparkonten zeigen, bei denen es keine Einschränkungen für Ein- oder Auszahlungen gibt und die täglichen Guthaben mit Zinseszinsen verzinst werden. Die Festgelder schienen ein sehr gutes Geschäft zu sein, als sie vor etwa sechs Monaten eine jährliche Verzinsung von 10 % auf 12-Monats-Konten festschrieben. Heute jedoch haben die speziellen, uneingeschränkten Sparkonten dieses Niveau mit den aktuell angebotenen 22 % weit hinter sich gelassen. Diese Zinssätze steigen und fallen von Monat zu Monat.

Wie können die Banken diese unglaublichen Zinssätze auf Girokonten anbieten? Bedenken Sie, dass der Leitzins der Bank von Russland derzeit bei 21 % liegt. Ich gehe davon aus, dass Banken mit Verbraucherkrediten, die sie Inhabern ihrer Mir-Karten oder für Autokredite gewähren, noch bessere Renditen erzielen.

Der angegebene Grund für den himmelhohen Leitzins der Bank von Russland ist, die Inflation zu zähmen und sie von 8 % auf die Hälfte zu senken. Tatsächlich ist es ein Verdienst der Zentralbank, dass sie die Inflation im Inland bei „nur“ 8 % gehalten hat, wenn man den angespannten Arbeitsmarkt in Russland bedenkt, der die Gehälter der einfachen Arbeiter in den letzten 12 Monaten bereits verdoppelt hat. Der Arbeitsmarkt ist angespannt, weil die Produktion des militärischen Industriekomplexes enorm gestiegen ist, der jetzt in drei Schichten pro Tag läuft und die Produktion in den vielen Ein-Fabrik-Städten in Zentralrussland wiederbelebt hat, die seit dem Zusammenbruch in den 1990er Jahren am Boden lagen. Dann müssen wir auch berücksichtigen, dass viele Freiwillige aus dem Arbeitsprozess genommen wurden, um im Rahmen der militärischen Spezialoperation zu dienen, und zwar mit Verträgen, die mit einer Zahlung von 10.000 Euro bei Vertragsunterzeichnung beginnen.

In Russland gibt es viele wirtschaftlich versierte Kommentatoren, die den hohen Leitzins als Erstickungsfaktor für die Wirtschaft und als Gefahr für das von der Putin-Regierung angestrebte BIP-Wachstum von 4 % anprangern. Der Verlust erschwinglicher Bankkredite für Industrie und Handel unter den derzeitigen Bedingungen des Leitzinses wird jedoch zumindest teilweise durch staatliche Subventionen für die Rüstungsindustrie und bevorzugte Sektoren der Konsumwirtschaft ausgeglichen.

Tatsächlich sehe ich den Sinn des himmelhohen Leitzinses darin, dass er dazu geführt hat, dass der russischen Bevölkerung himmelhohe Zinssätze für ihre Bankeinlagen angeboten werden. Dies hat sicherlich den Effekt, dass Bargeld aus der Konsumspalte in die Sparte „Ersparnisse“ verschoben wird, wodurch der Inflationsdruck in der Wirtschaft erheblich reduziert wird.

Natürlich können sich die Zinsen auf Bankeinlagen nur auf die Familienbudgets derjenigen auswirken, die am Ende des Monats noch Geld übrig haben, das sie auf Sparkonten anlegen können. Das ist eine Minderheit der Bevölkerung, da viele russische Familien Monat für Monat von ihrem Gehalt leben.

Die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung profitiert zwar nicht von den traumhaften Zinsen auf Sparguthaben, aber sie profitiert davon, dass die Inflation unter Kontrolle gehalten wird. Diese Menschen am unteren Ende der finanziellen Leiter, insbesondere Rentner und junge Familien, erhalten viele Unterstützungszahlungen, die regelmäßig inflationsbereinigt nach oben angepasst werden. Für keine dieser Personen hat der Wechselkurs zum Dollar oder Euro irgendeine praktische Relevanz. Für die wohlhabenderen Bevölkerungsschichten jedoch, die sich Sorgen über den Wertverlust ihrer Rubel machen, wenn sie ins Ausland reisen oder teure Anschaffungen wie importierte Autos tätigen, sollten die Zinsen auf ihren Bankkonten oder der Wertzuwachs ihrer Goldbarren in Schließfächern ein Trost sein.

                                                                          *****

Ich schließe den heutigen „Tagebucheintrag“ mit einer Bemerkung zu dem viel diskutierten russischen Angriff auf Dnepropetrowsk mit seiner neuen Hyperschallrakete Oreschnik, der in der vergangenen Woche sowohl in den westlichen Mainstream- als auch in den alternativen Medien für Gesprächsstoff gesorgt hat.

In allen Berichten über die russische ‘shock and awe’-Aktion [Schock-und-Ehrfurcht-Aktion] fehlt ein Name: der des russischen Politikwissenschaftlers Sergei Karaganov, der im Juli 2023 eine nationale und internationale Kontroverse ausgelöst hatte, als er Wladimir Putin aufforderte, einen „Demonstrationsangriff“ auf das eine oder andere westeuropäische Land mit taktischen Atomwaffen zu autorisieren, um den kollektiven Westen zur Besinnung zu bringen und dem überheblichen Selbstbewusstsein, Russland sei ein Papiertiger, der sich herumschubsen lasse, ein Ende zu setzen.

Zu dieser Zeit glaubten einige Russland-Anhänger im Westen, dass Karaganov recht hätte, dass Putins Nachsicht, seine andere Wange hinzuhalten nach jedem eskalierenden Schritt des Westens, nur zu einem noch gefährlicheren Konflikt in der Zukunft führen würde, einschließlich eines ausgewachsenen Atomkriegs, wenn Russland mit dem Rücken zur Wand stünde.

Wir sehen nun, dass Wladimir Putin besser wusste, welche Waffensysteme in der russischen Pipeline vorhanden waren, mit denen das Ziel „Schock und Ehrfurcht“ erreicht werden konnte, ohne die Büchse der Pandora der Atomwaffen zu öffnen: Es handelte sich genau um die hochpräzisen und äußerst zerstörerischen Oreschkin-Raketen, gegen die der Westen, wie er ausdrücklich sagte, in den kommenden Jahren keine Verteidigung haben wird.

Ich komme zu dem Schluss, dass es einen gewissen Spielraum gibt zwischen der Verzweiflung, dass Putin die Eskalation fördere, indem er sich zurückhält, und der Verzweiflung, dass die Russen auch verrückt geworden seien und den Weg ins Armageddon weisen.

We all heard the tough talk from President Putin during his press conference yesterday in Astana, Kazakhstan. From his warnings, many Western journalists expected an imminent attack on Kiev using the new Oreshkin hypersonic missile to atomize both civilian decision-making and military command and control centers. There was also speculation in mainstream and in alternative media that Russia might strike one or another military target in a NATO country such as Poland, home to the latest Aegis Onshore missile launch site directed against Russia.

However, this evening’s edition of the news and analysis program The Great Game on Russia’s Pervy Kanal suggests Moscow is satisfied that its warnings against further use of American, French and British missiles to strike deep into Russian territory have finally been heard in Washington, London and Paris. Accordingly, it will not attack Kiev until and unless there are new Ukrainian attacks using ATACMS, Storm Shadow or Scalp.

In the meantime, the Russian Ministry of Defense contents itself with the massive attacks it has carried out in Ukraine as described below:

1. 25 November: short range (500 km) Iskander tactical ballistic missiles were used to destroy 5 ATACMS launchers
2. 25-26 November the Russians destroyed launchers for ballistic missiles Grom-2 in Odessa; also killed 40 foreign specialists, mostly from the USA, in a rocket attack on the Kraken military intelligence unit in Kharkov

              An Iskander attack on the barracks of a Special Operations detachment of the Ukrainian army in Odessa killed 72, including 9 Frenchmen

• On 28 Nov –a combined rocket and drone attack was made on a Ukrainian military industrial complex and energy infrastructure

The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported that in the last week, the Russian air force shot down 10 ATACMS, 15 Hammer glide bombs manufactured in France, two HIMARS rocket launchers, and 353 airplane style drones.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Wir können alle aufatmen: Die Russen werden Kiew oder ein NATO-Land vorerst nicht angreifen

Wir alle haben die harten Worte von Präsident Putin während seiner gestrigen Pressekonferenz in Astana, Kasachstan, gehört. Aufgrund seiner Warnungen erwarteten viele westliche Journalisten einen bevorstehenden Angriff auf Kiew mit der neuen Oreschkin-Hyperschallrakete, um sowohl zivile Entscheidungszentren als auch militärische Kommando- und Kontrollzentren zu vernichten. In den Mainstream- und alternativen Medien wurde auch darüber spekuliert, dass Russland das eine oder andere militärische Ziel in einem NATO-Land wie Polen angreifen könnte, wo sich die neueste Aegis-Onshore-Raketenabschussbasis befindet, die gegen Russland gerichtet ist.

In der heutigen Ausgabe der Nachrichten- und Analyse-Sendung „Das grosse Spiel“ auf dem russischen Sender Pervy Kanal wird jedoch angedeutet, dass Moskau zufrieden ist, dass seine Warnungen vor einem weiteren Einsatz amerikanischer, französischer und britischer Raketen, die tief in russisches Gebiet eindringen, in Washington, London und Paris endlich Gehör gefunden haben. Dementsprechend wird Moskau Kiew nicht angreifen, bis neue Angriffe der Ukraine mit ATACMS-, Storm Shadow- oder Scalp-Raketen erfolgen.

In der Zwischenzeit begnügt sich das russische Verteidigungsministerium mit den massiven Angriffen, die es in der Ukraine durchgeführt hat, wie unten beschrieben:

1. 25. November: taktische ballistische Kurzstreckenraketen (500 km) vom Typ Iskander wurden zur Zerstörung von 5 ATACMS-Abschussvorrichtungen eingesetzt;
2. 25.-26. November: Die Russen zerstörten Abschussvorrichtungen für ballistische Raketen Grom-2 in Odessa; außerdem wurden bei einem Raketenangriff auf die militärische Geheimdiensteinheit Kraken in Charkow 40 ausländische Spezialisten, hauptsächlich aus den USA, getötet;
3. ein Iskander-Angriff auf die Kaserne einer Spezialeinheit der ukrainischen Armee in Odessa tötete 72 Menschen, darunter 9 Franzosen;
4. am 28. November wurde ein kombinierter Raketen- und Drohnenangriff auf einen ukrainischen Militärindustriekomplex und die Energieinfrastruktur durchgeführt.

Das russische Verteidigungsministerium berichtete außerdem, dass die russische Luftwaffe in der vergangenen Woche zehn ATACMS-Raketen, 15 in Frankreich hergestellte Hammer-Gleitbomben, zwei HIMARS-Raketenwerfer und 353 Flugzeug-Drohnen abgeschossen hat.

Transcript submitted by a reader

WION: 0:00
All right now to give us more perspective in terms of where this war in Ukraine is headed at the moment, we are joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who’s an international affairs analyst, who’s an author and also a historian, and he’s joining his live on this broadcast. Doctor Doctorow, you know Joe Biden at the moment is coming out his final days as the lame duck president in the White House. But what do you think is the thinking behind this strategy of turning up the temperature in the Ukrainian war by supplying more long range missiles to the Ukrainians to strike targets inside the Russian territory? The Russians are very clear, if Ukraine uses these Western long-range weapons, they would hit back with much greater force.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:42
I think that Biden’s purpose is to hold the line in Ukraine, to prop up the armed forces and the government there, till he leaves office, to ensure his legacy. I think he and the people around him know very well that the days of the Kiev regime are numbered. They would prefer, however, if the collapse comes on the watch of Mr. Trump and not on his watch. What he is now supplying to Ukraine and authorizing to use against the interior parts of the Russian Federation are pinpricks.

1:21
They will not change the balance of the war. They will distract the public from the progress that the Russian army is making daily in beating back the Ukrainian forces, moving the line of confrontation closer to the Dnieper River. So it’s a distraction. And as they say, for him, for his pride, it is to shift the blame for the collapse of Ukraine from his administration to the incoming Trump administration.

WION: 1:52
Interesting. And also, what in your assessment is the change that this new Russian missile, Oreshnik, has brought about? Now, since the end of the Soviet Union, in Western capitals, there was a feeling that qualitatively the Western weapons perhaps were better. Has that reality now changed, with Russia having exhibited what the Oreshnik missile can actually accomplish on the battlefield?

Doctorow: 2:18
The balance changed in 2018, when in March of that year, Putin made a state of the nation speech and rolled out the various new unrivaled, unparalleled weapons systems, strategic weapons systems that Russia had developed. And he said at the time that this was a change in history. In the 70 years of Soviet Union, Russian arms were always years behind the United States and other Western countries in technological development. This time in 2018, when these new weapons– including the forerunner of the Oreshnik that was rolled out a week ago– these new weapons systems put the Russians a generation ahead of the United States. A generation here would mean 10 years.

WION: 3:11
You know, it’s interesting that you say that this has put the Russians a generation ahead, but the advisors of Joe Biden, who are advising Joe Biden as to how he needs to proceed in this war in the next two months till he ends his days at the White House. Do you think they’re telling him this? What do you think they’re telling him?

Doctorow: 3:29
Well, they should have told him that this was coming, or they should have told his predecessor, Donald Trump, that this was coming in 2018. But unfortunately US intelligence has been asleep at the wheel for the last 14 years or so. They have very few competent people who speak Russian, know Russian well enough, and who are working within the federal government as opposed to being outsourced, independent commercial suppliers of intelligence.

3:55
So United States intelligence on things like this new development have been woefully weak since before 2018; in fact, going back to the period immediately following the attack on the World towers when the US government reoriented its intelligence, staff, and interests to the Middle East. Therefore, the United States has been blindsided. Mr. Trump was not properly briefed and Mr. Biden was not properly briefed.

WION:
All right, interesting. Thank you very much indeed Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, for joining us and getting us that perspective there, sir.

Doctorow:
Thank you.

WION: 4:36
For all the latest news, download the WION app and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transkript des Interviews mit WION, ein indischer weltweiter Sender 28.11.24

Transkript eines Lesers

WION: 0:00
Um uns einen besseren Überblick darüber zu verschaffen, wohin dieser Krieg in der Ukraine derzeit führt, haben wir Dr. Gilbert Doctorow zu Gast, einen Analysten für internationale Angelegenheiten, Autor und Historiker, der live an dieser Sendung teilnimmt. Herr Doctorow, Sie wissen, dass Joe Biden derzeit seine letzten Tage als „lame-duck“-Präsident im Weißen Haus verbringt. Aber was steckt Ihrer Meinung nach hinter dieser Strategie, die Temperatur im Ukraine-Krieg zu erhöhen, indem man den Ukrainern mehr Langstreckenraketen zur Verfügung stellt, um Ziele auf russischem Territorium anzugreifen? Die Russen haben klargemacht, dass sie mit viel größerer Wucht zurückschlagen würden, wenn die Ukraine diese westlichen Langstreckenwaffen einsetzt.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:42
Ich denke, dass Bidens Ziel darin besteht, in der Ukraine die Stellung zu halten, die Streitkräfte und die Regierung dort bis zu seinem Ausscheiden aus dem Amt zu stützen und sein Vermächtnis zu sichern. Ich denke, er und die Menschen in seinem Umfeld wissen sehr gut, dass die Tage des Kiewer Regimes gezählt sind. Sie würden es jedoch vorziehen, wenn der Zusammenbruch unter der Präsidentschaft von Herrn Trump und nicht unter seiner Präsidentschaft eintritt. Was er jetzt an die Ukraine liefert und zur Verwendung gegen die inneren Teile der Russischen Föderation genehmigt, sind Nadelstiche.

1:21
Sie werden das Kriegsgeschehen nicht verändern. Sie werden die Öffentlichkeit von den Fortschritten ablenken, die die russische Armee täglich dabei macht, die ukrainischen Streitkräfte zurückzuschlagen und die Front näher an den Dnepr zu rücken. Es geht also um Ablenkung. Und wie man so schön sagt, geht es ihm, seinem Stolz, darum, die Schuld für den Zusammenbruch der Ukraine von seiner Regierung auf die kommende Trump-Regierung zu schieben.

WION: 1:52
Interessant. Und was hat sich Ihrer Meinung nach durch diese neue russische Rakete Oreschnik geändert? Seit dem Ende der Sowjetunion herrschte in den westlichen Hauptstädten das Gefühl vor, dass die westlichen Waffen qualitativ vielleicht besser seien. Hat sich das geändert, nachdem Russland gezeigt hat, was die Oreschnik-Rakete auf dem Schlachtfeld tatsächlich leisten kann?

Doctorow: 2:18
Das Gleichgewicht hat sich 2018 geändert, als Putin im März desselben Jahres eine Rede zur Lage der Nation gehalten und die verschiedenen neuen, konkurrenzlosen und beispiellosen Waffensysteme vorgestellt hat, strategische Waffensysteme, die Russland entwickelt hatte. Und er sagte damals, dass dies eine Wende in der Geschichte sei. In den 70 Jahren der Sowjetunion hinkten die russischen Waffen in der technologischen Entwicklung immer Jahre hinter den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen westlichen Ländern hinterher. Dieses Mal, im Jahr 2018, als diese neuen Waffen – einschließlich des Vorläufers des Oreschnik, der vor einer Woche vorgestellt wurde – diese neuen Waffensysteme die Russen eine Generation vor die Vereinigten Staaten brachten. Eine Generation würde hier 10 Jahre bedeuten.

WION: 3:11
Es ist interessant, dass Sie sagen, dass die Russen dadurch eine Generation Vorsprung haben, aber die Berater von Joe Biden, die Joe Biden beraten, wie er in diesem Krieg in den nächsten zwei Monaten vorgehen muss, bis er seine Tage im Weißen Haus beendet – glauben Sie, dass sie ihm das sagen? Was glauben Sie, sagen sie ihm?

Doctorow: 3:29
Nun, sie hätten ihm sagen sollen, dass dies kommen würde, oder sie hätten seinem Vorgänger Donald Trump sagen sollen, dass dies 2018 kommen würde. Aber leider hat der US-Geheimdienst in den letzten 14 Jahren oder so geschlafen. Es gibt nur sehr wenige kompetente Leute, die Russisch sprechen, die Russisch gut genug beherrschen und die innerhalb der US-Bundesregierung arbeiten, im Gegensatz zu ausgelagerten, unabhängigen kommerziellen Geheimdienstanbietern.

3:55
Die Geheimdienste der Vereinigten Staaten waren also schon vor 2018 in Bezug auf solche neuen Entwicklungen erschreckend schwach; tatsächlich reicht dies bis in die Zeit unmittelbar nach dem Angriff auf die World Trade Center-Türme zurück, als die US-Regierung ihre Geheimdienste, ihr Personal und ihre Interessen auf den Nahen Osten ausgerichtet hat. Daher wurden die Vereinigten Staaten kalt erwischt. Herr Trump wurde nicht richtig informiert und Herr Biden wurde nicht richtig informiert.

WION:
In Ordnung, interessant. Vielen Dank, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, dass Sie sich uns angeschlossen haben und uns diese Perspektive vermittelt haben, Sir.

Doctorow:
Vielen Dank.

WION: 4:36
Für alle aktuellen Nachrichten laden Sie die WION-App herunter und abonnieren Sie unseren YouTube-Kanal.

Over the past month or more, it was very difficult to find a mutually acceptable time slot with WION,, India’s premier English language global broadcaster, for a discussion of the day’s leading Russia-related news. Happily, we did that today and I offer to the community my 4 minute interview on Russia’s latest Wunderwaffe missile, the Oreshnik.

Translation into German below (Andreas Mylaeus)

Wiederaufnahme der Zusammenarbeit mit WION: Die Bedeutung der Oreschnik-Hyperschallrakete und warum sie vom US-Geheimdienst nicht vorhergesehen wurde

Im vergangenen Monat oder länger war es sehr schwierig, mit WION, Indiens führendem englischsprachigen globalen Sender, einen für beide Seiten akzeptablen Termin für eine Diskussion über die wichtigsten Russland-Nachrichten des Tages zu finden. Glücklicherweise haben wir das heute geschafft, und ich biete der Community mein 4-minütiges Interview über Russlands neueste Wunderwaffe-Rakete, die Oreschnik, an.

In yesterday’s widely viewed interview on Judging Freedom, Andrew Napolitano asked me whether US and British intelligence had missed the point of Vladimir Putin’s 1 March 2018 speech to the nation and to the world in which he rolled out Russia’s new unrivaled strategic weapons systems, including hypersonic missiles operating on the same physical principles as the Oreshnik.

Looking through my files, I find the following very relevant essay that I published in ‘Consortium News’ at that time:

Missile-gate: U.S. Intel Misses Russia’s Big Advances in Nuclear Parity

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Missile-Gate“, 2018 neu aufgerollt

In dem viel beachteten Interview, mit Andrew Napolitano gestern in der Sendung „Judging Freedom“, fragte er mich, ob die Geheimdienste der USA und Großbritanniens den Sinn von Wladimir Putins Rede an die Nation und die Welt vom 1. März 2018 nicht verstanden hätten, in der er Russlands neue, konkurrenzlose strategische Waffensysteme vorstellte, darunter Hyperschall-Raketen, die nach denselben physikalischen Prinzipien wie die Oreschnik funktionieren.

Beim Durchsehen meiner Unterlagen bin ich auf den folgenden sehr relevanten Aufsatz gestoßen, den ich damals in den „Consortium News“ veröffentlicht habe:

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, November 27th, 2024, Thanksgiving week here in the United States. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. We have been talking almost nonstop with your colleagues on this show about the significance militarily and geopolitically, and I know your field is geopolitics, not military, of the Russian Oreshnik missile. How big a deal is this?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:11
It is a big deal for itself and also for what it tells us about us. The most important features of the Oreshnik were already on view in 2018 in the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which had in its nose cone, 12 Avangard hypersonic missiles.

The same principle as we see in Oreshnik. Oreshnik has six hypersonic blocks, they call them, which are individually targeted and which coast down to their target at 10 Mach, 10 times the speed of sound. The 2018 ICBM had 20 Mach Avangard missiles aboard. The real technical challenge as far as I understand was to fly in those hypersonic blocks or the MIRV missiles that are part of the delivery package at these enormous speeds and to control them for precise targeting. This was the enormous achievement of Russian physicists and engineers for 2018. It was overlooked completely by us in the West.

2:40
It was explained to the public on the March 1st, 2018 speech to the nation, the state of the nation address, as we like to call it, that Putin delivered then, which was about a month before the presidential elections. And it was made light of by our press and by our experts who spoke about it as a bluff, as a pre-electural empty speech by a man who was very keen to be reelected, Vladimir Putin. But the fact that the Russians could have, as Putin later explained, done something that they had not achieved in 70 years of the Soviet Union, pulled ahead of the United States technologically in arms. We know that they pulled ahead of the United States in Sputnik when it was launched, but not in the arms race.

3:35
There, the United States was always years ahead, going back to who had the first nuclear weapons. Here, in this case, Russia pulled a whole generation ahead of the United States, and maybe as much as 10 years ahead. Ten years in politics is forever. What’s important about the Oreshnik and very few of my peers have discussed, is the timing issue. The Oreshnik has been introduced to the world as an intermediate-range, but it’s the top of intermediate-range missiles.

5,000 kilometers is the top, and that’s where it stands. It has been introduced two years ahead of the American Tomahawks that were promised to or were threatened to Mr. Scholz as being based in Germany in readiness for what could be a preemptive attack on Russia. Two years ahead. So this is an amazing feat, that this weapon has been brought out.

Napolitano: 4:38
Was Western intel, particularly CIA and MI6, caught off guard by this? Or stated differently, did the Pentagon, Whitehall, 10 Downing Street, the White House even have a hint that this was coming?

Doctorow:
Well, they had more than a hint. As I said, the basic technology was already shown to have been developed and to be introduced into serial production in 2018. So there’s no excuse for this. But I think that they, like the general public and even, or particularly, like Russians who left the Soviet Union and who thought they know Russia, were saying about Mr. Putin’s announcement in 2018, that it was an absolute bluff, and there’s no way the Russians could achieve a technological advantage with a budget for military purposes, 10 times smaller than the United States. And there are reasons, I don’t want to be too unkind to those who would have discounted Russia’s technical abilities to achieve what they have achieved.

5:54
I was reminded of this when I was on my last visit to Petersburg just two weeks ago, and I got into a taxi. It was, most of the taxis I got into were crossovers from China, which were wonderful to ride in. But this happened to be a Lada, a new Lada. And the taxi driver–

Napolitano:
What is a Lada? A Russian–

Doctorow:
It’s a Russian car. It’s the car that was built in the, in the Tolyatti, in the original Fiat joint venture with the Russian automobile industry. It is a modern-looking car, modest, but modern looking. It’s not as, this is not an ancient-looking car, it’s modern-looking. But the technical achievements of the automobile engineers are not much to persuade us that Russians are capable of engineering. The driver was complaining, and he’s not just complaining, he demonstrated. When he tried to start the car, it would not start, because the Russians had just gone over from the key ignition to the push button ignition.

Napolitano:
Right.

Doctorow:
And they never quite made it. So the only good thing about the car is it didn’t have an American or Western feature of the engine cutting out when you were at a light. Otherwise, this poor fellow in his taxi wouldn’t just have been stuck at the curb as he was with me, but he would have been stuck in the middle of traffic.

7:20
But my point is that in many consumer goods, Russians never were in the forefront. Their capable engineers in consumer goods went to California, and they started Google and things like that. That does not mean the Russians don’t have capable engineers. They have loads of them, but they tend to be patriotic, and they’re working for the government to make missiles to shoot at us.

Napolitano: 7:52
Okay. How do you think the Kremlin in general, President Putin in particular, regards the continued US, UK, and Ukraine attacks on Russian land using ATACMSs, American, and Storm Shadow, British? He reacted with the Oreshnik after the first attack. And then there was another one, as if the West is taunting him.

Doctorow: 8:29
It’s a very pertinent question. And I’ll bring you up to date with the latest news on Russian state television, which I take as significant for understanding President Putin’s state of mind. The people whom I listen to, well, they reason like you and me and other others on your show. They are sentient beings. They understand reality and they’re not caught in ideologies. And when I listened to to Vyacheslav Nikonov last night, the presenter of “The Great Game”, it was the first time that I’ve seen him ashen-faced. He has in recent weeks been confident, not smug, but confident that the Russians were well on their way to achieving the goals that Putin set out in February 2022.

9:29
Last night he was ashen-faced. And why? He said, “I have to tell you that the Ministry of Defense has just announced that there were in the past several days two strikes of ATACMSs within Kursk region.” And in both cases, there were multiple missiles fired at the Russian targets, of which most were shot down, I think five out of six, something like this. But in each case, at least one, either wholly or in part after being intercepted, did reach target and cause some damage, unquantified, to the equipment, which was a radar installation, I believe.

10:18
In any case, it was technical equipment that was manned, and caused injuries to several Russian soldiers who were manning this equipment. “And that our ministry is preparing a formidable retaliation.” I put that together with the remark by one of the panelists, expert panelists on the show, who said that “When we were in military training, and we were using” I don’t know what, whether it was automatic weapons or some kind of weapon, “we were told this is what you do: you prepare yourself to fire, and then you do this and that. And then if there is no response from those whom you are threatening, you fire over their heads. And if there’s no response to that, you fire at their heads.”

11:16
“And that’s where we are today. Our firing of the
Oreshnik into Dnipropetrovsk and destroying that military complex was shooting over your heads. Our next firing will not be over your heads.” So this is why he was ashen-faced.

Napolitano: 11:36
Will that firing be at the suppliers of these weapons? Stated differently, will they attack the brand-new American air base in Poland? Will they attack British troops or British technicians amassing in Poland in preparation for their execution of the Storm Shadow? Or are they going to continue to attack Ukraine military targets?

Doctorow: 12:04
It’s anyone’s guess. That it will be a severe attack is perfectly clear. That it will be much more damaging and costly in lives, most likely, than what happened a week ago is almost certain. But I would say that we ought to look at a hierarchy of targets from the, in terms of desirability, if the Russians had a wish list. I think the first point in a wish list would be to strike the United Kingdom.

12:35
The Brits have battened down various airfields they have in anticipation that there could be a strike within Britain. However, Britain falls from the top place, because the Brits have nuclear-armed missiles on their submarines, and Mr. Starmer is sufficiently irrational to possibly use them against Russia at this early stage. So the Russians are unlikely to do that. The second, as you say, is Poland, precisely because of the recently opened base for this dual-purpose, supposedly dual-purpose, but actually single-purpose, attack on Russia for a decapitating strike.

13:22
These are two bases that took about seven years to install. This is the Aegis onshore in Poland, another one in Romania. So that is a second choice. Poland cannot respond but of course it would invoke Article 5 and so it’s a bit risky, unpredictable how rational the Americans will be. I say the third down the list is to strike Moldova, which is not a NATO, which is a major point of marshalling and onward delivery as a logistic center for American military deliveries to Ukraine.

14:03
It’s not in NATO, and so it’s fair game. And the fourth would be another strike in Ukraine, and I would name Kiev itself with something like Oreshnik, because Kiev is a holy city to Russians. It’s the mother of all cities. They have been reluctant to strike Kiev for that reason. But with the Oreshnik, there is almost no damage, no collateral damage to a specific bunker or hardened site that protects American generals who are running the war in Ukraine or protects Mr. Zelensky.

Napolitano: 14:46
Our friend and colleague Larry Johnson reports this morning that the Russians have showered portions of Kiev with warnings in writing for the civilians to depart. Subterfuge or a legitimate warning of an area to be attacked?

Doctorow;
I think he’s right. I think it is not a subterfuge. The Russians at this point are not playing games. And that’s, I think, the major message they want to get through to Washington, London and Berlin, that game playing is ended. They’re playing for keeps and Kiev would be a very good target. But as I said, if they use the Oreshnik, there will be very little damage to the city at large.

Napolitano: 15:42
What do you think, with your finger on the pulse of Kremlin thinking, President Putin thinks President Biden is up to. His administration was just roundly overwhelmingly repudiated by the electorate. His successor is very much the opposite from him in many respects, though we’re seeing Neocon people appointed by, or indicated he will appoint, by Donald Trump. He has two months left in office and he’s accelerating a war that his proxy is losing. So scratching my head, how does Putin analyze that?

Doctorow: 16:30
They’re watching the same things that you and I are watching. They were watching Admiral Bauer and they were in shock over what he said. They’re also watching what Donald Trump does not say, and they’re in shock over his silence. So their emotions, I’d say, are not far removed from those irrational people in the United States. And you draw the conclusions from that. If you are alarmed, then, and you have reason to be, I think Putin is alarmed.

Napolitano: 17:04
There are rumors that Joe Biden is going to supply nuclear warheads for use on American missiles in Ukraine. Is this taken seriously by Russia?

Doctorow:
No, because they understand that they would then be obliged to destroy the United States. That is beyond the pale of discussion.

Napolitano: 17:33
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s senior foreign policy advisors– actually designated right now, I don’t know if this is going to change, nobody’s actually been nominated and as you know can be nominated until Trump is sworn in– to be number two on the National Security Council is Sebastian Gorka. You may be familiar with Dr. Gorka. I want to show you a particularly antagonistic and bellicose comment he made just the other day, and I’m going to ask you what your reaction is and what you think President Putin’s reaction would be if he saw this and gave any credibility to it. Chris, cut number 10.

Gorka:
I’ll give one tip away that the president has mentioned. He will say to that murderous former KGB colonel, that thug who runs the Russian Federation, you will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts. That’s how he will force those gentlemen to come to an arrangement that stops the bloodshed.

Napolitano:
Who in their right mind would think that that’s a way to negotiate with Vladimir Putin?

Doctorow: 18:50
Well, this comes back to the fundamental question. Will Mr. Putin show forbearance as he did in 2016 after Trump won then and the administration outgoing did what it could to spoil the relations with Russia? And Russia showed forbearance, which I think it later regretted. They will not do that now. Their operating assumption is that whoever is in charge in the United States is actually a front man for the deep state and is not in control of foreign policy or military policy.

Napolitano:
Even if that human being is someone as self-confident and headstrong as Donald Trump.

Doctorow: 19:40
Well, they have seen him for four years, and they were not pleased with what they saw. because relations between the two countries tumbled steadily downward during that whole period. Therefore, they do not give this new Trump the benefit of doubt. And his absolute silence to present on this whole question of the ATACMSs’ use, or as you said, the handover of nuclear weapons to Ukraine. His silence on these issues does not give them confidence that he is worth waiting for.

Napolitano: 20:20
Does the Kremlin think that Joe Biden and his friends who are elites in Western Europe either want to start World War III or want to extend substantially the Ukrainian conflict so that a catastrophe is dropped into the lap of Donald Trump? Does the Kremlin believe that?

Doctorow:
I think they do. And they have good reason to believe it. Just even yesterday’s reporting by the Brussels Bureau Chief of Russian state television news, Anastasia Popova. She was outside the European institutions where there was a discussion, or rather outside of NATO buildings, where there is discussion of what comes next, the meeting of the senior diplomats from the NATO countries on what to do next over Ukraine.

And all of the– there were no direct briefings to the press, but there were whispers coming out, and none of it was encouraging to the Russians. So the Europeans, with the exception of Slovakia and Hungary, are remaining steadfast with the absurd policies that they held to before Trump’s victory.

Napolitano: 21:54
Do the Russians, does the Kremlin analyze the thinking of Donald Trump’s likely national security team? And if they do, do they see them as just a Republican version of neocons?

Doctorow:
They don’t speak of it in those terms. What they speak about it is the question of realism versus ideology-driven. Of course, the ideology in question is neocon, but what bothers them most is the absence of realism or a an ability to absorb what the real world is doing around them. That is what alarms the Russian elites who are part of the entourage of Putin.

Napolitano: 22:46
Here’s President Putin himself shortly before the Oreshnik, no, no, after the Oreshnik was fired, arguing that “we are entitled to strike back anybody that strikes at us or finances it”. Cut number two.

Putin: (voice over)
We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities. I recommend that the ruling elites of those countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously think about this.

Napolitano: 23:23
Does the West take him seriously? I mean surely they should, Professor.

Doctorow:
I don’t think they do. There’s still this under- appreciation of Russian might. There is still this residual thinking about Russia as it was on its knees or on its back during the 1990s. They cannot fathom that the country could have reconstituted itself. They cannot begin to imagine that this “thug” could have saved his country and is really a national hero. It’s beyond their comprehension, which is terribly sad. But the Russians take that all in.

Napolitano: 24:05
Does the Russian– forgive me if this is naive– does the Russian government have a deep state? Does it have a part of the government that has unseen powers, is not accountable, doesn’t change, gets its way, or does Vladimir Putin control everything?

Doctorow:
Well, he doesn’t control everything. And there was a misunderstanding. He’s spoken of as a dictator, which is utter nonsense, not because they have elections. Yes, they have elections, but because there are other forces in, as there should be and would be in a country of 145 million with many competing, conflicting economic and political interests. Of course he is a politician. He has to juggle competing claims on resources and on direction of the country.

25:01
So this man is a remarkable juggler of competing interests. He never wiped out the liberals from the people whom he inherited when he took over from Boris Yeltsin. They are finally establishing a new vision of what the state’s purpose is. That is a kind of a market economy that is driven by certain social requirements. It is a dirigism in the directed economy in the French style. This creation of the national sense, the national purpose has taken 30 years to achieve. The war has hastened it.

Napolitano: 25:52
Professor Doctorow, thank you very much, my dear friend. I know you’re in Europe, but happy Thanksgiving from one American to another, from my family to yours. Thank you very much for accommodating our time schedule in this shortened week. And thank you for the privilege of allowing me to pick your brain as you do every week. I hope you’ll join us again next week as well.

Doctorow: 26:16
Well thanks, and happy Thanksgiving to you and to the viewers of this program.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Thank you, Professor Doctorow. We do have a busy day coming up for you. At 11 o’clock this morning, Max Blumenthal; at two this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer; at three this afternoon, Phil Giraldi; at four this afternoon, just back from eight days in Palestine, Matt Ho.

26:42
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

‘Judging Freedom’ Ausgabe vom 27. November 2024: Russlands tödliche neue Rakete

Unser Gespräch mit Judge Andrew Napolitano begann mit einem Blick auf die technischen Errungenschaften, die die kürzlich eingesetzte ballistische Mittelstrecken-Hyperschallrakete Oreschnik darstellt, und der Frage, was der Grund ist, warum der US-Geheimdienst deren Existenz übersehen hat. Anschließend sprachen wir darüber, wie der Kreml die scheinbare Missachtung der Vereinigten Staaten gegenüber dieser neuen Realität überlegener russischer Waffen wahrnimmt, wie sie durch die weiteren ATACMS-Angriffe in der Region Kursk am vergangenen Sonntag und Montag belegt wird. Dies führte uns zu der Frage, ob die Russen bei solchen Provokationen Zurückhaltung üben werden, während sie auf die Amtseinführung von Donald Trump am 20. Januar warten, oder ob sie, wie viele befürchten, jetzt einen sehr harten Gegenschlag ausführen werden. Wir haben auch die verschiedenen möglichen Ziele für den russischen Vergeltungsschlag, ob im Vereinigten Königreich, in Polen, Moldawien oder Kiew, diskutiert.

Transkript von ‘Judging Freedom’ Ausgabe vom 27. November 2024

Transkript eines Lesers

Napolitano: 0:32
Hallo zusammen. Hier ist Judge Andrew Napolitano mit „Judging Freedom“. Heute ist Mittwoch, der 27. November 2024, Thanksgiving-Woche hier in den Vereinigten Staaten. Professor Gilbert Doctorow ist jetzt bei uns. Professor Doctorow, es ist mir ein Vergnügen, mein lieber Freund. Danke, dass Sie bei uns sind. Wir haben in dieser Sendung fast ununterbrochen mit Ihren Kollegen über die militärische und geopolitische Bedeutung der russischen Oreschnik-Rakete gesprochen, und ich weiß, dass Ihr Fachgebiet die Geopolitik und nicht das Militär ist. Wie groß ist diese Sache?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:11
Es ist eine große Sache an sich und auch für das, was sie uns über uns selbst verrät. Die wichtigsten Merkmale der Oreschnik waren bereits 2018 in der Interkontinentalrakete Sarmat zu sehen, die in ihrer Spitze 12 Avangard-Hyperschallraketen trägt.

Das gleiche Prinzip wie bei Oreschnik. Oreschnik hat sechs Hyperschall-Blöcke, wie sie genannt werden, die einzeln ihr Ziel anvisieren und mit Mach10, der zehnfachen Schallgeschwindigkeit, auf ihr Ziel zufliegen. Die Interkontinentalrakete von 2018 hatte 20 Avangard-Raketen mit Mach 20 an Bord. Soweit ich weiß, bestand die eigentliche technische Herausforderung darin, diese Hyperschall-Blöcke oder MIRV-Raketen, die Teil des Lieferpakets sind, mit diesen enormen Geschwindigkeiten zu fliegen und sie für eine präzise Zielerfassung zu steuern. Dies war die enorme Leistung der russischen Physiker und Ingenieure im Jahr 2018. Sie wurde von uns im Westen völlig übersehen.

2:40
Es wurde der Öffentlichkeit am 1. März 2018 in der Rede an die Nation, der Rede zur Lage der Nation, wie wir sie gerne nennen, erklärt, die Putin damals hielt, etwa einen Monat vor den Präsidentschaftswahlen. Und es wurde von unserer Presse und von unseren Experten heruntergespielt, die darüber als Bluff sprachen, als eine leere Wahlkampfrede eines Mannes, der sehr darauf aus war, wiedergewählt zu werden, Wladimir Putin. Aber Tatsache ist, dass die Russen, wie Putin später erklärte, etwas getan haben, was sie in 70 Jahren Sowjetunion nicht erreicht hatten, nämlich die USA technologisch im Rüstungsbereich zu überholen. Wir wissen, dass sie die USA beim Start von Sputnik überholt haben, aber nicht beim Wettrüsten selbst.

3:35
Dort waren die Vereinigten Staaten immer um Jahre voraus, was auf die Tatsache zurückzuführen ist, dass sie die ersten Atomwaffen hatten. In diesem Fall hat Russland die USA um eine ganze Generation, vielleicht sogar um zehn Jahre, überholt. Zehn Jahre sind in der Politik eine Ewigkeit. Was an der Oreschnik wichtig ist und nur sehr wenige meiner Kollegen angesprochen haben, ist die Frage des Timings. Die Oreschnik wurde der Welt als Mittelstreckenrakete vorgestellt, aber sie ist die Spitze der Mittelstreckenraketen.

5.000 Kilometer ist die Obergrenze, und dabei bleibt es. Sie wurde zwei Jahre vor den amerikanischen Tomahawks eingeführt, von denen Herrn Scholz versprochen oder angedroht wurde, dass sie in Deutschland stationiert werden, um für einen möglichen Präventivschlag gegen Russland bereit zu sein. Zwei Jahre im Voraus. Es ist also eine erstaunliche Leistung, dass diese Waffe heraus gebracht wurde.

Napolitano: 4:38
Wurden die westlichen Geheimdienste, insbesondere die CIA und der MI6, davon überrascht? Oder anders ausgedrückt: Hatten das Pentagon, Whitehall, 10 Downing Street und das Weiße Haus auch nur den leisesten Hinweis darauf, dass dies kommen würde?

Doctorow:
Nun, sie hatten mehr als nur einen Hinweis. Wie gesagt, es wurde bereits gezeigt, dass die Basistechnologie entwickelt wurde und 2018 in die Serienproduktion eingeführt werden sollte. Es gibt also keine Entschuldigung dafür. Aber ich denke, dass sie, wie die breite Öffentlichkeit und sogar, oder insbesondere, wie Russen, die die Sowjetunion verlassen haben und dachten, sie würden Russland kennen, über die Ankündigung von Herrn Putin im Jahr 2018 sagten, dass es sich um einen absoluten Bluff handelte und dass die Russen mit einem Budget für militärische Zwecke, das zehnmal kleiner ist als das der Vereinigten Staaten, auf keinen Fall einen technologischen Vorteil erzielen könnten. Und es gibt Gründe, warum – ich möchte nicht zu unfreundlich zu denen sein, die die technischen Fähigkeiten Russlands haben, das zu erreichen, was sie erreicht haben – dies bezweifelt wurde.

5:54
Daran wurde ich erinnert, als ich vor zwei Wochen bei meinem letzten Besuch in Petersburg in ein Taxi stieg. Die meisten Taxis, in die ich stieg, waren aus China, und es war wunderbar, darin zu fahren. Aber dieses Mal war es ein Lada, ein neuer Lada. Und der Taxifahrer –

Napolitano:
Was ist ein Lada? Ein russischer –

Doctorow:
Es ist ein russisches Auto. Es ist das Auto, das in Toljatti im Rahmen des ursprünglichen Fiat-Joint-Ventures mit der russischen Automobilindustrie gebaut wurde. Es ist ein modern aussehendes Auto, bescheiden, aber modern. Es ist kein altmodisches Auto, es sieht modern aus. Aber die technischen Errungenschaften der Automobilingenieure sind nicht gerade überzeugend, dass die Russen zu Ingenieursleistungen fähig sind. Der Fahrer beschwerte sich, und er beschwerte sich nicht nur, er demonstrierte es. Als er versuchte, das Auto zu starten, sprang es nicht an, weil die Russen gerade von der Schlüsselzündung auf die Druckknopfzündung umgestellt hatten.

Napolitano:
Richtig.

Doctorow:
Und sie haben es nie ganz geschafft. Das einzig Gute an dem Auto ist, dass es nicht die amerikanische oder westliche Eigenschaft hatte, dass der Motor ausgeht, wenn man an einer Ampel steht. Sonst wäre der arme Kerl in seinem Taxi nicht nur wie bei mir am Straßenrand steckengeblieben, sondern mitten im Verkehr.

7:20
Aber mein Punkt ist, dass bei vielen Konsumgütern die Russen nie an vorderster Front standen. Ihre fähigen Ingenieure im Bereich Konsumgüter gingen nach Kalifornien und gründeten Google und solche Dinge. Das bedeutet nicht, dass die Russen keine fähigen Ingenieure haben. Sie haben jede Menge davon, aber sie neigen dazu, patriotisch zu sein, und sie arbeiten für die Regierung, um Raketen herzustellen, mit denen sie auf uns schießen können.

Napolitano: 7:52
Okay. Was glauben Sie, wie der Kreml im Allgemeinen und Präsident Putin im Besonderen die anhaltenden Angriffe der USA, Großbritanniens und der Ukraine auf russisches Gebiet mit ATACMS, amerikanischen und britischen Storm Shadow-Raketen einschätzen? Er hat nach dem ersten Angriff mit der Oreschnik reagiert. Und dann gab es einen weiteren, als ob der Westen ihn verhöhnen wollte.

Doctorow: 8:29
Das ist eine sehr berechtigte Frage. Und ich werde Sie über die neuesten Nachrichten im russischen Staatsfernsehen auf dem Laufenden halten, die ich für das Verständnis der Gemütslage von Präsident Putin für wichtig halte. Die Menschen, denen ich zuhöre, nun ja, sie argumentieren wie Sie und ich und andere in Ihrer Show. Sie sind fühlende Wesen. Sie verstehen die Realität und sind nicht in Ideologien gefangen. Und als ich gestern Abend Wjatscheslaw Nikonow, dem Moderator von „Das grosse Spiel“, zugehört habe, war es das erste Mal, dass ich ihn mit aschfahlem Gesicht sah. In den letzten Wochen war er zuversichtlich, nicht selbstgefällig, aber zuversichtlich, dass die Russen auf dem besten Weg waren, die Ziele zu erreichen, die Putin im Februar 2022 festgelegt hatte.

9:29
Gestern Abend war er aschfahl. Und warum? Er sagte: „Ich muss Ihnen mitteilen, dass das Verteidigungsministerium gerade bekannt gegeben hat, dass es in den letzten Tagen zwei Angriffe mit ATACMS-Raketen in der Region Kursk gegeben hat.“ Und in beiden Fällen wurden mehrere Raketen auf die russischen Ziele abgefeuert, von denen die meisten abgeschossen wurden, ich glaube fünf von sechs, so in etwa. Aber in jedem Fall erreichte mindestens eine, entweder vollständig oder teilweise nach dem Abfangen, ihr Ziel und verursachte einen nicht näher bezifferten Schaden an der Ausrüstung, bei der es sich, glaube ich, um eine Radaranlage handelte.

10:18
In jedem Fall war es eine technische Ausrüstung, die bemannt war und mehrere russische Soldaten, die diese Ausrüstung bedienten, verletzt hat. „Und dass unser Ministerium eine gewaltige Vergeltung vorbereitet.“ Ich habe das mit der Bemerkung eines der Diskussionsteilnehmer, Experten in der Sendung, in Verbindung gebracht, der sagte: „Als wir in der militärischen Ausbildung waren und wir … ich weiß nicht was benutzt haben, ob es automatische Waffen oder irgendeine Art von Waffe war, wurde uns gesagt, dass man sich wie folgt verhält: Man bereitet sich auf das Schießen vor und macht dann dies und das. Und wenn es keine Reaktion von denen gibt, die man bedroht, schießt man über ihre Köpfe hinweg. Und wenn es darauf keine Reaktion gibt, schießt man auf ihre Köpfe.“

11:16
Und genau da stehen wir heute. Als wir die Oreschnik auf Dnipropetrowsk abgefeuert und diesen Militärkomplex zerstört haben, haben schossen wir über ihre Köpfe hinweggeschossen. Unser nächster Schuss wird nicht über ihre Köpfe hinweg gehen.“ Deshalb war er so aschfahl.

Napolitano: 11:36
Werden diese Angriffe auf die Lieferanten dieser Waffen gerichtet sein? Anders ausgedrückt: Werden sie den brandneuen amerikanischen Luftwaffenstützpunkt in Polen angreifen? Werden sie britische Truppen oder britische Techniker angreifen, die sich in Polen versammeln, um die Ausführung des Storm Shadow vorzubereiten? Oder werden sie weiterhin militärische Ziele in der Ukraine angreifen?

Doctorow: 12:04
Das kann man nur vermuten. Dass es sich um einen schweren Angriff handeln wird, ist vollkommen klar. Dass er wahrscheinlich viel mehr Schaden anrichten und mehr Menschenleben kosten wird als das, was vor einer Woche passiert ist, ist fast sicher. Aber ich würde sagen, dass wir uns eine Hierarchie von Zielen ansehen sollten, die, was die Erwünschtheit angeht, wenn die Russen eine Wunschliste hätten. Ich denke, der erste Punkt auf einer Wunschliste wäre, das Vereinigte Königreich anzugreifen.

12:35
Die Briten haben verschiedene Flugplätze geschlossen, da sie mit einem Angriff auf Großbritannien rechnen. Großbritannien fällt jedoch aus der Spitzenposition, da die Briten über atomar bewaffnete Raketen auf ihren U-Booten verfügen und Herr Starmer irrational genug ist, sie möglicherweise in diesem frühen Stadium gegen Russland einzusetzen. Daher ist es unwahrscheinlich, dass die Russen dies tun werden. Das zweite wäre, wie Sie sagen, Polen, und zwar wegen der kürzlich eröffneten Basis für diesen Angriff mit doppeltem Verwendungszweck, angeblich doppeltem Verwendungszweck, aber tatsächlich mit einem einzigen Zweck, nämlich einen Enthauptungsschlag gegen Russland.

13:22
Die Einrichtung dieser beiden Stützpunkte hat etwa sieben Jahre gedauert. Dies ist die Aegis-Landstation in Polen, eine weitere in Rumänien. Das ist also die zweite Wahl. Polen kann nicht reagieren, aber natürlich würde es Artikel 5 geltend machen, und so ist es ein bisschen riskant, unvorhersehbar, wie rational die Amerikaner sein werden. Ich sage, der dritte Punkt auf der Liste ist ein Angriff auf Moldawien, das kein NATO-Mitglied ist, das aber ein wichtiger Punkt für die Aufstellung und Weiterleitung als logistisches Zentrum für amerikanische Militärlieferungen in die Ukraine ist.

14:03
Es ist nicht in der NATO, und daher ist es ein mögliches Ziel. Und das vierte wäre ein weiterer Schlag in der Ukraine, und ich würde Kiew selbst mit so etwas wie Oreschnik benennen, weil Kiew für die Russen eine heilige Stadt ist. Es ist die Mutter aller Städte. Aus diesem Grund zögern sie, Kiew anzugreifen. Aber mit Oreschnik gibt es fast keinen Schaden, keinen Kollateralschaden neben einem bestimmten Bunker oder einer befestigten Anlage, die amerikanische Generäle schützt, die den Krieg in der Ukraine führen, oder Herrn Selenskyj schützt.

Napolitano: 14:46
Unser Freund und Kollege Larry Johnson berichtet heute Morgen, dass die Russen Teile von Kiew mit schriftlichen Warnungen überschüttet haben, in denen die Zivilbevölkerung aufgefordert wird, die Stadt zu verlassen. Täuschung oder eine legitime Warnung vor einem anzugreifenden Gebiet?

Doctorow;
Ich denke, er hat Recht. Ich denke, es ist keine Ablenkung. Die Russen spielen derzeit keine Spielchen. Und das ist, glaube ich, die wichtigste Botschaft, die sie nach Washington, London und Berlin bringen wollen, dass das Spiel vorbei ist. Sie meinen es ernst und Kiew wäre ein sehr gutes Ziel. Aber wie gesagt, wenn sie Oreschnik einsetzen, wird die Stadt selbst nur sehr wenig Schaden nehmen.

Napolitano: 15:42
Was glauben Sie, da Sie ja sozusagen am Puls des Kreml-Denkens sind, was Präsident Putin von Präsident Biden hält? Seine Regierung wurde gerade von den Wählern mit überwältigender Mehrheit abgelehnt. Sein Nachfolger ist in vielerlei Hinsicht das genaue Gegenteil von ihm, obwohl wir sehen, dass Donald Trump Neokonservative ernannt hat oder angedeutet hat, dass er sie ernennen wird. Biden ist noch zwei Monate im Amt und beschleunigt einen Krieg, den sein Stellvertreter verliert. Ich frage mich also, wie Putin das analysiert.

Doctorow: 16:30
Sie sehen sich dieselben Dinge an, die Sie und ich uns ansehen. Sie haben sich Admiral Bauer angesehen und waren schockiert über das, was er gesagt hat. Sie sehen sich auch an, was Donald Trump nicht sagt, und sie sind schockiert über sein Schweigen dazu. Ich würde sagen, dass ihre Emotionen nicht weit von denen der irrationalen Menschen in den Vereinigten Staaten entfernt sind. Und daraus ziehen Sie die Schlussfolgerungen. Wenn Sie beunruhigt sind, und das sind Sie zu Recht, dann ist Putin meiner Meinung nach auch beunruhigt.

Napolitano: 17:04
Es gibt Gerüchte, dass Joe Biden nukleare Sprengköpfe für den Einsatz auf amerikanischen Raketen in der Ukraine liefern wird. Wird dies von Russland ernst genommen?

Doctorow:
Nein, denn sie wissen, dass sie dann gezwungen wären, die Vereinigten Staaten zu zerstören. Das steht außerhalb jeder Diskussion.

Napolitano: 17:33
Einer der leitenden außenpolitischen Berater des designierten Präsidenten Donald Trump – er ist tatsächlich ernannt, ich weiß nicht, ob sich das noch ändern wird, bisher wurde noch niemand nominiert und wie Sie wissen, kann man nominiert werden, bis Trump vereidigt wird – und die Nummer zwei im Nationalen Sicherheitsrat ist Sebastian Gorka. Sie kennen Dr. Gorka vielleicht. Ich möchte Ihnen einen besonders feindseligen und kriegerischen Kommentar zeigen, den er erst neulich abgegeben hat, und ich möchte Sie fragen, wie Sie darauf reagieren würden und wie Präsident Putin Ihrer Meinung nach reagieren würde, wenn er das sehen und ihm Glauben schenken würde. Chris, Schnitt Nummer 10.

Gorka:
Ich verrate einen Tipp, den der Präsident erwähnt hat. Er wird zu diesem mörderischen ehemaligen KGB-Oberst, diesem Verbrecher, der die Russische Föderation regiert, sagen: „Sie werden jetzt verhandeln, oder die Hilfe, die wir der Ukraine bisher gewährt haben, wird wie ein Trinkgeld aussehen.“ So wird er diese Herren dazu zwingen, eine Vereinbarung zu treffen, die das Blutvergießen beendet.

Napolitano:
Wer bei klarem Verstand würde denken, dass dies eine Möglichkeit ist, mit Wladimir Putin zu verhandeln?

Doctorow: 18:50
Nun, das führt uns zurück zur grundlegenden Frage. Wird Herr Putin Nachsicht zeigen, wie er es 2016 getan hat, nachdem Trump die Wahl gewonnen hatte und die scheidende Regierung alles in ihrer Macht Stehende geta hat, die Beziehungen zu Russland zu zerstören? Und Russland zeigte Nachsicht, was es meiner Meinung nach später bereut hat. Das werden sie jetzt nicht tun. Ihre Grundannahme ist, dass wer auch immer in den Vereinigten Staaten an der Macht ist, eigentlich ein Strohmann für den tiefen Staat ist und nicht die Kontrolle über die Außen- oder Militärpolitik hat.

Napolitano:
Selbst wenn dieser Mensch jemand ist, der so selbstbewusst und eigensinnig ist wie Donald Trump.

Doctorow: 19:40
Nun, sie haben ihn vier Jahre lang erlebt und waren nicht zufrieden mit dem, was sie gesehen haben. Denn die Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Ländern verschlechterten sich während dieser ganzen Zeit stetig. Deshalb geben sie diesem neuen Trump keinen Vertrauensvorschuss. Und sein absolutes Schweigen zu dieser ganzen Frage des Einsatzes der ATACMS oder, wie Sie sagten, der Übergabe von Atomwaffen an die Ukraine, sein Schweigen zu diesen Themen gibt ihnen nicht das Vertrauen, dass es sich lohnt, auf ihn zu warten.

Napolitano: 20:20
Glaubt der Kreml, dass Joe Biden und seine Freunde, die zur Elite in Westeuropa gehören, entweder den Dritten Weltkrieg vom Zaun brechen oder den Ukraine-Konflikt erheblich ausweiten wollen, damit Donald Trump eine Katastrophe ins Haus steht? Glaubt der Kreml das?

Doctorow:
Ich denke, das tun sie. Und sie haben gute Gründe, das zu glauben. Nehmen wir nur die gestrige Berichterstattung der Brüsseler Büroleiterin der russischen staatlichen Fernsehnachrichten, Anastasia Popova. Sie befand sich vor den europäischen Institutionen, wo eine Diskussion stattfand, oder besser gesagt vor den NATO-Gebäuden, wo darüber diskutiert wurde, was als nächstes kommt, das Treffen der hochrangigen Diplomaten aus den NATO-Ländern über das weitere Vorgehen in der Ukraine.

Und alle – es gab keine direkten Briefings für die Presse, aber es gab Gerüchte, und nichts davon war für die Russen ermutigend. Daher halten die Europäer, mit Ausnahme der Slowakei und Ungarns, an der absurden Politik fest, an der sie vor Trumps Sieg festgehalten haben.

Napolitano: 21:54
Analysieren die Russen, analysiert der Kreml die Denkweise des wahrscheinlichen nationalen Sicherheitsteams von Donald Trump? Und wenn ja, betrachten sie sie als eine republikanische Version der Neokonservativen?

Doctorow:
Sie sprechen nicht in diesen Begriffen darüber. Sie sprechen über die Frage von Realismus versus Ideologie. Natürlich ist die derzeitige Ideologie eine neokonservative, aber was sie am meisten stört, ist der fehlende Realismus oder die Fähigkeit, zu absorbieren, was die reale Welt um sie herum tut. Das ist es, was die russischen Eliten, die zum Gefolge Putins gehören, beunruhigt.

Napolitano: 22:46
Hier ist Präsident Putin selbst kurz vor dem Oreschnik, nein, nein, nachdem der Oreschnik abgefeuert wurde, und er argumentiert, dass „wir das Recht haben, jeden zurückzuschlagen, der uns angreift oder dies finanziert“. Schnitt Nummer zwei.

Putin: (Synchronübersetzung)
Wir betrachten es als unser Recht, unsere Waffen gegen militärische Einrichtungen jener Länder einzusetzen, die es zulassen, dass ihre Waffen gegen unsere Einrichtungen eingesetzt werden. Ich empfehle den herrschenden Eliten jener Länder, die Pläne aushecken mit denen sie ihre Militärkontingente gegen Russland einsetzen wollen, ernsthaft darüber nachzudenken.

Napolitano: 23:23
Nimmt der Westen ihn ernst? Ich meine, das sollten sie doch, Professor.

Doctorow:
Ich glaube nicht, dass sie das tun. Die russische Macht wird immer noch unterschätzt. Es gibt immer noch dieses Restdenken, dass Russland in den 1990er Jahren auf den Knien oder auf dem Rücken lag. Sie können sich nicht vorstellen, dass sich das Land wieder aufgerichtet haben könnte. Sie können sich nicht vorstellen, dass dieser „Verbrecher“ sein Land gerettet haben könnte und eigentlich ein Nationalheld ist. Es ist für sie unbegreiflich, was furchtbar traurig ist. Aber die Russen stellen das alles fest.

Napolitano: 24:05
Hat die russische Regierung – verzeihen Sie mir, wenn das naiv ist – einen Schattenstaat? Gibt es einen Teil der Regierung, der unsichtbare Mächte hat, der nicht rechenschaftspflichtig ist, der sich nicht ändert, der seinen Willen durchsetzt, oder kontrolliert Wladimir Putin alles?

Doctorow:
Nun, er kontrolliert nicht alles. Und es gibt da ein Missverständnis. Er wird als Diktator bezeichnet, was völliger Unsinn ist, nicht weil es Wahlen gibt. Ja, es gibt Wahlen, aber weil es andere Kräfte gibt, wie es in einem Land mit 145 Millionen Einwohnern und vielen konkurrierenden, widersprüchlichen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Interessen der Fall ist. Natürlich ist er ein Politiker. Er muss konkurrierende Ansprüche auf Ressourcen und die Führung des Landes unter einen Hut bringen.

25:01
Dieser Mann ist also ein bemerkenswerter Jongleur konkurrierender Interessen. Er hat die Liberalen unter den Menschen, die er von Boris Jelzin geerbt hat, nie ausgelöscht. Sie etablieren endlich eine neue Vision davon, was der Zweck des Staates ist. Das ist eine Art Marktwirtschaft, die von bestimmten sozialen Anforderungen angetrieben wird. Es ist ein Dirigismus in der gelenkten Wirtschaft nach französischer Art. Es hat 30 Jahre gedauert, bis dieser nationale Sinn, dieser nationale Zweck geschaffen wurde. Der Krieg hat dies beschleunigt.

Napolitano: 25:52
Professor Doctorow, vielen Dank, mein lieber Freund. Ich weiß, dass Sie in Europa sind, aber ein frohes Thanksgiving von einem Amerikaner zum anderen, von meiner Familie zu Ihrer. Vielen Dank, dass Sie sich in dieser verkürzten Woche unserem Zeitplan angepasst haben. Und vielen Dank, dass ich Sie jede Woche wie einen guten Freund ausfragen darf. Ich hoffe, Sie sind auch nächste Woche wieder dabei.

Doctorow: 26:16
Nun, vielen Dank und ein frohes Thanksgiving für Sie und die Zuschauer dieser Sendung.

Napolitano:
Vielen Dank. Vielen Dank, Professor Doctorow. Wir haben heute einen anstrengenden Tag vor uns. Um 11 Uhr heute Morgen Max Blumenthal, um 14 Uhr heute Nachmittag Professor John Mearsheimer, um 15 Uhr Phil Giraldi, um 16 Uhr Matt Hoh, der gerade von einem achttägigen Aufenthalt in Palästina zurückgekehrt ist.

26:42
Judge Napolitano für „Judging Freedom“.