That Judge Andrew Napolitano’s youtube channel has a large audience is clear from his subscription numbers. The tags from those leaving comments show that this audience comes from across the world, though the U.S. is of course the largest component. It is also clear that the Russians find his program to be a valuable source of information about Washington politics. As part of the ‘press pool’ of Judging Freedom, my weekly show time is now regularly being reposted on the so-called ‘rutube’ in Russian voice over. Till now these were clearly machine translations. Today’s is just as clearly a superior human translation: https://rutube.ru/video/7892c9aa27d43993b5852b16c57ce264/?ysclid=m6k8bl90ft589524895
Transcript submitted by a reader
Judge Andrew Napolitano: 0:33
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, January 30th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. My dear friend, always a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for letting me pick your brain every week. Professor Doctorow, from the perspective of the Kremlin, is the war in Ukraine effectively over?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Practically speaking, yes. And I’d say that even reading the mainstream newspapers like the “Financial Times” and the “New York Times”, you can come to the similar conclusion, Which amazes me that Mr. Trump is said to be influenced in his rather ignorant and offensive remarks regarding Russia by disinformation coming from the CIA. I wonder why he doesn’t just pick up a newspaper from time to time. I understand that the “Financial Times” may not be in his class, but surely the “New York Times” is. And after all, they have stooped to giving most of their readers gourmet news and restaurant reviews. So why isn’t Trump picking them up?
Napolitano: 1:53
Well, what was the Kremlin’s reaction to some of the absurd statements that he made? And we don’t know if he made these shooting from the hip, he has a reputation for that, or if he was given intentionally false information. For example, when he said the Russians have lost a million troops, Putin is destroying Russia. What is the Kremlin reaction to statements as absurd and irrational as those?
Doctorow:
Well, they don’t take it personally.
Napolitano:
Thank God.
Doctorow:
That’s the one hand. The other point is, well, there are two other points. One is that they think this could be part of his normal approach to negotiations, to deal making, to put out a lot of bluster and to say things that are outrageous and to put his talking partners off balance. They may consider this to be just a game that he’s playing.
But I think the more serious interpretation within the Kremlin circles is that it really doesn’t make much difference who is the president. That the basic American foreign policy course is set by the deep state. And the occupant of the Oval Office can only do little bits here and there, but not really change the course of history, which is being determined by the deep state.
Napolitano: 3:26
Do we know if the Joe Biden pipeline to Kiev through its various permutations, through Poland, through Romania, through Great Britain, et cetera, is still flowing?
Doctorow:
Well, even last night or this morning, the Russian experts were saying that they are aware of what many in your audience are also aware of, that the United States has been shipping 90 slightly-used air defense systems, Patriots, from Israel to Ukraine. So if that part is operating, then it can be assumed that other parts of the pipeline of American and Western arms to Ukraine continue to be open.
Napolitano: 4:17
Is there any geopolitical significance to this shipment, that it’s coming from Israel? I mean, are they prying it loose from Israel? Do the Israelis not want this? Is it second-rate material? I know you’re not a military person, but perhaps you can enlighten us on this.
Doctorow:
Well, I know that some military experts have said, perhaps it was on your program, perhaps it was on one or another of the widely watched programs of military experts talking about current events. They have said that these really are of second quality and shopworn, and Israel was simply disposing of what it no longer has a use for. From the perspective of the Russians, that really isn’t an issue. From the perspective of the Russians, whether it’s first-quality, second-quality or whatever, it’s useless, because they are actively destroying Patriots of first quality on the ground in Ukraine.
Napolitano: 5:20
Are the Ukrainians still firing American and British missiles into territorial Russia?
Doctorow:
This is not being reported. And if it’s not reported, I can assume it’s not happening. The Ukrainians are very busy doing what they do much more effectively, though with less public relations value. That is firing their own attack drones and other critical infrastructure in Russia. And I say it has less PR value because these are cheap. These are simple and they do not meet the standard of serious Western assistance that Mr. Zelensky demands for internal political consumption.
6:11
So it’s– a peculiar thing is that the most effective armaments against Russia in the Ukrainian arsenal are the cheap and simple ones that are working and doing a lot of destruction in Russia, whereas the ATACMS have had almost negligible destructive value, because they’re quite easily shot down by the Russians.
Napolitano:
We yesterday interviewed Patrick Lancaster, you may have seen the interview, the intrepid and courageous American independent journalist who goes right to the belly of the beast. He came to us from Kursk.
Doctorow:
Yeah.
Napolitano: 6:48
I was shocked to learn that the battles are still going on in Kursk. There’s nothing in the West about it. I have neglected to ask you about it. You’re our eyes and ears. And according to Patrick, the noose is continuing to be tightened, but the Ukrainian troops are still there inside Russia, and they are killing Russian civilians. He saw that with his own eyes.
Doctorow:
Yeah, this has been featured on Russian news, and this morning on a program that I don’t usually watch, something called Mashi, which is “Our Boys”, there was a military intelligence expert who spoke and addressed just this question. The noose is around the neck, which gets thinner and then gets thicker. Because perversely, the Ukrainian forces at the instructions, or at the insistence of their president or ex-president Zelensky are continuing to throw the best-trained, best-prepared, best-equipped military units in their armed forces into Kursk.
That is to say that each time that we see the numbers of Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk being shot to hell and reduced significantly, the Ukrainian armed forces are dispatching replacements, so that, according to this expert, the latest figures show that there are 30,000 Ukrainian troops presently in Korsk.
8:29
That is an important consideration. It’s not as though they just are being wiped out and exterminated. Yeah, they’re being exterminated, and being replaced by others who are going to be exterminated. The issue has not gone away. As to the atrocities being committed against civilians, this was also addressed on this morning’s program. And I assume that your panelist from yesterday was not aware because it wouldn’t be watching a program on Russian state television this morning.
That is to say that the Russians are accusing the Brits of inciting the Ukrainian troops to commit atrocities, in the hope and expectation that this will have a big political uproar in Russia and put pressure on Putin and destabilize the government as all kinds of terrorism do. And Russian state television has been interviewing soldiers who have shown, of course, with restrictions on the video so that you don’t see faces of mangled and tortured people, you just see vaguely the bodies of civilians, grandmas and so on who’ve been tied up, who’ve been tortured in their basements before they were shot in the head or elsewhere.
So these atrocities are being shown on television, and they’re preparing for something which has to be mentioned also. That is their own Nuremberg trial at the end of this, when they intend to capture and put on trial in Moscow as many of those who are perpetrating these atrocities as they can.
Napolitano: 10:11
Wow. Is MI6 behind– If the Russian allegations are true and the British are fomenting this, that must mean MI6.
Doctorow:
They named precisely MI6.
Napolitano: 10:22
Wow. Wow. Could you imagine MI6 and Ukrainian military officers on trial in Moscow a year from now?
Doctorow:
Oh, very definitely. If Mr. Putin succeeds in what he is now carrying out, implementing rather successfully, then there will be enough captured foreign advisors, and they definitely have been building a case. They have their investigators out after each atrocity to describe in a manner that is suitable for presentation in court, what they have seen.
Napolitano: 11:06
Here’s President Putin. This is a great interview. He’s in the back seat of an automobile. You may have seen this two days ago. It’s a long interview. There are many segments, but Chris cut a very nice one, and this is President Putin’s view about negotiating with President Zelensky. Cut number 13 Chris.
Zarubin: 11:28 [English translation, v.o.]
But if Zelensky says that he can be a negotiator, do you think that you can negotiate with him?
Putin:
You can negotiate with anyone, but he is illegitimate, so he cannot sign anything. If he wants to take part in the talks, he can designate and appoint people for holding these talks. It is a matter of signing these documents and their final versions so as to guarantee security for both Ukraine and Russia in the long run. So everything must be perfect in this regard.
12:09
But according to the Ukrainian constitution, the president of Ukraine, even during martial law, a president of Ukraine cannot renew his term or stay in power after his term runs out. Only the national parliament can give the president this possibility.
Napolitano: 12:33
How significant is a statement like that from Vladimir Putin talking about negotiation without getting into the technical niceties– and maybe I’m diminishing the significance of this because it’s more than a technical nicety– but without getting into whether or not President Zelensky participates in the negotiation, how significant is it that Vladimir Putin is preparing for negotiations? And maybe this takes us back to my first question to you a little while ago, which was, in the Kremlin’s mind, is this war over?
Doctorow: 13:11
Well, The interview itself is very important. You’ll notice that the reporter who was asking the questions, the same Pavel Zarubin, whom I have called Putin’s shadow, because he’s always traveling with the president and taking where possible what look like spontaneous remarks and interviews, [have] actually been well prepared and should be taken to be official Russian government positions. So everything that you heard is the official position.
And that is to say that Mr. Putin is ready to agree to the start of negotiations on the understanding that they cannot be signed by the present illegitimate ruler in Kiev, but they can be taken, prepared for signature by whoever is designated finally as a legitimate president. Note that this is unlikely to be the constitutionally envisaged head of the parliament, of the Rada, because the Rada itself is technically illegitimate. It has also not had an election which was scheduled.
14:38
Therefore, what Russia wants aside from satisfying the nominal way, the demand of Donald Trump that they enter into negotiations. What exactly Russia sees as the timetable for someone signing this document is not clear. But it would not be the military. That was also ruled out in discussion among these very well-advised Kremlin insiders.
Napolitano: 15:08
I mean, would the parliament, the legislature of Ukraine deputize some human being other than President Zelensky to possess presidential powers and participate in negotiations? It seems to be that’s what President Putin was driving at in that back seat conversation we just witnessed.
Doctorow:
Their designation of someone is not foreseen by the Constitution. The acting president or the president of Ukraine can only be elected, but the Constitution of Ukraine provides for the acting powers of president to be exercised by the president of the parliament.
Napolitano:
I see.
Doctorrow:
It’s a distinction.
Napolitano: 15:51
Okay. Switching gears slightly, you have reminded me, and you’ve reminded everybody that reads your materials, that next week is the 80th anniversary of Yalta. That’s the conference in February of 1945 between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, as they were convinced that World War II was coming to an end. Does president Putin have in mind in your view, Professor Doctorow, another Yalta, this one with Donald Trump, a big-picture negotiation for long-term peaceful relationships between Russia and Europe and Russia and the United States?
Doctorow: 16:42
I think that Vladimir Putin had this in mind from before December 2021 when he and his team presented their demands to revise the security architecture in Europe to the United States in one version and to NATO in a second version.
I think he clearly was referring to what happened in Yalta, and there’s more to it. It is not just what you just mentioned. The Yalta agreement, aside from putting finishing touches on preparations for creation of the United Nations, it also addressed security in the Far East. That is to say, it corresponds to what has been a topical subject among international affairs experts for the last six months or more, that the end of the war in Ukraine should take in not just security in the West, the peninsula at the Western end of Eurasia called Europe, but also the eastern part, the Pacific part of Eurasia. and deal with China and all of the security problems around China.
17:59
So I would go on to say that in Mr. Putin’s thinking, he probably has also a big three. As there were big three in Yalta, a big three now being Xi, himself, and Donald Trump.
Napolitano: 18:15
Fascinating observations. This of course would presume that the conflagration in Ukraine was over. This is not the negotiation and the problems in Ukraine. This is a vaster, grander scheme, which might play right into Donald Trump’s personal and political aspirations.
Doctorow:
Very definitely. In the person of Mr. Trump, the Russians have someone who understands spheres of influence, who understands, shall we say, real estate and how it is divided up and distributed. This is a man who is speaking the same realpolitik language as they are. And if anyone had any doubts, you look at what he said in the first days of entering into the Oval Office, about his plans for taking over for reasons of state necessity, Greenland, and taking over the Panama Canal.
This is the kind of big-boys stuff that the Russians can relate to, not because they’re dictators, but because they understand how the world works, how it always did work, and how it always will work, where like it or not, might makes right. And they would like to align right with might in a positive way.
Napolitano: 19:37
Does Putin trust Trump?
Doctorow:
He doesn’t have to. Of course they don’t trust the Americans. But as Reagan said, trust and check. And in that sense, it’s a very limited type of trust in which they could enter into negotiations. But surely any agreements that they reach will be enforceable by Russian force of arms. And they will not be dependent on anybody’s say-so or word of trust or good handshake. Those days are absolutely out of discussion.
Napolitano: 20:12
What’s your view as to whether this grand Yalta 2.0 can come to pass and be successful. Or am I asking you effectively to predict the future?
Doctorow:
It would be very, very good, Judge, if after your meeting with Lavrov, you were invited into the Oval Office to share what you learned and to put this kind of advice to Mr. Trump. Because if he stops and thinks about it, this should be exactly what he could use, both to introduce us to this golden age of peace that he was talking about in accepting the oath of office, taking the oath of office, but to put behind us all, the wreckage in Ukraine that the Biden administration wreaked.
Napolitano: 21:05
Wow. Fascinating stuff, Professor Doctorow. Absolutely, utterly fascinating. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for being our eyes and ears in Moscow. You know you can come back to us whenever there’s breaking news, but we all look forward to these weekly sessions together, and I hope they’ll continue. I hope we can see you next week.
Doctorow;
Well, very kind of you.
Napolitano:
Thank you. Thank you, Professor. Have a fine day. And coming up later today at one o’clock here, Aaron Mate; at two o’clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at three o’clock, the always worth waiting for Professor John Mearsheimer.
21:42
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.
Gilbert Doctorow 