Reading over the questions and my answers in this interview, I am obliged to say mea culpa: I followed the well trodden path of professional interviewees and delivered my thoughts on the subject without specifically answering the well crafted questions posed by the WION presenter. Given the encouraging words of Mr Chanana at the end, I will try to play fairer in future. Only one faux pas on WION’s part: I am actually in Brussels, not Berlin.
Transcript submitted by a reader
WION, Shivan Chanana: 0:00
The conflict with Ukraine will end in a month or two at max if Kiev is out of ammunition. This is the latest statement which is coming from the Russian President Vladimir Putin. He then even went on to add that Ukraine has zero sovereignty, and they will not exist even a month if their ammunition stops.
Now Putin also said that Russia is open to peace talks with Ukraine, but not with Zelensky. Does Russia want a Ukraine without Zelensky? Is Zelensky harmful for peace in Ukraine? To discuss this further with me on Game Plan, I’m being joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who’s joining me from Berlin. He’s an international affairs analyst, an author and historian. Dr. Doctorow, thank you so much for joining me on Game Plan. Can the Russia-Ukraine conflict end in a month? And will the Trump administration stop weapons to Ukraine?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:47
First of all, I’d like to congratulate you, WION, for covering or watching the interview which Mr. Putin gave last night. It’s an unusual interview. It was in his limousine as he was traveling from Moscow to Samara where he had speaking engagements. And seated next to him, was the reporter Pavel Zarubin, who has been the reporter of the two most important statements that Putin has made about the war, going back six months. Now, this interview was important for the reasons you mentioned. They set out, he set out a brief timeline of what the first negotiations for peace looked like in March, April, 2022.
1:33
And I insist that there’s a lot of relevance [of] that timeline, to what is about to happen now, the most important fact being that at the insistence of the Ukrainians, the Russians in good faith pulled back their forces from Kiev. They were surrounding Kiev at the time. This is just after they had arrived there from Belarus, where they were stationed before the start of the military intervention. They pulled them out in good faith so that the Ukrainians did not feel that they were under duress when entering into the negotiations.
2:11
And that has relevance to the situation today and what preconditions Mr. Putin made in June of last year for the opening of negotiations, namely the pullback of Ukrainian forces from the four provinces that Russia has integrated into its federation. And so it is very timely. As regards Mr. Zelensky, Putin made it clear that Russia does not consider him to be a legitimate president, that his time expired and according to the Ukrainian constitution, there is no provision for his stay in office to have been extended. Therefore, according to the constitution, the legal representative of Ukraine would be the Speaker of the Rada, of the parliament.
But that is a detail. The main point is that Mr. Zelensky is illegitimate. He is not an appropriate signatory to any peace negotiations that may be conducted. And his signature on the document would not be valid for purposes of the enforcement of that treaty. Therefore, it is senseless to pursue to proceed with him.
WION: 3:25
Dr. Doctorow, you know when Putin says that he is open to peace talks with Ukraine, but not with Zelensky, that there is a distinguishment which has been there. You’ve elaborated on it in your first response. He’s open to peace but not with Zelensky. Does Russia want Ukraine without Zelensky? Is that more in Russia’s favor?
Doctorow:
Oh absolutely. Not just because of the legal technicality that his signature on a document would be invalid, but because he stands for a regime which the Russians want to see off. He stands for a neo-Nazi-controlled government. That has been the position taken by Mr. Putin from before the war.
This was the issue of dispute with German Chancellor Scholz when he visited Moscow at the very critical point, the start of this war, that he laughed, Chancellor Scholz laughed at the remarks by Putin that this was a neo-Nazi regime. Well, indeed it was. And these statements were made once again a couple of days ago when the Russians were commemorating the liberation of Leningrad, the breaking of the blockade, and when they were making the remarks on Holocaust Day, which was being celebrated at the same time in Auschwitz, that this regime in Kiev is neo-Nazi and that they refuse to accept a rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe.
5:15
So the problem essentially is not between Russia and Ukraine. From this statement it seems Russia’s issue is with Zelensky and Zelensky’s ties with the Western nations. Now of course with the change in government in the US, perhaps that equation is bound to change.
But at this point, I also want to get into the internal dynamics within the European Union. Ukraine’s refusal to continue the agreement of gas transit to Europe since the beginning of this year, the first January, it is putting a lot of pressure especially on Eastern European countries. Andrei Danko, deputy speaker of Slovakia’s parliament, said that Zelensky’s politics, and I’m quoting here, his politics is “harmful for Europe”. I wanted to ask you, sir, is Zelensky harmful for peace in Ukraine? And is he harmful for Europe?
Doctorow: 6:04
Well, let’s not put this strictly in personal terms of Mr. Zelensky. He’s not standing by himself. He has around him an entourage of these the same people who surrounded the president, the newly-appointed president, after the coup d’état in February 2014. These are the same people. These are extremists. They are extremist nationalists. They are pursuing an identification of Ukraine as a single-culture country, a culture of the West Ukraine, in point of fact.
And this is unacceptable as a way forward for what was a country that had many different languages and ethnic groups and nationalities in fact, within its borders. So it’s not just Mr. Zelensky, though he has in the last three years been the personification of everything that is wrong about Ukraine.
WION:
Finally, Dr. Doctorow, a lot of nations within Europe, and they have only increased in number in recent months or as the war has progressed, they have leaned towards re-establishing or strengthening their ties with Russia. Do you feel the Russia-Ukraine war has brought the entire EU in the eye of the storm, which is pushing more nations to stand out, stick their neck out and say, “We don’t want this with Russia, we want good ties, it is advantageous for us to keep indulging and keep engaging with Russia, and we need to now distance ourselves from this war which is enveloping us as well.”
Doctorow: 7:47
Well let’s put the numbers in perspective. There are 27 member states in the EU. Of those, only two, Hungary and Slovakia, have come out in the manner you described, opposing now for good, substantial economic reasons, the continuation of sanctions, which actually they passed for a variety of reasons which we don’t have time to discuss.
But these two countries have opposed the continuation of sanctions on Russia. They have looked for re-establishing something like normality in dealing with the big neighbor to the east, for the sake of their own economic welfare, not because they are sympathetic to Mr. Putin. That is an irrelevancy that is introduced by Western propagandists.
8:34
But the EU as such has big internal fissures. Germany itself, going into the elections of the 23rd of February, has very big internal discussion and differences of opinion between the leading party, the Christian Democrats, headed by Mr. Merz, and the fast-rising party, the Alternative for Germany, that is opposed to the present war, to the present sanctions on Russia, not for any, because of any particular sympathy for Mr. Putin the man or for Russia as a nation, but for their own material benefit, which has been greatly harmed by the policy of sanctions that were initiated by the United States and were taken up by the European Union after the MH17 crash. This is a situation that has to be addressed.
WION: 9:36
Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining me on Game Plan. It’s always a pleasure speaking with you. You always back up your answers with context and perspective and of course, historical documentation along with that with dates and events that have happened in the past drawing parallels, which always brings reason to your arguments and your statements. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure speaking with you. Would love to have you on the show again.
Doctorow: 9:57
Oh, my pleasure.
Gilbert Doctorow 