Transcript of NewsX World – Zelensky to Saudi Arabia

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https://odysee.com/@unRhodes-ian:6/2025-03-11—-Zelensky-in-Saudi-Arabia:7

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NewsX: 0:00
Let us open up this conversation to Gilbert Doctorow joining us on the broadcast from Brussels. Dr., thanks and appreciate your time. What do you make of the environment in which this conversation in Saudi Arabia is about to happen? Have we ameliorated the situation post the Washington visit?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:23
I think we have to look to a broader context, and that is precisely what the United States has done in the last four or five days, starting with the suspension of all military aid on its way to Ukraine, or being warehoused in Poland. That was stopped, suspended, until it’s clear that the Ukrainians are ready to negotiate in good faith and with some sense of realism.

More important still was what happened two days ago when the United States withheld or cut all intelligence access for satellite and other forms of targeting information and defense information, that is, a notification of incoming aircraft, which the Ukrainians had enjoyed up until then. This is still more massive pressure on Ukraine to face the realities of the situation as they enter to negotiations, and to put behind them all of the brave or bravado talk about imposing conditions that essentially would take from the Russians, who are the victors, all of their gains and would present them as the losers in this kind of–

NewsX: 1:48
Okay, so Mr. Doctorow, how do you expect this to play out? Because obviously a ceasefire negotiation will have to be an agreement both– met with the Ukrainians and the Russians. The Russians are not [at] the table in Saudi Arabia, so how does the intermediary conversation play out?

Doctorow:
Well, the Russians are the winning side. That they will agree to anything that resembles a fair end to the war is obvious. The Ukrainians have been living in a world of irreality, which has been encouraged first by the Biden administration and then by all the European allies up to yesterday. They’re all speaking as if Ukraine can continue the war indefinitely.

2:29
Now, let’s go back to the Oval Office, pra cas. What happened there? There was an exchange between Zelensky and Trump, which directly relates to the United States’ latest actions cutting off Ukraine to the intelligence it needs to both engage in offensive attacks on Russia and to defend itself against incoming aircraft. In that exchange, President Trump told Zelensky that, you know, my friend, if you had not received American military aid at the start of the war, you Ukrainians could not have fought for more than a few days and perhaps a maximum of two weeks, to which Zelensky responded, [“Oh no, not at all. We have heard that talk coming from Putin”], suggesting that Mr. Trump is a dupe of Putin, which is not a very good way to get on with the American president.

3:33
But personal relations aside, the matter here is that the Ukrainians have refused to recognize reality. They pretend that they are winning, and they pretend that they can enjoy the winner’s spoils, and that Russia should succumb to their demands to withdraw and to pay reparations and whatever else. This, I think, the test coming up in Riyadh will be for the American negotiators to see if the Ukrainian negotiating side has come down to earth, faces reality, and understands that they are losing this war, and if they don’t conclude a peace quickly, there’ll be nothing left of their country.

NewsX: 4:16
All right. Of course, the Ukrainians will have some enlightened self-interest on several of these items as well. They would like to secure their country’s future as well. And I can imagine it’s going to be a difficult conversation, but at least the conversation is beginning to find a conclusion to this, rather than just the rhetoric and hyperbole of one upmanship that we have seen over the past couple of years.

4:40
Gilbert Doctorow, for your thoughts on that, thank you for joining us.

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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One thought on “Transcript of NewsX World – Zelensky to Saudi Arabia”

  1. how deluded is that..RT reports Ukraine is accepting 30 day ceasefire with NATO cranking up their assorted military supplies and support of the losers while RF forces are supposed to hold fire…that’s a firm njiet from the Russian winners for sure then..how stupid the US reps think the Russians are?.this offer is as thick as a brick and will not stop the war in Ukraine even for a second of deliberation…looking like Russian forces have to continue mopping up everything east of the dnepr including Odessa Oblast cutting off access to Black Sea eventually…nothing will stop them under the circumstances…so let’s wait some time longer for the unconditional surrender of Ukraine armed forces and withdrawal of NATO troops from whatever remains unoccupied territory after the inevitable fait accompli by the unstoppable winners…the harder they come, the harder they fall!

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